This winter’s tally of ski area visits in the U.S. followed a somewhat obvious pattern that doesn’t always bode well for the East Coast: More snow equaled more business.
Last winter, the weather was good for New England, not so much out west.
The National Ski Areas Association says the Northeast saw 12.9 million ski/snowboard visits in the 2025-2026 winter, up 400,000 or about 3% from the winter before.
The Rockies, on the other hand, saw a decline of 6.5 million visits, down to 20 million, while the Pacific Northwest saw a measly 3.2 million visitors.
Overall, U.S. ski areas saw 52.6 million visits, a 14 percent drop from last year and a nine percent drop from the average of the past 10 years.
The culprit was a snow drought and warm weather out west. The 10-year national snowfall average is 169 inches, but this year totaled just 112 inches nationally.
“Few seasons demonstrate as clearly as this one how dependent our industry remains on regional weather patterns,” said Michael Reitzell, the association’s president and CEO.
New Hampshire saw a dramatic example of the phenomenon in December when the Intermountain Health Freestyle International competition was shifted from its long-term home of the massive Deer Valley resort in Utah to Waterville Valley because our snow was so much better.
The season is a reminder that despite the enormous improvements in snowmaking over the past 20 years, the industry is still dependent on natural snow, not only because it improves the skiing but because it encourages people to think about going skiing in the first place.
The National Ski Areas Association grouped ski resorts by size and determined the largest decline was at “Extra-Large” ski areas, as defined by total uphill capacity of a resort’s lifts. Their total fell 20 percent over the previous year, although they still represent more than half of the nation’s overall skier visits.
