Ski resorts keep some snow in the bank this summer

If you visit the cross country ski area in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains in August, you would see lots of dry grass and sagebrush. You could hike the trails or hop on your mountain bike.

You might also catch a glimpse of a football field-sized mound. The mound is covered in mats, blankets and tarps. What is underneath? Snow.

This snow storage technology is from Finland. The insulated snow pile sits through the scorching summer heat, and somehow, mostly survives. It is essentially a way for ski resorts like this one, Soldier Hollow Nordic Center, to put snow in the bank for the following winter.

Soldier Hollow manager Luke Bodensteiner gave a recent update on the pile’s status, about five months in.

“I'm looking at it right now. It's still there,” he said on an 85-degree August day. “It's still, you know, close to 25 feet deep to be honest.”

A few months from now, the insulation cover will come off, and the giant snow bank will be spread out with a snow groomer.

“I think we'll probably be able to open about two weeks earlier than we normally have,” Bodensteiner said.

For a ski resort, opening early can be the difference between prosperity and just eking along.

It will be pretty limited terrain, but skiers will be skiing. Last year, Soldier Hollow opened two weeks late because snow was nowhere to be found. That is not something Bodensteiner is willing to risk in the future.

“We are preparing to host the Olympics and Paralympics in 2034,” he said. Soldier Hollow will be the site for cross-country skiing, biathlon and the Nordic combined.

It is hard to do a global winter sports competition without something to compete on.

“And snow storage will almost certainly figure into our preparations for that event,” Bodensteiner said. “Just to guarantee that you know we can produce the Olympics in sort of any kind of weather, right?”

Stored snow is like an insurance policy. Quite a few ski resorts in Europe are already doing it. But it’s still catching on in the States.

“All of our guests in the summer don't know what it is, and when we tell them it's snow under there, they don't — they don't believe us,” said Nate Shake, director of mountain operations at Boise, Idaho’s Bogus Basin.

The downhill ski resort has stored snow the last two summers. Still, Shake said when it is 100-plus degrees, his crew turns anxious.

“Everybody, you know, we all watch the pile,” he chuckled. “‘Is it getting smaller? I think it's getting smaller.’”

A little. But not much. They invested $120,000 in insulation materials. Shake said it is worth it to have the guarantee of even a little snow.

“I mean, if you can get open, you can get your lift spinning. You can start selling lift tickets,” he said.

He added that Bogus Basin rakes in about 30% of its annual profits during the winter holidays. Last year it would have missed out — there wasn’t any snow and it was too warm for the man-made kind. But a big pile from the previous winter bought them time.

“We were able to open one of our conveyor lifts and have a terrain park and a skiing lane on the stored snow,” Shake said.

And if lift tickets are selling, people are likely spending money in town. That is something Paul Bierman is seeing in northern Vermont. He is an environmental scientist at the University of Vermont, and he said snow storage has helped revive the local Nordic ski area.

“It's allowed general stores to thrive. It's allowed Airbnbs to thrive,” he said. “It's allowed cabins and lodging to come back that had closed because there weren’t enough clientele.”

The resort now stores snow in a pond basin, covered in wood chips. It is a technique Bierman helped develop.

“It just gives them the ability to function through an increasingly erratic and warming climate in Vermont,” he said.

But, Bierman still calls snow storage a Band-Aid for ski resorts.

“At some point the winters are gonna get warm enough that that snow you spread in November is not gonna stick around, it’s gonna melt,” Bierman said.

He said figuring out how to slow — or stop — warming winters is the only fool-proof business plan for guaranteed skiing.