Wash. ski operators revel in snowstorms

SEATTLE – Operators of the state's busiest ski resort hope the road closures that cut access to the massive new-fallen snow at Snoqualmie Pass will remain a "hiccup" in an otherwise successful season.

Outside of Snoqualmie Pass, closed most of this week by avalanches onto Interstate 90, ski operators are delighted by a La Nina winter that has blanketed mountainsides with thick layers of fine, dry, cold white powder.

Interstate 90 through Snoqualmie Pass, the state's major east-west arterial, has been closed for most of the week by heavy snow and high avalanche danger. The traffic halt has kept skiers away from The Summit at Snoqualmie, a complex of ski areas at the pass 50 miles east of Seattle.

Guy Lawrence, marketing director for 12 years for The Summit, said he and a number of other employees and customers were brought down in convoys by the State Patrol after two cars were caught by an avalanche Wednesday afternoon. No one was hurt in the slide.

"It's been a few years since we've had to deal with (a road closure) as long as this," Lawrence said.

As of Friday, the loss of business was "a hiccup so far" in an otherwise lucrative and delightful winter, Lawrence said.

Alpental, one of The Summit's ski areas, had received 17 inches of new snow on Friday, giving it a base of 132 inches at the bottom and 161 inches at the top of its lifts — several feet above what the resort normally can boast this time of year.

If the pass remains closed through the weekend, when ski schools are going full bore and the number of instructors, lift operators, food servers and other workers balloons to about 800, "it definitely would have more of an impact," he said.

State Transportation Department officials said late Friday they hoped to reopen the pass Saturday morning.

Elsewhere, resort operators said snowboarders and extreme sports enthusiasts swarm the slopes for just the kind of conditions cursed by truckers and non-ski travelers and generally are well-equipped for slick roads and swirling snow.

Business has been up about 20 percent this week at Crystal Mountain, northeast of Mount Rainier, marketing manager Tiana Enger said. At White Pass, south of Mount Rainier, business was up 25 percent to 35 percent Friday, spokeswoman Kathleen Goyette said.

"We're getting some of the overflow from Snoqualmie Pass, and also I think from Stevens Pass because they've been closed some of the time, too," Enger said.

Stevens Pass on U.S. Highway 2 has been closed intermittently for avalanche control and to clear wreckage from accidents, but aside from one closure for night skiing, the slopes there have remained open and business has been great, said Bill Bourton, financial and human resources director.

For staff heading to and from work, "traffic on the pass has been a challenge for us," Bourton said. "It has been fun for everybody else."

Goyette and Gwyn Howat, a spokeswoman for the Mount Baker ski area east of Bellingham, said the ideal powder conditions were drawing extreme skiers and snowboarders from as far as Germany.

None were deterred by snowy, icy roads in "an unending storm cycle since Tuesday," Howat said.

"It's definitely pumped up attendance," Goyette said. "We're seeing die-hard powder hounds from all over the world."

In Eastern Washington, heavy snowfall that closed schools meant that operators resorts, including Mount Spokane north of Spokane and 49 Degrees North near Chewelah, welcomed above-average numbers of skiers and snowboarders this week.

The weather brought an unexpected work break of sorts for Holly Lippert, communications manager at Snoqualmie Pass, who lives near the Alpental ski area and long ago got over the occasional booms from explosives being detonated by avalanche control crews to bring down unstable snow.

"We're just pretty much hunkered down in the condo right now," she said.