A “curated” year in review…

There’s this acquaintance of mine that keeps on sending me, year after year, an impressive account of his year past, that is a mixture of photos and text displaying all the stuff he and his direct family achieved over the 12 month period, including big events, exotic or expensive trips, sport participation and the like, showing an almost regal lifestyle that's in my view can only trigger more envy, jealousy than admiration. 

It’s easy to see the whole social psychology ecosystem behind those glossy, hyper‑curated year‑end updates, that work less like true sharing, but much more like pure boasting. 

They’re crafted narratives designed to communicate a mixture of status (“Look how good we’re doing”), competence (“We’re cool, organized, successful”), being part of a certain class (“We travel everywhere, we do this and that, we live that way”) and control (“Our life is well organized and impressive”). 

The display isn’t inherently malicious, but it is curated. And curation always has an audience in mind. Like for most people, my reaction to perfection isn’t warmth, but skepticism and distance. I have a harder time relating to the sender’s story, his excessive self‑promotion activates my comparison instincts and makes anyone feel “less than”, with unspoken competition creeping in, even if no one admits it. 

We tend to connect through shared struggle, but not flawless triumphs. All this says in fact a lot about the sender, like insecurity dressed up as achievement as folks that feel deeply secure rarely need to produce a glossy annual report of their life. After scanning the whole document, I rolled my eyes and sent him this response: 

“Thanks for sharing your year with us! What an impressive 12 months… I'm sure reading all this makes a lot of folks envious, if not downright jealous! Our message, below, had some great moments too that we didn't list, but also some challenges that taught us a lot.  We’ve been trying to focus more on the honest parts of life — the messy, funny, unexpected stuff — because that’s what makes us feel close to everyone.  Have a great new year!”

A future for the multi-resorts model? (Part Two)

If warm winters like this one happen to become the norm, passholders might hesitate to renew, especially casual skiers who only get a few days in. At the same time, requests for refund or credit are likely to grow, adding pressure on companies to soften rigid policies. As a result, senior pricing, local pricing, and more flexible products could become bargaining chips. 

Divestment is also quite plausible: Vail, Alterra, Powdr, and Boyne may shed low‑elevation or chronically unreliable mountains. This is already happening in Europe, where abandoned lifts are becoming a common sight everywhere. In the longer term, if the model does survive, it will have to mutate significantly. We should expect fewer small and, or low-elevation resorts, in the mega-pass networks. Instead, the investments will continue only in those high-altitude, snow-secure destinations. 

Making more snow will still remain difficult to accomplish in a phase of diminishing returns and water freezing temperature stubbornly remains set at 32 degrees! 

Perhaps more productive solutions to improve cloud-seeding could help by leveraging AI, but I might be getting ahead of myself! 

Will poor snow years force concessions like senior and super-senior passes? Possibly, there is room to see leverage here. If and when renewals drop, companies will have to respond. 

Historically, ski corporations only change pricing structures when they face public backlash, and anticipate a measurable revenue loss. A bad winter added to climate anxiety could create exactly that pressure on them. I’m not saying that skiing is dying tomorrow, but it will be consolidating as well as stratifying, and will take a different face. Skiing may continue at high elevations, in colder climates and will shrink and shrivel everywhere else. 

To survive, the mega-pass resort model will concentrate around fewer, more reliable snowy locations. It will be in some ways like the airline industry with fewer players, fewer routes but higher stakes. In addition, ski towns will have to creatively offer more non-ski revenue (mountain coasters, summer tourism, winter biking, ice driving schools and other events). Dynamic pricing may also have to replace the “all-you-can-ski” model. 

Unless climate warming really takes the “hockey stick” route, the multi-resort model won’t go immediately away, but will be headed toward a contraction phase. The big companies will protect their strongest assets and quietly offload the weak ones. And yes, a slimmer renewal cycle could finally force them to rethink rigid policies and offer more flexible or senior-friendly pricing. 

If anything, the next 5–10 years could be the most transformative period the ski industry has seen since the invention of snowmaking and of high speed chairlifts. I remain far less optimistic than the whole industry that remains in full denial as it seems trapped by its huge investments and its lack of appropriate action!

