Despite Better Weather This Winter, Climate Change Is Changing The Face Of Vermont Winter Recreation

Ice fishing enthusiasts on Lake Champlain several 
years ago. Climate change has made many winter
sports and recreation seasons shorter and more
unreliable than in the past. 

By historical standards, this December in Vermont has been no great shakes in terms of winter weather.
 

But in at least parts of the state, perhaps the whole state, this was  the most wintry December since 2019, and a rare exception to the balmy Decembers of the past few decades.

That's not saying much. The record warmth and rain in  the final few days of 2024, spelled more trouble for a potentially beleaguered industry.  

We're talking ski areas, and especially outfits related to cross country skiing and snow shoeing, snowmobiling, ice fishing and outdoor skating. 

Traditional winter weather has returned now that it's January. It's cold, and some of the ski resorts got decent shot of snow in the past couple of days.  Even if this winter turns out to be the much colder and snowier than what we've gotten used to in the past couple of decades, it will probably be an outlier.  With climate change, strangely balmy winters are here to stay. 

Which makes us question the future of Vermont's storied winter sports and recreation industry.  At the very least that industry is changing. And  will continue to change. 

Our ski resorts' ever increasing reliance on snowmaking is well documented. This is especially true for smaller independent resorts,  Big conglomerates like Vail can weather a bad ski season in say, Colorado, because their other resorts elsewhere in the world might save the day with better snow.

Marketplace, with airs on National Public Radio, recently took a look at the Bolton Valley Ski Area in Vermont.

Bolton has heavily invested in snow making in recent years so it's ready to take advantage of any moments when it's cold enough to manufacture the flakes. Since the family that runs the resort bought it in 2017, they've invested $1 million in snowmaking, notes Marketplace. 

The resort has had other trouble with likely climate change-related issues this year. The access road to the resort was essentially wiped out by flash floods in July. Repairs to the road barely finished before the ski season started.

CROSS COUNTRY SKIING

The Bolton ski area has a relatively high base elevation, at about 2,000 feet, so they're more likely to see snow than rain, compared to places in the valleys. Which brings us to businesses like cross country ski centers. 

Last winter's record warmth and lack of snow meant that Vermont's 26 ski touring centers had about 50 percent fewer visitors than the prior winter, which also fell well short of a banner year. 

New Hampshire Public Radio last March ran a piece about how cross country skiing, particularly school competitions in the sport, are having a tough time in the Green Mountain State. Says NHPR:

"Kate Hale, a postdoc studying show hydrology at the University of Vermont, says the winter season is shrinking in Vermont due to climate change. 

'Snow on is occurring almost two weeks later on average in the year and snow off is now occurring about a week earlier in the spring,' Hale says. 

On top of the shrinking length of the season, Hale said that Vermont is seeing an increasing amount of rain-on-snow events."

Kind of like what's going on this weekend and early in the week.  You finally manage to get a snowpack, albeit a thin one, but still enough to cross country ski. Then it's suddenly 50 degrees and raining so you have to start over again with the snow. 

Hale told NHPR that Vermont/s snowpack depth has declined about 13 percent between 1965 and 2022.

That really takes a toll in cross country teams that are based in the warmest, lowest parts of Vermont, like the Champlain Valley.

Last year, the South Burlington cross country team had to take buses up to the higher elevation Sleepy Hollow Ski Center in higher elevation Huntington. But the travel time interferes with homework and sleep for team members, so that's not great, either. 

As the Waterbury Roundabout/Barre Times Argus noted in September, the longer summers and shorter, less snowy winters are changing the face of outdoor recreation in Vermont, as people gravitate toward hiking and mountain biking and away from snowshoeing and cross country skiing. 

SNOWMOBILES

 Vermont Public Radio's podcast Brave Little State last March had an eye opening look at snowmobiling in Vermont. 

In 2001, the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers did an economic impact study of snowmobiling in the Green Mountain State.  Reports Brave Little State:

"That study estimated that snowmobilers that year spend about $511 million on gas, food, lodging and snowmobiles - including parts and service. That figure also includes vehicle registration and VAST membership fees, which go right back into the organization."

Turns out that 2001 study was done near the heyday of snowmobiling in Vermont. Since then, VAST is now selling  half the number of annual trail passes than it did a couple decades ago. The Vermont Agency of Transportation says the number of snowmobile registrations is down by half. 

Meanwhile, the cost of gas, insurance and trail maintenance is going up. Especially since the snow has become so unreliable in Vermont due to our warmer winters. 

On top of all that, floods in the summer of 2023 caused $4 million in damage to VAST trailers. Additional flooding caused more damage in 2024,

Cindy Locke, executive director of VAST, told Brave Little State: "Will we survive this? I don't know. You know, I don't know if snowmobiling will survive, you know, winters without snow. I know they won't. Like we won't survive after  just a few, if we have brown winters." 

 ICE FISHING

On Lake Champlain, what had been in the past reliable annual ice events have been interrupted and canceled by warm weather in recent years. 

Last year, The Pond Hockey Classic on Malletts Bay in Colchester was canceled.  A major Lake Champlain winter ice fishing derby was canceled for the second winter in a row due to thin or nonexistent ice. 

A 2020 study indicates below freezing periods have declined by nearly three weeks since 1960.  That has shortened or in some cases eliminated the period of time in winter when lake ice is relatively safe for ice fishing. 

Which isn't good, since tourism based on ice fishing amounts to expenditures of $147 million per year, according to information from the University of Vermont.

THIS WINTER

I don't know what the rest of this winter will bring. December brought mixed results, with some decent snow cover at times, but also some pretty intense thaws. Overall this winter is almost guaranteed to be colder than last winter, as 2023-24 was the warmest one on record.

Snowfall so far this winter has been unimpressive. You can get decent snows with slightly warmer than average winters, so it's not like the odd winter in Vermont can't bring deep snows. 

But that seems to be gradually getting less and less likely as the climate change years go by. The face of winter outdoor sports in Vermont is changing, and in many cases fading. Athletic types are going to need to get used to embracing warmer weather sports.