Most years, Kevin McCarthy simply hopes for snow. Of course: He’s the general manager at the White Pass ski area, which depends on it.
Now he’s got plenty of snow, but no way for skiers to get to it, in light of last week’s heavy rains and the washouts that closed Highway 12 both east and west of the summit, effectively shutting down the ski area.
“It’s just eerie up here to have all this snow, this beautiful weather, and just a bunch of Granite (Construction) trucks running back and forth,” McCarthy said, referring to the state contractor working with the state Department of Transportation on the road repairs.
The White Pass ski area has more snow than it had at any time last winter — 34 inches in the base, 55 inches up top, so much coverage that the resort has turned off the snow-making guns that enabled the recent weekend-only partial openings.
“It’s all Mother Nature’s snow now,” he said. So much of it, he added, “When we open, we’re going to open everything. Everything.”
So McCarthy has a new Christmas list.
“It’s kind of a hope and a prayer,” McCarthy said on Monday afternoon. “I’m hoping for something on the east side, some kind of (Highway 12) opening, by this weekend, and something on the west side by Christmas.”
It’s too early to know whether weather conditions and the repair necessities at the washout areas will enable road crews to make either or both of McCarthy’s wishes come true.
The east-side washout was at milepost 154.4, just east of Dog Lake and “close to another washout we had two years ago,” said Troy Suing, WSDOT assistant regional administrator. The west-side damage involves two washed-out areas very close to one another near the Palisades Viewpoint at milepost 142.
Suing said WSDOT crews would be “going after both (the east- and west-side damage areas) simultaneously,” but said there was no way way of telling yet how long the Highway would remain closed. For now, it’s closed to through traffic on the east side at milepost 159, near upper Tieton Road, and on the west side near the junction of State Route 123 and U.S. 12.
Obviously, for skiers and snowboarders anxious to get to White Pass — and for the ski area management — every day the highway is closed means one more day nobody gets to hit the slopes.
And the resort being inaccessible from both sides is a double whammy. Just over half the weekend business at White Pass comes from the west side, while the weekday skier/snowboarder traffic is typically heavily weighted to the Central Washington side.
And December, in seasons when the snow arrives early enough, is a critical month in the ski indusry.
“Mostly because of the holidays,” McCarthy said. “If we can get going by the holidays, some of the pain will be less — but you still lose, especially when the snow is so good, like it is now. This is snow like we haven’t seen for Christmas in three years, four years.”
When word got out in the region’s ski industry that White Pass would be inaccessible for a while, other ski areas responded by offering up special deals for White Pass season-ticket holders until such time as White Pass is able to reopen.
“Stevens (Pass) was the very first one; they called me immediately,” McCarthy said. “They’re offering free mid-week (lift tickets for White Pass season-ticket holders). They said with the new snow and the amount of terrain they have open, they’d probably be a little overwhlemed (with additional White Pass traffic) on the weekend. But they’re giving us free mid-week.”
Mission Ridge (overlooking Wenatchee) and 49 Degrees North (near Spokane) are also offering free skiing to White Pass regulars. White Pass has a five-day free-exchange program with the two resorts enabling season-ticket holders from each resort to ski for five days at each of the others, under a guiding rule that both areas must be operating for the free exchange deal to be in effect. In this case, those resorts are opening themselves up to White Pass skiers even though they don’t have to.
Also available to White Pass season-ticket holders and employees for as long as Highway 12 remains closed: free skiing at Schweitzer Mountain in Idaho; heavily-discounted $29 lift tickets at Mount Hood Meadows in Oregon; and free Nordic and alpine skiing at the Leavenworth Ski Hill.
