Harsh winter chills ski business
Visits to slopes slide this season
It’s a sure sign that winter has been too cold when attendance at local ski hills starts to head downhill.
Business has been above average this season at Edmonton’s Snow Valley Ski Club, but it’s still down from two consecutive record-setting seasons, said marketing and communications manager Tim Dea.
“It’s a good year, but the last two years would have been great years,” Dea said.
Despite ample man-made and natural snow, colder temperatures took a toll on attendance at the hill this season, especially among school groups forced to reschedule field trips.
“We had a ton of freeze-outs, when schools say it’s too cold,” Dea said. “We’re not unhappy, but yeah, it’s been cold.”
Snow Valley’s season closes to the general public on April 4, but there’s more snow in the forecast this week and there is already enough to allow the hill to stay open for a few extra days and give schools a chance to make up for those freeze-outs.
This up-and-down season comes on the heels of two snowy but warmer years.
“Last year, we only had one freeze-out, one day. So we were just flying.”
Weather conditions also affected attendance at Marmot Basin ski resort in Jasper, which reported an average to above-average season, following four exceptional years.
“The snow came a little bit later than usual and not in the same volume,” said Brian Rode, Marmot’s vicepresident of marketing and sales. “But what affected us more was just the long-inthe-tooth winter that Edmonton’s been having.
“The road conditions were pretty variable and you got all that ice and the melt-freeze and the weekends that were really windy in the city.”
Harsh weather may have deterred some visitors from Marmot’s all-important Edmonton market from making the drive to the mountains, he said.
Last year, Marmot Basin had about 235,000 skier visits. This year, Rode estimates it will be a little over 200,000.
While business has been so-so, the resort is hoping for a busy spring before the mountain closes on May 4.
“The silver lining to all of this is that conditions are absolutely fantastic, we’ve had lots of snow … and Easter is late so that’s good for us. What we can’t really gauge is, are people still hungry for skiing after such a winter where I think everybody’s really looking forward to spring?”
On the retail side, one Edmonton ski and snowboarding store says sales are up because of the wacky winter.
“It’s been really good for us because the weather’s been so up and down,” said Conner Platten, a manager at the Skier’s Sport Shop, which sells winter-sport equipment and apparel.
“If it gets really cold, people come in to change up their layers, get warmer clothes or change up their mitts. If the weather gets warmer, it also helps us out because people decide they want to go outside more so they’re going to get prepared for that and start skiing and snowshoeing.”