As climate change makes ski slopes harder to maintain, will ski costs continue to stay out of reach?
Snowmaking has become essential for ski resorts to stay afloat, but experts say it can't solve everything
Alison Wines's family headed west from Toronto to Revelstoke, B.C., last year to enjoy the downhill ski season — only to find that the snow had been better back home in Ontario.
It was a disappointing experience for the longtime skier, and a sign of how climate change is making winters — and ski conditions — much more uncertain.
"We're just a normal family, and so [it] felt like we still had a good time, but it felt like a huge amount of money for a less high-quality experience than what we were hoping for," Wines said.
Skiing is one of the few sports that different generations of a family can enjoyably do together, said Wines. "My mom, who's 75, still skis with my kids."
But Wines is also seeing the sport come under increasing climate pressure; she formerly worked for Protect Our Winters Canada, an advocacy organization for outdoor enthusiasts promoting climate policies, and now runs her own outdoors-focused consultancy.
"I think so much of Canadian identity revolves around winter and the way that we spend time in cold environments," she said. "That's at real risk of going away if we don't do something about it."
Maintaining a consistent ski season — which lasts for roughly 100 days over the winter — is important both for the resorts and for skiers planning their trips, booking stays and buying tickets, experts say.
"You need a certain number of open days in order for the whole thing to be financially viable. And we're getting dangerously close to that," said Madeleine Orr, a professor of sport ecology at the University of Toronto who is researching how climate change is impacting sports of all kinds.
"The other part is, you know, if there are a few opportunities to go skiing, and then you get up there and it's bad conditions, people are going to make slightly different decisions."
That includes fewer people putting their kids into ski lessons or buying the equipment needed, leading to a knock-on effect for the industry in the future.
"You start to have a bit of the talent pipeline that starts to go away, participation that starts to dwindle, and it gets more and more expensive as a result. Because [resorts] have to still make the same money on potentially fewer people on the mountain," Orr said.
With 2025 being named the third-warmest year on record, and warming trends forecast to continue because of greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, challenges for the sport will keep growing.
Even if resorts can artificially make snow to counter a lack of natural snowfall, Orr said, they still need cold winter weather.
"Making snow is not a solution to warm weather; because you can make the snow, it's just going to melt and now you've just got an expensive hose," she said.
Over half of ski resorts across North America have disappeared since the 1970s. There are several reasons for the decline, but climate change impacts on snowfall have been a major factor over the past three decades.
Huge costs for families
A one-day adult lift ticket at Revelstoke Mountain Resort is now $199 for peak season, and $239 to $329 for peak season in Whistler, B.C., depending on when you buy the ticket. In Tremblant, Que., it's around $149 to $185, depending on the holiday season and day of the week.
Add to that gear rentals, travel, hotel rooms and food — and the cost of even a weekend trip quickly jumps into the thousands of dollars for families.
Paul Pinchbeck, president of the Canadian Ski Council, an industry group, says he understands people are hitting their limits for how much they can spend on the sport.
"Consumers, when we do the consumer research, have said, 'OK, we see what you're doing, we understand skiing is a capital-intensive business, but we can only spend so much.'" he said.
"So our pressure, really, for the next number of years here in the Canadian ski industry … is about growing participation — whether that's the number of days that each person skis, or the number of people that ski."
Despite the rising costs, interest in snow sports has not slipped, Pinchbeck said, with participation growing at around 1.6 to 1.8 per cent per year.
Figures from Statistics Canada also suggest that the number of local and international skiers is growing, along with operating revenue at Canada's ski resorts. But expenses are also rising, the agency said, so profit margins are sliding.
That means resorts have to get creative and become all-year destinations, switching seasonally from snow sports to warm-weather activities, like hiking, climbing and biking, Pinchbeck said.
Local slopes still an option
For families who cannot drop thousands of dollars on tickets, smaller, local snow slopes remain an option.
Earl Bales Park, a small ski hill in Toronto's North York region, is a popular destination for city residents — and it's $40 for a day pass. But the city acknowledged in a statement that the trend of lower snowfall is a challenge, and they are using snowmaking equipment to keep the hill open.
Glen Eden, another local ski resort in Milton, Ont., has lift tickets for peak periods for $60 this season. Located about an hour's drive west of Toronto, it's a quick day trip for skiers in the city. But like the bigger resorts, Glen Eden also has to create its own snow to maintain its slopes.
The facility has invested heavily in snowmaking equipment — around $1 million in the past few years — to deal with the ups and downs of the weather, said Craig Machan, director of parks and operation with Conservation Halton, the regional conservation authority that runs Glen Eden.
"If we can teach people, you know, to fall in love with the sport, then they're going to go up to Blue Mountain, or maybe they'll travel out West to go to Whistler … to experience those bigger hills," he said.
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