Singing the No-Snow Blues

While a poor snow year dominates the ski, snowboard and snowmobile reports from the U.S. northeast and Europe, there’s still some hope for snow-filled fun.

The snow news seems bad. And it’s coming from

Take the report from Kitzbuehel, Austria, for example. The legendary Hahnenkamm men’s downhill race, arguably the most famous race on the World Cup ski racing schedule, has been cancelled for lack of snow.

Or, the report in the New York Times headlined "Warm Days and Hard Times in Snowmobile Land". (That link, by the way, will function until about Feb. 1, 2007.)

It begins: CHESTER, Vt., Jan. 18 — For 24 winters, Bev and Butch Jelley, owners of the B&B Mobil station here, have provided legions of snowmobilers with fuel and chili. But this year the kitchen is quiet, and the snowmobiles are nowhere to be found.

Snowmobile clubs, the Times reports, are losing membership. The Vermont Association of Snow Travelers, which normally sells some 30,000 annual memberships has sold fewer 5,000 memberships this season.

That adds up to less money to maintain trails.

Snowmobile dealers aren’t selling sleds. In Chester, says the Times, Benny’s Power is reported to be holding three years worth of unsold vehicles.

Depressing, eh?

But, it’s not all bad news out there in wintersports land. Yes, the Hahnenkamm has been cancelled. But, competitions’ two slalom races will go on.

Recent snowfall in the far northeast have opened snowmobile trails and enhanced ski trails in northern Maine and New Hampshire, and in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

Indeed, driving through St. Johnsbury last Saturday, a snowmobile trails snow report was being broadcast on the radio.

Ski areas, of course, make snow by the ton whenever the temperatures allow.

But, the bottom line is this: if you want to play in the snow in North America this season—or even in Europe, for that matter—you need to visit the Pacific Northwest or Alberta. Lake Louise, for example, has just reported record snowfalls for January.

There is snow out there. You just have to look for it.

Snowmobile clubs and the businesses that cater to them are having their second bad year in a row in many parts of New England, as warm weather has turned flakes to wet blobs and left trails a grassy, rocky mess.

all over the skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling and other wintersports world.