A slow start to the ski season for the New England ski resorts is difficult for those of us with high anxiety levels and that just want to get out to the slopes. It is by no means any indication of how the overall ski season will play out. In fact, there have been some great ski seasons when things were slow to get started early on.
The days of bragging rights for the first to be open and the last to close are somewhat of a memory. Many seasons the resorts have to close after their initial startup because of a washout storm or unseasonably warm temperatures that prevent 24/7 snowmaking.
I have done some research for trends in snowfall amounts and temperatures at the Northeastern ski areas to see if there is any correlation between seasons with a slow start and the effect of the overall conditions for the rest of the winter and really can't conclude that what happens in November and December makes or breaks a good ski year.
A perfect example of a slow start ski season is 06/07. The skiing throughout New England for the holidays was absolutely terrible with some of the southern areas barely able to open. January was not much better until about the 3rd week when temperatures finally dropped and many places got up to 2 feet of snow so trail counts increased and conditions were improving daily.
Finally February arrived. I had been panicking all winter as my family was going to Sugarbush for 8 days over the February vacation and I was worried about having limited skiing and riding the entire week. My worries went out the window the day before we were leaving. The Valentines storm dropped an average of four feet throughout the Northern ski areas. Vacation saved. Sugarbush and Mad River Glen were both 100% open the entire week with conditions that rival those out west.
The season did not end there. In March most of the northern areas received a few more feet of snow except for some rain early in the month. The rain was early enough not to wipe out the conditions and anything lost was replenished.
April. While kids were starting spring sports and everybody is planting shrubs and lawns, shining their golf clubs or whatever, the ski areas were getting pounded by snow. We went to Killington for the Sunshine Daydream festival the weekend of April 14 and they could have been running almost to capacity if the seasonal workers hadn't gone home. It was unbelievable.
The key for Eastern skiers and riders is to maintain reasonable early season expectations. Some seasons start slow but will end up awesome as the example above shows. So don't panic when there are no good snow reports in November and early December. History shows that a tough start has nothing to do with how the overall season will go into the books.
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