No natural snow in sight at Belleayre (NY) in early January '12
On Monday, the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) released its annual report of US skier visits. The numbers weren't pretty.
The NSAA estimated 51 million skier and snowboarder visits
during the 2011-12 season at resorts across the United States. The metric measures the number of "skier days" skied across all 50 states. For example, a season passholder whose pass is scanned 24 times would be 24 skier visits, while a two-day pass would be 2 skier visits.
According to the NSAA's preliminary
2011-12 survey, this past winter marked the lowest number of skier visits since 1991-92, when 50.8 million skier visits were
recorded. The culprit? One of the warmest, and least snowy winters on record. There is a direct correlation between snowfall and skier visits, though often it matters more that it snows in major metropolitan areas than on the slopes themselves. That direct correlation was borne out by the NSAA report, which indicated that the 2011-12 season was the lowest national average resort snowfall since 1991-92.
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