If it were reliant only on natural snow, Bogus Basin ski resort north of Boise wouldn’t have opened until Jan. 6 this year, amid a warm, dry start to this year’s winter. Instead, after a major investment in snowmaking and high-tech grooming over the past six years, the nonprofit resort opened to skiers on Thanksgiving and had a successful holiday season. Many major ski resorts in the U.S. and Canada were challenged with poor early-season snow coverage.

With the impacts of climate change challenging the ski and snowsports industry, resorts that can make their own snow are finding snowmaking to be key to saving ski seasons. Those without it are struggling. In Idaho, currently 12 of its 19 resorts have at least some snowmaking; expansions are in the works.

“It’s going to be a necessity for us,” said Bogus Basin General Manager Brad Wilson. “This year was a really good example.”

Many major destination ski resorts in the U.S. installed snowmaking after the record dry winter of 1976-'77 — 87% of resorts belonging to the National Ski Areas Association have at least some snowmaking now. But the Pacific Northwest region has lagged behind “largely because they haven’t needed it,” Wilson said. “But I think we all know that those times are unfortunately changing.”

When Wilson visited major ski areas in the French Alps as part of an industry tour in January, he found no snow at all below about 6,000 feet of elevation. “The lower-elevation ski areas in Europe are really struggling; many have closed,” Wilson said. “Many of the bigger ski areas are not opening their lower mountains.”

A 2023 study commissioned by the National Ski Areas Association found, “Snowmaking increases the resiliency of ski areas in the face of climate change. Snowmaking is not a climate solution; it is an operational tool. We can make snow at more marginal temperatures, and thanks to advances in technology, we can make more snow with fewer natural and human resources. But, as ski areas feel the effects of climate change, we must be part of broader climate solutions.”

Wilson noted that in the future, “There will be areas that will be unable to make snow enough to be commercially successful. That’s playing out right now in the Midwest,” where several ski areas with full snowmaking have had to close due to increasing temperatures. “Climate change is real,” he said.

At Tamarack Resort near Donnelly, snowmaking was “critical” this season, according to Wolfe Ashcraft, vice president of operations. “It allowed us to open on time this season despite 58% lower natural snowfall than normal snowfall through December,” he said, “and continue to maintain primary areas throughout the season. This season we produced 224% more snow than last season, making for good early season conditions.”

Brundage Mountain near McCall has snowmaking only at its base, covering the Easy Street zone where its beginner lift runs, and some areas around the base. It has two fan guns to blow the man-made snow onto the runs; Sun Valley has more than 600, Bogus Basin has more than 50, and Tamarack has 24.

“It’s been challenging this year,” said Brundage General Manager Ken Rider. “The significant snow didn’t start until late, after Christmas. … We had snow on the mountain that was really good from about 6,400 feet up, but we just couldn’t put the pieces together to the base area.”

That prompted an all-hands-on-deck effort to push and shovel snow from the trees onto the runs to get them open for Christmas. “It wasn’t the experience that we’d normally want or like to share with our guests, but (it meant the resort) being able to get open for the guests,” Rider said. Big snows that finally arrived in February turned this year into “the tale of two seasons,” he said, “so it’s been an interesting season.”

Idaho’s Sun Valley has long had one of the largest and most sophisticated snowmaking systems in the world, guaranteeing a Thanksgiving opening each year. But with this year’s warm December, even Sun Valley didn’t have ideal conditions for the holiday season, though snowmaking covered a number of its trademark long, sweeping, top-to-bottom runs. Skiers arriving from all over the world all had to share those same runs, with little to no snow off-run.

Snowmaking relies on cold temperatures. The NSAA’s 2023 study describes it this way: “Snow made at ski areas is actual snow, not fake or artificial. Snow crystals are produced by separating water into small particles and quickly freezing them as they move through cold air.” At Bogus Basin, snowmaking can happen efficiently only when it’s under 28 degrees with limited humidity.

