Losing ski season comes to close

     Associated Press
      SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. -- Poorly timed snowstorms, the New Year's flood and road closure signs on U.S. 50 turned this past winter into one most Sierra ski resorts would just as soon forget.
      It was "a challenging season," according to Monica Bandows, manager of public relations at Heavenly Ski Resort.
      Sierra-at-Tahoe fared the worst when U.S. 50 closed twice, for a total of six weeks, because of flood and mudslide damage.
      "We went from the best location to the worst location," said John Rice, general manager at Sierra, which closed Saturday.
      Compared to last year, business at Sierra decreased by 19 percent.
      "Sierra finished in the black, but not far in the black," he said.
      At Kirkwood Ski Resort, business was little better. Revenue finished flat with visits down 5 percent, according to Tania Magidson, Kirkwood's communications manager.
      The U.S. 50 closure did not benefit Kirkwood, nor did it hurt, she said. With erratic weather conditions and related disasters throughout Northern California, potential skiers just stayed home.
      "Northern California, our primary market, was in shock," Magidson said.
      Kirkwood, with the highest elevation of the three South Shore resorts, will stay open until May 4.
      Heavenly Ski Resort, which closed Sunday, was harmed the least of the three resorts. Thanks to increases in skiers arriving via Reno/Tahoe International Airport, business at Heavenly increased by 24 percent.
      The destination markets also helped Sierra.
      "They became an important part of keeping us alive," said Rice, who noted that lift-tickets sales at lodging properties increased 8 percent.
      While business at Heavenly was decent, it wasn't as good as expected.
      "In one sense we're frustrated," Bandows said. "Every indication going into the holidays was that it would be our best year ever."
      Then Nature turned nasty.
      The second half of the Christmas-New Year's holiday brought monster snowstorms. The devastating holiday cost Sierra 100,000 skier visits, one-third what it should have been compared to last year.
      Hope for January was scuttled by flooding in Northern California and the closure of U.S. 50.
      The double whammy cost Kirkwood 60 percent of its usual business for the period.
      "The odds are that we're going to have one bad month every year," Magidson said. "What we had was a bad Christmas and a bad month, costing more than the normal losses."
      At Heavenly, Bandows' evaluation of the winter as "challenging" reflects her familiarity with nature and its vagaries.
      "Next year, we'll get back on track," she said. "We don't control the weather. We work with it and run with it."