Scott, a diehard skier from New York, visited Aspen with his family for a few days in December only to find such “horrible” snow conditions and so much closed terrain that even his young kids got bored riding the same three trails over and over.
“‘I’m never doing this again,'” Scott, who is identified by his first name only for privacy reasons, thought to himself.
When it was time for another ski vacation in February, he decided when they were going but not where. He didn’t book anything until a few days out — when it became clear France’s Courchevel was getting dumped on. The family booked a last-minute hotel and flight to Geneva and skied the French Alps.
Scott said booking the hotel and flights at the last minute probably increased the cost of the trip by 20 to 25%, but he was happy to pay it.
“I’d rather pay a premium, given that there’s only so many weeks in the winter you can ski, to make sure you get good snow,” he told Business Insider.
Snow chasing, or actively seeking out the mountains with the best conditions, isn’t new to skiing, but it is becoming increasingly relevant as snowfall conditions become less reliable.
Wealthy skiers are going to extreme lengths to find optimal snow conditions, even if it means eating large deposits on nonrefundable hotels or paying large premiums in order to book at the last minute.
“For the diehard skiers who can afford to hop on a plane and look for the snow, this is the new normal,” Daniel Scott, a prominent climate scientist at the University of Waterloo, told Business Insider.
Doubling booking and eating deposits
Erica Jackowitz, founder of the Reve Travel Club, said she’s constantly advocating for that strategy with her clients, including Scott, the skier from New York. “True luxury is about having options,” she said of her ultra-high-net-worth clients. “They’ll pay for two experiences and not expect money back when they choose one over the other.”
Jackowitz, who is also a skier, has also adopted this approach for herself. After a few birthday ski trips with lackluster snow, this past year, she and her husband waited until 24 hours in advance to decide where to go.
Rob DelliBovi, luxury travel planner and owner of RDB Hospitality Group, said it’s something he’s long seen with his clients, who include celebrities and high-net-worth individuals.
“They’ll have us book the Four Seasons in Vail a month in advance, and then Wednesday of that week, if the snow report is not good, they’ll just say, ‘cancel it,'” he told Business Insider.
That could mean losing deposits of up to $7,000, he said, in addition to the cost of booking a trip somewhere else at the last minute, which can be 100% or more than if that same trip had been booked several months out.
Another popular option for wealthy travelers is to book the coveted and limited seasonal direct flights from places like Miami, New York, or Los Angeles to Eagle County Regional Airport, located between Vail and Aspen, well in advance. Then, depending on how the snow is looking, his clients can decide days in advance which fancy resort town to head to after they land.
Steve Conney, a snowboarder based in Utah who has been chasing powder for 50 years, said this was the toughest season he’s ever seen in the West in terms of finding great snow each week. Conney works in medical sales, but in his spare time, he created Powderchasers, a website and concierge service that helps skiers find great snow.
The service ranges in price from $148 to $975, with the higher end including unlimited custom forecasts. He said his clients include ski bums living in vans and wealthy skiers from big cities who can afford to book a trip last-minute. Because ski forecasts can be so hit-or-miss until just several days prior, he said the only way to ensure great conditions is to wait as long as you can.
“The longer you’re willing to wait, the better the odds are of you scoring powder,” Conney, who also goes by the alias Powderchaser Steve, said.
Is ‘peak ski season’ over?
Much of the American West saw record-low snowfall and warm temperatures this past winter. Ski giant Vail Resorts said last week it was the “worst” weather conditions in the Rockies in decades, and that only 70 to 80% of terrain at its Colorado and Utah resorts was open through the end of February. The company said the conditions led to a 12% decline in overall ski visits.
Other resorts and businesses in Colorado and Montana ski towns said they saw a decline in sales this season with the lack of snowfall, according to local media reports. DelliBovi, who books his ski trips six months in advance, happened to be skiing in Vail in late February on a weekend where it had finally gotten solid snowfall.
“Everyone was so relieved,” he said, adding that even a bartender at the Four Seasons said, “Oh, I finally have people to serve!”
Russ Schumacher, the Colorado State Climatologist and director of the Colorado Climate Center, said that while it’s not clear whether precipitation overall will increase or decrease in the future, the warming temperatures mean the length of the ski season and the quality of the snow could change.
“Clearly, there’s a trend toward warming here in Colorado and globally,” he told Business Insider. “It’s squeezing the snow season in the fall, and the spring meltout is happening earlier.”
Even if the total amount of moisture falling from the sky remains relatively consistent over time, warming temperatures could mean less of the dry powder conditions skiers love and instead more heavy, wet snow or rain. Still, Schumacher said, despite these changes, it’s fairly likely any given winter that somewhere will have great snow.
Rob Katz, Vail’s CEO, said earlier this month that the company had expanded its geographic footprint over the past decade in part to help offset the impacts of challenging weather, noting its properties in the east had strong weather conditions this year.
The ski industry has also invested billions in snowmaking going back decades, but Scott, the University of Waterloo climate scientist, said the practice has its limits, especially in a warming world and with drought concerns in the West.
He said the average ski season in regional markets across the US was actually getting longer, thanks to snowmaking, up until about seven years ago, when the trend flipped. Now, every region except the Rocky Mountains, which are higher in elevation, is seeing its ski season shorten.
“Despite investing billions in snowmaking, it’s not able to offset the kind of warming that we’ve seen the last five years in particular,” he said, adding, “We’re sort of past the era of peak ski season.”
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