“It was a very warm December, so we had to use every single cold or cool night to make snow,” Wilson said. “It was a race against time as we headed into Christmas.”

Bogus also used advanced grooming technology to spread around the snow, including new systems that can measure pinpoint snow depth during grooming, to allow an even coating of snow. New grooming technology allowed the Upper Nugget run to be groomed with just 9-11 inches of snow, Wilson said, “and it was perfect.”

While snowmaking at Bogus is now largely on the front side of the mountain, additional expansions roughly two years out will add it to runs on the Superior chair on the backside. And this year’s efforts included moving the snow around to provide connections to backside runs, when there was sufficient snow up higher for skiing. “Without snowmaking, we never would have been able to get to those runs,” Wilson said.

Snowmaking is a largely non-consumptive use of water, meaning snow sprayed onto runs returns to the water table as it melts. At Bogus, Wilson said the snowmaking system was designed to utilize the natural runoff that goes from the mountain into Bogus Creek, then feeds the resort’s snowmaking pond. But since it was installed, the resort has discovered that the runoff during the ski season, as well as in the spring, continually recharges the pond. This season, the full pond was drained twice and continued to fill.

Bogus uses 100% renewable energy to power its snowmaking system, through purchase of renewable energy credits from Idaho Power; that ensures the snowmaking operations generate no carbon footprint, with all the power coming from Idaho Power’s upgraded hydropower plants.

Wilson, who worked at numerous other ski resorts before joining Boise in 2015, said an interesting thing about Bogus’s snowmaking system is that it’s a “closed system,” meaning the water drains right back into the system for reuse. So while he was accustomed to rain on the mountain or an unusually warm spell being a catastrophe for a ski resort, at Bogus, it drains back into the pond, and then when temperatures cool again, can be sprayed back onto the runs as snow.

“It’s not perfect, and it’s expensive, but at least you don’t feel like you lost something,” he said.

Rider said Brundage Mountain has plans to expand snowmaking to about 120 acres, covering all or part of 25 runs. The multi-year plan, once approved by the U.S. Forest Service, would start with the Bear Chair area, then work its way up the mountain to runs like Main Street and Alpine. “We still do get a lot of snow,” he said. “It’s really about focusing on that early season.”

Tamarack expanded its snowmaking coverage by 30% this year through equipment upgrades and a mile of new snowmaking pipe, and currently covers 150 acres of its 1,530 acres with snowmaking. It’s “continually” looking at expansion and efficiency for its snowmaking system, Ashcraft said.

Little Rotarun, which got its name after the local Rotary Club replaced an existing rope tow in 1957, has a platter lift that was installed in 2001 and 441 feet of vertical. It struggled to stay open over the years and serve its community until the Rotarun Ski Club asked the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation to step in and help operate the mountain starting in 2017. Limburg, a commercial real estate broker who’s on the SVSEF board, became president, and the two nonprofits partnered, tapping into SVSEF’s much bigger resources and donor base.

Rotarun secured a well in 2018 and ran a pipeline up the road for its first snowmaking gun; it now has five, including two tower guns. The ski hill’s snowmaking pond includes a hookup for the local fire department, so the water can be used for summer firefighting as well as snowmaking.

“The snowmaking has made all the difference in the world, because we have a reliable ski service and we’re able to schedule public hours, and then again our training hours for the ski teams,” Limburg said.

Rotarun offers free skiing for all on Wednesday nights from 6-9 p.m., and charges $15 for an adult lift ticket on Friday nights and Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Kids 6-17 pay $10 or can qualify for a free season pass if they apply, and children 5 and under are free.

“It’s all about the kids,” Limburg said.

He even trained and got qualified as a ski instructor himself, so he could coach in the “Rota-Rippers” program, which teaches kids 5-11 to ski or snowboard with everything provided for free. “We want families that are not part of the mountain community to be part of the mountain community,” Limburg said.

A taco truck provides food, and campfires are allowed in the parking lot on Friday nights.

Said Limburg, “It’s a great community asset.”