Heavy snow allows ski resort to extend its season

By Las Vegas Sun Staff (contact)

Saturday, April 24, 2010 | 11:20 p.m.

The ski resort at Mount Charleston is extending its season by an extra week because of unusually heavy snowfall, making for the longest ski season in the resort's history.

The Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort, which was scheduled to close on Sunday, will remain open through May 2. It is reporting a 60-inch snow base; typically the closing-week base is 24 inches.

Combined with early snow that allowed it to open seven weeks ahead of schedule on Oct. 7, the resort is enjoying its longest season in its 47-year history, officials said.

“The early snowfall and our early opening generated a great deal of enthusiasm in the community that never slowed down,” said Craig Baldwin, the resort’s base operations manager. “We were excited to be able to offer the community an extra week of skiing and snowboarding.”

During the extended season, three of the ski area’s four lifts will operate daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 2009-10 season passes will be honored.

The resort’s number of annual skier visits is up by 28 percent this year over last year, officials said.

“People opted to forgo an out-of-state ski trip and instead stayed home and purchased a season pass,” Baldwin said.

At the same time, the resort says it has seen a steadily increasing number of out-of-state skiers. Most this year came from California, followed by Hawaii, Florida and Texas.

The ski resort says this year’s El Nino weather pattern has heavily influenced the snowfall in the Southwest. So far, the total annual snowfall for the area is 216.5 inches, more than four feet more than last season. The annual average is 120 inches.