Sierra’s snow economy melting in the midwinter heat

Video: No snow in the Sierras video

Normally at this time of year, the sugar pines of the Sierra glisten with frost and the mountainsides are deep in snow — a call to action for California skiers.

Instead, on a Wednesday afternoon in late January, the sun shone warm in the heart of ski country and the powder was thin from Lake Tahoe to Yosemite. The last big snowfall here was the day before New Year’s, and what’s left on the ground is vanishing fast, taking with it the economic lifeblood of the Sierra.

The state’s billion-dollar ski industry is baffled, to the point that some ski resorts have taken the unthinkable step of shutting down midseason. Others are getting by with only a handful of skiable runs.

While last winter was bad for snow, many worry that this winter will be worse.

“We probably could have limped along with some of our learning-area terrain open,” said Sean Waterman, spokesman for the Dodge Ridge ski resort, which idled its lifts near Yosemite National Park this week until more snow arrives. “But it’s not quite the experience that we want people to have.”

Boulders are exposed below the Grand View chair lift at the Sierra at Tahoe Ski Resort near Echo Summit on Wednesday. Boulders are exposed below the Grand View chair lift at the Sierra at Tahoe Ski Resort near Echo Summit on Wednesday. Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle Photo: Michael Macor / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 22 Caption Close Sierra’s snow economy melting in the midwinter heat 1 / 22 Back to Gallery

Taking off coats

Newlyweds Ty and Elizabeth Baugh of Joplin, Mo., were making the best of the situation farther north at the Sierra at Tahoe ski area.

There was enough snow for the resort near Lake Tahoe to open about two-thirds of its mountain, but the cover was light. Rocks and downed wood poked out of the powder alongside ski runs.

“Everybody’s complaining that there’s no snow and telling us to come back when there is,” Ty Baugh, 21, said as his wife of six days took off her winter coat.

The Sierra is on track for one of its driest Januarys on record. After a wet December, a high-pressure system parked off the coast of California, just like the last three winters. No storms are reaching shore, drought fears are returning and forecasters see little sign that the pattern will change soon.

Resorts have done their best to keep runs open, sometimes importing snow and sometimes making it themselves, but there’s only so much they can do.

Temporary fix

The ski patrol and ground crews at Dodge Ridge, a small, busy resort east of Sonora in Tuolumne County, towed 1,000 of buckets of snow via snowmobile to patch up dry spots last week. In the long run, it wasn’t a workable solution.

“We did that as long as we could,” said Waterman, whose team made the decision to suspend operations Tuesday. “It’s frustrating, but it’s Mother Nature.”

Donner Ski Ranch along Interstate 80 also closed this week, as did Badger Pass Ski Area in Yosemite. Without skiers, the ski hut at Yosemite has been opened to hikers, while bike rentals at the park, more common in summer, have regained popularity.

The shuttered resorts intend to reopen after the next major snow. But no one knows when that will be.

It’s not just the seasonal workers who suffer when the resorts shut down. The stores where skiers shop and the restaurants where they eat are also reporting falling business, something they can ill afford after a 2013-14 season when California resorts saw an estimated 27 percent drop in visits from three years earlier.

Business dries up

“Yesterday was our worst day ever,” said David “Squirrel” Schlosser, owner of Strawberry Station General Store off Highway 50 on the way to Tahoe. And that was after a grim Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend.

Schlosser’s cash register tallied just $99 worth of groceries Tuesday, and he blamed the lack of shoppers on the lack of snow.

“I must have heard 1,000 times from people, 'How much farther do we have to drive to reach the snow?’” he said. “My answer is Denver.”

There’s still time to pull out of the dry spell. The ski season is only about halfway done, and the snow situation could improve. Long-term forecasts suggest the same odds of a wet finale to winter as a dry one, and one major storm could change everything on the ground.

“January could be the driest on record,” said Randall Osterhuber, research associate and manager of UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab near Donner Pass. But “we’re just six or seven weeks into the precipitation season. We still have the rest of February and March.”

Many of the larger resorts can keep some runs open by making snow. At Sierra at Tahoe, the less-sunny, north-facing runs and wooded slopes above Highway 50 also have helped keep more snow on the ground.

“We definitely need another storm, though,” said Thea Hardy, spokeswoman for the resort.

Instead, it’s getting warmer. Every day since Jan. 3, the Lake Tahoe area has posted above-average highs, according to the National Weather Service. On Sunday, South Lake Tahoe hit a record 58 degrees.

“Normally we talk about heating in the summertime,” said Mark Faucette, a meteorologist for the weather service in Reno. “But it’s actually occurring this winter.”

While December rains helped put most of the Sierra at near-normal precipitation levels for the season, which began Oct. 1, the high temperatures have thwarted snow.

Seasonal precipitation at the UC Berkeley snow lab stands at 87 percent of average, but snowfall is at just 41 percent.

Some resorts say it’s still not as bad as last year, when there was practically no snow until February. Dave Byrd with the National Ski Areas Association says the problem is convincing flatlands customers of that.

“The people in L.A. and San Francisco are enjoying warm dry weather. They’re not associating that with skiing,” Byrd said. “Psychologically they’re in a spring mood, and that’s a challenge just as much as the conditions.”

Not disappointed

Ralf Buyna, 37, didn’t need to be sold. He drove up from Brentwood with his wife and two children to Sierra at Tahoe and was pleasantly surprised to find many runs open.

“We were concerned about the mountain as we came up the highway and didn’t see snow,” Buyna said. “But there’s really good cover here.”

The best thing, he said, was the lack of crowds. There was practically no one in line at the chairlifts.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander