This past winter wasn't the worst on record for Utah's ski industry, but it's one the industry would like to forget.
Skiers and snowboarders ride Park City Mountain Resort’s Town Lift near Main Street in Park City on Jan. 2. Utah experienced a large drop in skier visits this season, which experts attribute to the state's record-low snowpack.
Ski Utah reported a 26% drop in skier visits compared to the previous year. SALT LAKE CITY — A few opinions come to mind when Alison Palmintere is asked to describe Utah's past snow year. If anything, she says it was probably anomalous.
"I think the big takeaway from this year is that it really is just an anomaly, and the ski industry here in Utah is really at the mercy of Mother Nature," said Palmintere, spokeswoman at Ski Utah, a nonprofit organization that promotes Utah's 15 ski resorts. This past winter wasn't the worst on record for the ski industry, but it's one the industry would like to forget.
Approximately 4.8 million skier visits were recorded at Utah's 15 resorts throughout the 2025-2026 ski season, according to new Ski Utah visitation data. That's 26%, which reflects the amount of water in new snowfall, but many resorts also struggled to maintain operations because of record-warm temperatures throughout most of the snow collection season.
Long, warm periods between storms and warmer storms that produced more rain in higher-elevation areas that typically receive snow crushed many resorts, while also making it difficult for them to manufacture their own snow. Alta Ski Area only collected 321 inches of snowfall this year, which was less than 60% of its average snowfall and a little more than one-third of the total it collected three years ago, It was worse for resorts in lower elevations.
Nordic Valley closed on March 8, weeks after temporarily closing in February due to its conditions. Many others also closed in March, Some late-season snowstorms helped some resorts stay open a little longer. Brighton and Snowbird ultimately lasted the longest among Utah resorts, closing down on May 10 — a month earlier than the record 2023 season, in Snowbird's case. This past year also showed how resilient Utah's ski industry is, Palmintere adds.
Despite the hardships, she said it was a pretty good year for beginners learning how to ski or snowboard, skiing on machine-groomed slopes or enjoying various off-slope amenities.
"While conditions sometimes weren't optimal, I think those who were out there consistently on the mountain and skiing were still having a great time," she said. It's unclear yet what the skier visit drop-off meant economically for Utah. The previous season's 6.5 million skier visits translated into $2.51 billion in spending, spurring $342.6 million in state and local taxes and supporting 31,800 direct jobs,.
Preliminary data indicate that nationwide skier visits fell by about 14%, largely due to weather patterns in the West, the National Ski Areas Association reported in May.
"Few seasons demonstrate as clearly as this one how dependent our industry remains on regional weather patterns," said Michael Reitzell, the association's president and CEO, in a statement at the time. The hope is that the 2025-2026 season is a one-off, remaining an anomaly in the record books. If there's hope, Reitzell added that many lower-snow seasons are followed by a "strong rebound.
"The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written. Carter Williams is a reporter for KSL. He covers Salt Lake City, statewide transportation issues, outdoors, the environment and weather. He is a graduate of Southern Utah University.
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