A rough winter for the Vermont ski industy

Oddball winter weather hurts ski industry

June 21, 2006

By Bruce Edwards : Rutland Herald Staff

Faced with challenging weather, skier visits in Vermont fell 6 percent this season, the Vermont Ski Areas Association announced Tuesday at its annual meeting.


The state's 17 downhill ski areas recorded 4,147,467 skier visits for the 2005-06 season compared to last year's 4.4 million visits, the association said. Despite the decline, Vermont remains the No. 3 ski state behind Colorado and California.

"The past season was certainly a challenging one for the industry," said Parker Riehle, president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association, in a statement. "With our resorts' ever-improving snowmaking and grooming capabilities, we were able to survive the wildly variable weather patterns that seemed to hit hardest during our key holiday periods and finish the season stronger than many had predicted."

While overall skier visits were down 6 percent in the state, some resorts fared worse than others, including Killington/Pico, which saw its skier visits tumble by 19 percent.

Skier visits at Mount Snow in Dover dropped nearly 18 percent. Both resorts are owned by American Skiing Co., which reported last week an overall decline in skier visits at its seven resorts of 6.9 percent. Skier visits at its five Eastern resorts fell 15 percent.

The company, which posted a fiscal third quarter profit, said its eastern resorts "were challenged by adverse weather conditions for much of the latter half of the ski season."

"It was the toughest season we've faced weather-wise in Killington's history," said Killington spokesman Tom Horrocks in an interview last week. "(There were) numerous freeze/thaw cycles, rain on key weekends, like Martin Luther King weekend and Presidents (Day) weekend, and that has a pretty significant impact on the drive-up skier market."

Thanks to Vermont's reputation, however, Riehle said Vermont fared "much better than the rest of the Northeast, which was down 9 percent from last year."

The ski industry is considered one of the state's key economic drivers contributing more than $1.5 billion annually to the state's economy.

At the association's annual meeting Tuesday, held at Killington Resort, longtime ski industry veteran Dave Wilcox and sports event producer Bernie Weichsel were honored for contributions to the state's ski industry. Wilcox received the Industry Achievement Award and Weichsel received the Friend of the Industry Award.

Vermont skier visits for the past five seasons:

2005-06, 4.1 million.
2004-05, 4.4 million.
2003-04, 4.2 million.
2002-03, 4.4 million.
2001-02, 4.1 million.