It’s downhill at ski resorts

There’s plenty of snow, but coronavirus deals industry another financial setback

OLYMPIC VALLEY, Calif. — A trickle of skiers recently zigzagged down the slopes at the Squaw Valley Ski Resort. Couples and families wandered through the resort’s village, which was decorated with golden Christmas lights and frosted with snow.

It looked like the beginning of a merry season. But a closer inspection revealed it was anything but.

Restaurant patios were nearly empty as masked workers swept through with lime green disinfectant sprayers strapped to their backs, part of the $1 million that Squaw Valley has spent on sanitizing equipment and other safety measures. At ski lifts, sparse groups waited in socially distant lines. The resort felt “so dead,” said a skier, Sabrina Nottingham, partly because it was limiting ticket sales to fewer than 50% of the norm.

Squaw Valley, a marquee destination for winter sports enthusiasts, is one of many ski resorts across the country bracing for a highly unpredictable season. Forced to rethink how to operate in the coronavirus pandemic and with vaccines still rolling out, resorts have made a plethora of changes in places such as Aspen, Colorado; Park City, Utah; Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico; and Killington, Vermont. Many are setting visitor restrictions and requiring ticket reservations; New Mexico has limited resorts to 25% of capacity.

Resorts are also minimizing in-person interactions by installing kiosks for ticket pickups, adding space between people in line for ski lifts and gondolas, requiring masks, limiting the number of people on a lift at once and, in some places, shutting down indoor dining.

While the pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to the entire travel industry, ski resorts may feel a disproportionate impact this winter because of their short window of business. The ski industry already took a hit in the spring when the pandemic struck and many resorts had to close early, leading to $2 billion in losses and causing layoffs or furloughs of thousands of employees, according to the National Ski Areas Association, a trade group. The industry saw its lowest number of visits, 51 million, since the 2011-12 season, the association said.

Now resorts such as Squaw Valley are setting their expectations low for the new ski season.

“I don’t think that anybody in the business is looking to have this be their best year ever,” said Ron Cohen, president of Squaw Valley and neighboring Alpine Meadows, which laid off 2,000 seasonal workers in the spring. “We want to preserve our businesses so that when COVID’s over, we have the opportunity to not have suffered so much damage that maybe we can’t stand back up.”

Mike Pierce, a spokesperson for Mount Rose Ski Tahoe, a resort in western Nevada, said the mindset was “to just maintain status quo and survive.” He declined to provide any financials but said, “If we break even, that’s almost considered a success.”

Many resorts said they still expected some die-hard skiers to show up this winter, along with locals and those who have relocated to second homes nearby. At the Winter Park Resort west of Denver, a crush of eager skiers on opening weekend this month caused crowding at lift lines. The resort quickly enacted measures to allow more spacing, said Jen Miller, a spokesperson.

CAYCE CLIFFORD/THE NEWYORKTIMES Skiers board the Red Dog chairlift Dec. 12 at Squaw Valley Ski Resort in Olympic Valley, California. The resort felt“so dead,”said skier Sabrina Nottingham. The coronavirus pandemic also hit ski resorts in the spring.