Lee Canyon’s slopes get a dusting of man-made powder and no help from Mother Nature

Shaunta Grimes and Kristen Peterson

Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2000 | 11:06 a.m.

The inch of snow that fell in Mount Charleston's Lee Canyon Saturday night was a nice gift for a new year but not enough to rescue skiers or the county's only snow recreation resort from a dry season.

"We normally get 3 to 5 feet of snow here," said resort spokesman Craig Baldwin from outside the chalet where sprinkles of snow barely covered the resort's slopes.

"Normally we're operating on 11 different slopes," he added. "Now we're relegated to two."

The two slopes at the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort in Lee Canyon, 50 miles north of Las Vegas, are open with the help of man-made snow. A third lift is offering sightseeing rides over the gray peaks.

The resort normally opens with a 30-inch snow base, Baldwin said. Even with the help of the man-made snow, it opened with only 12 to 16 inches.

"Blame it on La Nina," Jack Bean, general manager of the resort and an employee since the 1960s, said. The dry, unseasonably warm weather has already cost the resort thousands of dollars. Highs reached 38 degrees Monday, above the freezing point that keeps skiers and snowboarders happy, and were forecast to hit 41 today and 43 Wednesday.

La Nina, the weather system best described as the opposite of the more notorious El Nino, brings colder than normal ocean temperatures that stop the development of clouds and tropical storms, resulting in dry, warm winters in the southeastern and southwestern U.S.

"This is probably the driest winter I've seen in 15 years," Bean said.

Until Saturday Mount Charleston had nothing but a few flurries this season. The resort can manufacture enough snow to keep one beginner and one intermediate slope open. The popular advanced slopes remain closed.

On Monday, the day after the holiday break, the resort was pretty quiet. The whistle of the wind whipping the ski lift cable resounded through the cold air as the lift carried its empty chairs up through the pines. Fewer than 100 people had skied that day.

The resort's losses started rolling in early. The resort normally opens Nov. 1. This year it had to wait until Nov. 16 for the weather to get cold enough to support homemade snow. Normally the resort is open 100 days a year, from Thanksgiving to Easter, Baldwin said. This year, it didn't open until the first week of December.

The weather has been especially costly for the resort during the two-week school winter break. In a regular season when the children are out of school, 1,000 people a day come to Lee Canyon. This year winter break brought 200 people a day -- only 20 percent of the usual business.

Because of the limited slopes, the lift tickets have been reduced to $20, instead of the usual $28.

Only 15 seasonal workers were hired this year compared with the normal 35.

Unfortunately, the best the National Weather Service has to offer is the possibility of snow today near altitudes of 7,500 feet with highs of 41.

The one inch of snow did help a little, Baldwin said.

"It always helps," he said. "People see a little bit of snow, and it sparks interest. We call it 'sugar on top.' It just makes it really fun. It goes faster."

"We're snow farmers in the desert," Baldwin said. "Our goal is to provide a quality surface to slide on."

The limited runs didn't bother Keith Anderson.

"As long as I'm sliding, it's cool," said the 28-year-old snowboarder and skier while adjusting his snowboard outside the resort's restaurant. A lone skier made his way down the slope behind him.

Anderson said he makes it on the slopes twice a week when there is snow on the mountain.

"I'm really stoked that they have a half pipe. If that was going, I'd be here a lot more," he said.

While many regulars make their way up the mountain during the winter, Baldwin said a lot of the weekday business includes tourists who didn't expect to find a ski area in Southern Nevada.

Northern Nevada felt the effects of La Nina in August when 1.7 million acres of range land, dried by the inordinately long, dry season, were destroyed by fire. Some estimates are that it will take as many as 20 years for that part of the state to fully recover, according to Bureau of Land Management experts.

That's not a danger yet in Mount Charleston, despite the dry conditions, because temperatures are low, according to Les Fadess, fire management officer at Mount Charleston for the Nevada Division of Forestry.

As for anxious skiers, and the 500 rental skis and 150 rental snowboards awaiting them, it's just a matter of waiting for Mother Nature to do her thing.

"For a first-time skier it's all right," Michelle Withrow, a 20-year-old snowboarder from Las Vegas, said.

Withrow said she normally skis Brianhead in Utah but decided to come to Lee Canyon Monday because she had a friend in from out of town who is learning to snowboard.

"It's not that bad because it snowed over the weekend," Withrow said. "No jumps though. If you're a snowboarder, they're important."