Have multi-resorts passes a future? (Part One)

In my opinion, multi-resort passes like Epic and Ikon are likely to get pummeled if our weather keeps on misbehaving as snow failed to deliver on time this season and in sufficient volume. If the missing element was just precipitation, I wouldn’t worry so much, but the growing warmth that’s in line with global warming is a much more concerning sign that doesn’t bode well for winter snow activities as we know them. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if companies like Alterra, Boyne, Powdr’ and Vail Resorts begin divesting some of their resorts at winter’s end. The net result of a poor snow year might create a reluctance to renew passes next year and also be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of these mega-resort networks that might have to mollify some of their rules, like creating a senior priced pass among other concessions. 

There’s no question that the ski industry is wrestling with exactly the same anxieties I’ve just described. The data backs up my intuition with warming winters, erratic snowfall, and rising rain‑on‑snow events. All are already reshaping the economics of ski resorts, especially those below mid‑mountain elevations. 

Whether we want to admit it or not, climate change is already destabilizing the traditional ski model worldwide. Fresh reporting shows that in Switzerland, for instance, ski resorts have boosted numbers through multi‑resort passes too, but there’s a widespread acknowledgment that melting glaciers and snowless winters threaten the long‑term viability of the model. 

All over Europe, resorts below 1,200 meters may need 100% artificial snow by 2050 just to remain skiable and a major European study warns that a quarter of ski resorts could face snow scarcity every other year with just 2°C of warming. So far the Epic, Ikon, and other multi‑resort entities may survive thanks to their geographic diversification: If Tahoe is dry, maybe Utah, Colorado or even New England is better. This spreads the risk. 

Their massive cash flow intake from pre-season sales get them revenue before snow falls. The system remains robust as brand loyalty and fear of missing out will continue to force skiers to buy early “just in case”, so just one bad season won’t break them. If this might prove to be true in the short term, my concerns would become very real in the mid term and that’s what we’ll explore tomorrow...

Atmospheric river’s downside (Part Three)

Just to remind my readers, I wanted to know how atmospheric rivers were affecting our winter snowpack in the mountains of Park City as well as our flood risk at high altitudes. Atmospheric rivers behave like a high-pressure fire-hose of moisture. 

While they bring heavy rain to the coast, their impact changes dramatically once they hit the "vertical wall" of a mountain range, with a complete list of risks and benefits. First, in coastal areas, the primary threat is volume of water and its intensity. Because coastal temperatures are usually well above freezing, 100% of the atmospheric river’s moisture falls as rain. 

There’s the risk of flash flooding as the ground quickly becomes saturated, leading to immediate urban flooding and mudslides. This situation doesn’t last too long and often ends shortly after the "river" passes, as the water drains quickly into the ocean. 

The mountains present a different set of circumstances that specialists call "Orographic Lifting". As the atmospheric river hits the mountains, the air is forced upward. This is called orographic lifting. As the air rises, it cools rapidly, causing it to "wring out" even more moisture than it did at the coast. This means that mountainous regions often receive double or triple the precipitation seen at sea level.

There’s also a "Double-Edged Sword" effect for snow-pack at high altitudes where the atmospheric river becomes a game of temperature. These storms are typically warm, which creates two very different scenarios. First there is the good news also known as the "Big Gulp". 

If the storm is cold enough, it can drop 5–10 feet of snow in a single weekend. Some of these "drought-buster" events have been known to provide the bulk of the Western US water supply for a full year! Then there is the bad news, which seems to be happening more and more as we advance into climate change. It’s known as the “Rain-on-Snow”event. 

This is a big flood risk for mountain communities. Because ARs are warm, the "snow line" (the elevation where rain turns to snow) can climb much higher than usual, to 9,000 feet compared to Park City’s 7,100 feet. The Result is that warm rain falls on top of an existing deep snow-pack. The rain doesn't just run off; it melts the snow beneath it, releasing weeks' worth of stored water in just a few hours. 

