Sierra’s snow sports economy gets a lift
Visitors and spending climb with best snowpack in years
TRUCKEE — Snow is an elixir for Eric Whatley, who has snowboarded 50 days this year and is, as much as anything, the personification of a resurgent Sierra Nevada economy.
The 46-year-old Auburn resident — who seems to live by the motto that if something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing — is among the tens of thousands of ski enthusiasts who have motored up to Tahoe this winter to take advantage of the heaviest snowfall in the Sierra in four years.
“This year has been phenomenal — a 10 out of 10,” said Whatley, who was “shredding it” at Northstar California Resort on St. Patrick’s Day. “Northstar has a lot of restaurants and we eat every time we are here. That’s 50 days, 50 meals. How is that not going to
help the economy?”
The Sierra snowpack is actually below the historic average, but skier visits, hotel stays and the number of people spending money in the Lake Tahoe area are way up. It’s a welcome turn from last year, when the drought left resorts virtually empty.
Michael Reitzell, president of the California Ski Industry Association, predicts this season will far surpass the longterm average of 6.5 million visits a year at ski resorts in California and Nevada. The number is already well past the 4.6 million visits recorded last year, he said.
“It has been a really strong year for skier visits, and there is plenty of season to go,” Reitzell said. “That certainly helps the ski areas from an economic perspective.”
Benefit to neighboring towns
Ski resort revenues were not available, but Northstar, with a huge retail center and a midmountain Ritz-Carlton, is having “a great season” thanks to 412 inches of snow, said communications manager Marcie Bradley.
Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows have dramatically increased sales of season passes, said Liesl Kenney, a spokeswoman for those resorts.
But the real test of Tahoe’s health, according to Reitzell, is how communities near the ski areas are doing in drawing visitors and their wallets. The Sierra sports and recreation industry employs more than 20,000 people and brings in an estimated $1.3 billion a year, he said.
One good gauge is hotel taxes — which are up $600,000 on the north side of the lake compared with last year at this time, said Sandy Evans Hall, the executive director of the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association in Tahoe City.
“It's a good snow year,” Evans Hall said. “Its been very good for our economy.”
Bustling businesses
The money is also flowing into restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, gas stations and sporting goods stores, many of which are reporting increased sales.
“We’ve doubled our business since last year and the year before,” said Rob Curtis, the general manager of River Ranch Lodge in Tahoe City, a 19-room hotel, restaurant and bar that is a hangout for skiers in the winter and rafters in the summer — that is, when there is adequate snowfall and the Truckee River is running strong.
The river was so dry last summer that one could walk across the rocks without getting wet.
Curtis said the lodge has been booked up every weekend this winter and most weekdays, too, causing him to burn through all his firewood for the first time in several years. That’s a big change from last year at this time, when he was lucky to get 15 percent of rooms filled.
“It’s always pretty up here, but there’s not a lot to do if you’re not skiing,” he said, as several people sidled up to the bar after a day on the slopes at Alpine Meadows.
At Best Pies Pizzeria and Restaurant in Truckee, sales have gone up 22 percent as the snow has come down, said Elise Best, who co-owns the establishment with her husband.
“Weekends are always big, but we’ve noticed that business is continuing throughout the week because people are coming up and staying,” said Best, who claims to produce the region’s only authentic New York-style pizza. “Last year throughout the week it would just be dead crickets.”
This season’s icy covering isn’t exactly groundbreaking. Statewide, the water content of the snow is only a little over 90 percent of normal and warm temperatures between storms have been melting it fast. Still, it is an enormous improvement over last year, when the snowpack had sunk to 5 percent of the historical average by April 1, the lowest on record.
‘Last year was really bad’
Things were so bad last year that Don Hotaling, the owner of Tahoe Bike and Ski in Kings Beach, fell behind on rent and was ordered by the landlord to pay up or move out. Most of the ski areas were closed by Easter last year, so he tried to make up the deficit by renting bikes.
Business is up 30 percent compared with those troubled times, he said.
“I wouldn’t say it’s super good this year, but last year was really bad,” said Hotaling, who has had groups from as far away as Texas and Indiana come into his shop to rent skis. “The only problem I had this year was that I ran out of snow boots and pants.”
Not in the clear yet
Nisi Rooney, who lives near Reno, won’t soon forget the lack of snow last year after her 31year-old son visited her from Dubai in hopes that they could go skiing together.
“There was no snow, so we couldn’t go,” said Rooney, 64, as she basked in the sun last week at Northstar after a morning of skiing. “This year he was really happy.”
The rejuvenated economy might distract some into thinking that the forested high country is out of the woods, but experts say the long-term trend remains ominous.
The snow sports industries in 38 states lost 27,000 jobs and as much as $1 billion in revenue in the decade before the drought, as a result of reduced snowfall and shorter winters, according to a study commissioned by the environmental advocacy groups Protect Our Winters and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
California has warmed 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1985, from an average temperature of 58.5 degrees to 59.5 degrees, according to climate scientists. Consequently, the snowpack in the the Sierra and three-quarters of the western United States has been shrinking.
Some climate studies project that Sierra snowpack could fall as much as 90 percent by 2100. Shorter winters and a lighter snowpack could mean warmer, algae-filled water in Lake Tahoe, weak river flows, more invasive species and increased fire danger.
“We can enjoy the snow while it’s falling. That's a major reason why people live here and travel up here,” said Tom Lotshaw, the spokesman for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. “But there are many larger challenges that we face, from lake clarity and water levels to forest health issues to wildfire preparedness, and those could have impacts on species, including aquatic species.”
Enjoying snow while it lasts
The going was nevertheless good last week for Rooney and her fellow skiers at Northstar, who didn’t appear to be dwelling much on the larger issues.
“I don’t think they’re having any trouble this year,” she said, gesturing toward the packed slopes as she and her husband, Terry, snapped on their skis and eyed a luxurious lodge just above the nearest chair lift. “We’re going to go over to the Ritz and have lunch.”