Wintergreen Ski Season Ends Early

The beloved wintergreen resort in Virginia has ended their ski season unexpectedly due to the weather conditions and many are disappointed. There are many things you can do at wintergreen resort, but the ski slopes are the main attraction for visitors or tourists during the wintertime. I know skiing is my favorite thing to do there, so it was saddening to hear they had to end it early and I’ll have to wait until next year to go back.

Wintergreen ski resort opened in 1975 and they started out with 8 slopes and 3 ski lifts but has greatly expanded now. It began attracting people in the summer also when they opened the golf course 1977 and then the tennis courts a year later which generated even more revenue for the resort. They began expanding by building hotels and other amenities to the resort and it became very popular. They became the first resort in the country to start blowing manmade snow on all of their terrain. Wintergreen has hosted many important guests since the time it has been opened like our former president Bill Clinton and other famous politicians. They have hosted many special events at the resort like the special Olympics that took place in 1978 along with a performing arts festival, and summer music festival. Wintergreen resort offers many different activities so don’t worry if skiing isn’t your thing because this resort has a little bit of everything for everyone’s different interests.

They have made the difficult decision to end their ski season because the temperatures have reached record highs for this time of the year, and it has come to the point where they are unable to keep the slopes in good enough conditions anymore to keep them open. They can usually push through warm weather periods but this time it has gone on for too long and they can’t even blow the manmade snow because it is too warm at night and during the day. They first began closing some of the slopes that were really bad and still keeping open the ones that had better conditions that were more desirable for customers and skiers but then they had to make the decision to just end the whole season. The snow on the slopes started melting and it became really slushy which I know I don’t like skiing on conditions like those, so I don’t blame them for their decision to close their ski season early.

It’s not just wintergreen resort that is struggling with temperature issues and keeping slopes open because a lot of other ski resorts have also had to close certain slopes due to little snow and bad conditions this year. This makes sense because we have had a warmer winter than usual and many of the places where these ski resorts are l0cated didn’t get much snow this year so a lot of them have been relying on manmade snow to keep slopes open.

Ski conditions haven’t been great all winter, but it’s gotten to the point where resorts are having to close slopes and eventually have to end the whole season early because it has been so bad. Hopefully future winters don’t continue to have worse conditions than this one because that would greatly impact many people.

This decision to end the ski season early had to be a difficult one because it has affected many people including the owners, their workers, and their customers. The owners lose money with the slopes being closed because even though skiing isn’t the only thing you can do there it generates the most revenue for the resort, so it greatly impacts them. When the slopes close early it takes away jobs from workers who would normally still be working around this time of the year if it weren’t for the conditions. The customers are devastated when they find out the news that their winter vacation destination has ended the season early and they won’t be able to visit again until next ski season. Many people ski as a sport so when the temperature starts to get higher, and the conditions get bad this affects them because they lose that opportunity to exercise and participate in physical activity.