This creates catastrophic "riverine" flooding downstream. This is what happened a lot until now and why I’ve been skiing so little this season!

Atmospheric river history (Part Two)

While the term "atmospheric river" didn’t exist in the 19th century, we have clear historical evidence of them causing massive disturbances. Such occurences began with the the great flood of 1862, the largest flood in the recorded history of California, Oregon, and Nevada. 

It was caused by a "family" of back-to-back atmospheric rivers that turned California's Central Valley into an inland sea. Before that, by studying tree rings and sediment layers, scientists have identified "mega-AR" events occurring as far back as A.D. 212, suggesting these have been a consistent feature of Earth's climate for millennia. 

In the last decade, our understanding has moved from "discovery" to "categorization." In 2019, Dr. F. Martin Ralph and colleagues at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography developed the AR Scale (1 to 5). Much like the hurricane scale, it helps the public understand if an incoming atmospheric river will be "beneficial" (filling reservoirs/ending droughts) or "hazardous" (causing floods and landslides). 

Overall, scientific studies confirm that atmospheric rivers are becoming stronger, wetter, larger, and more frequent in recent years, leading to more intense precipitation, and the primary reason is human-caused climate change. 

A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, fueling these "rivers in the sky" with extra water vapor from oceans, resulting in more extreme rainfall, flooding, and wind events, particularly impacting the US West Coast. Combined with steadily increasing temperatures, this will lead to less and less snow in the US Sierras, Cascades and Rocky Mountains. 

Since I live in Park City, a mountain region, I want to know how atmospheric rivers specifically affect our snowpack and even flood risk in our mountain town compared to coastal areas and this is something we’ll discuss in our next blog, so please, stay tuned!

Atmospheric river primer (Part one)

This early winter has been marked in the American West with a prevalence of meteorological “atmospheric rivers”, something we’ve discussed many times in this blog in recent years, and since it ruined my early ski season, I was curious for how long this phenomenon has been a known weather factor? 

Although the term "atmospheric river" (AR) has only been part of the scientific and public vocabulary for about 30 years, the weather phenomenon itself has been documented and studied under different names for centuries. The name "atmospheric river" was coined in 1992 (and further popularized in a 1994 study) by two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): Reginald Newell and Yong Zhu.

As both were analyzing global data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, they discovered that over 90% of the moisture moving from the tropics toward the poles was concentrated in narrow, fast-moving "filaments" that covered less than 10% of the Earth's circumference. 

Before Newell and Zhu’s naming them this way, these storms were well-known to meteorologists and residents of coastal regions, but I remember them as being called "Pineapple Express", referring to atmospheric rivers that originate near Hawaii and hit the U.S. West Coast. 

Some called them the “Warm Conveyor Belts", a term used in the 1970s to describe the flow of warm, moist air within a cyclone. Other weather forecasters called it "Moisture Plumes" or "Tropical Connections", to describe the visible bands of clouds on satellite imagery. 

The reason Newell and Zhu chose “Atmospheric river” was because these bands carried an astounding amount of water, as a single strong atmospheric river could transport roughly 15 times the average flow of the Mississippi River! Tomorrow, we’ll review the historical weather events involving this phenomenon... 

Webcam transparency…

Are “Snowcams” or ski resort webcams influencing the way vacationers decide on their vacation? It depends on which part of the year we’re talking about. Christmas and New Year vacation are different animals in the sense that there is always a huge demand for that period of the year and lodging and even flight reservations have to be made in advance.

So what to do if one looks at Park City’s webcam, sees no snow or not enough of it and reconsiders their stay. Not an easy decision even if they have to cancel both housing and transportation and probably will lose most of it, there is always an insidious hope that suggests that all may change at the very last minute “as has been seen in the past”. 

In addition, the change of venue is a welcome break at the beginning of winter, so why not come anyway? This situation will soon change if snow doesn’t make it in January, then consulting webcams will become critical to making a decision and planning a ski vacation, even if on short notice. 

What’s clear is that snow conditions at ski resorts have never been as transparent as they’re today thanks to the webcam bearing witness to reality.