Oregon Ski Slope Cancels Season

Mt Ashland, this year

The Mount Ashland ski area in southern Oregon announced it has cancelled its entire season, for the first time in their fifty-year history.

They'd been waiting for snow, and are normally open from December to mid-April, but the snowpack is still below their threshold of 20 inches. Their General Manager said

“The U.S. Forest Service has done snow surveys since 1963, the year before we opened up on the mountain – and this is the lowest snowpack ever recorded.”

Ordinarily, the mountain would support 130 paid staff and about 60 volunteers.

In contrast, the staff has been reduced to four -- each working only part-time.

....One ski shop owner says he’s doing about 5 to 10 percent of his normal sales.

But this is the only ski resort in Oregon and Washington not to open this year.

The ski & snowboard industry in Oregon was worth $482 million in 2010-2011, or 0.3% of Oregon's GDP.