What happens when wildfire devastates a ski resort? The industry is watching Sierra-at-Tahoe to find out

By JAKOB RODGERS | jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group

Published on February 21st, 2022

A hardy group of Sierra-at-Tahoe employees engage in a tug of war with a communications cable being restrung on the fire-damaged Grandview Express ski lift, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022, in Twin Bridges, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

SIERRA-AT-TAHOE —Preacher’s Passion, Sugar N’ Spice, Hemlock – each of Sierra-at-Tahoe’s ski runs sat covered in snow and glistening on the windless, bluebird-sky morning. Someone even groomed Lower Main.

Yet the runs were ghostly silent, devoid of skiers — and lined by thousands of ashen trees.

“It breaks my heart, honestly, it does,” said Paul Beran, the resort’s director of operations. “I’ve had a chance to process it, and this is my new normal. And it’s going to change over the next six months again. You have to digest it.”

Katie Hunter holds the end of a damaged ski lift haul rope, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022, at Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort in Twin Bridges, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Nearly six months after the Caldor Fire tore through Sierra-at-Tahoe, damaging about 80% of the vegetation on its ski slopes, the resort is battling supply chain issues, fickle weather and the nearing advent of spring as its operators try to salvage what’s left of the ski season. Chief among those hurdles is a problem new to California ski resorts: how to bounce back when flames ravage its most beloved feature, the forest.

The devastation serves as a test case for what ski resorts could face across the American West as wildfires run larger, faster and more ferociously amid a warming planet. It also highlights how ski resorts are navigating this climate crisis while raising questions about who foots the bill when ski resorts on public lands are forced to clear acres upon acres of charred timber.

“If there was a lesson learned for a ski area that we probably hadn’t been focusing on so much, is what it means if your forest gets devastated,” said Michael Reitzell, president of Ski California. “Businesses can insure their buildings. Businesses can’t insure the forest.”

For its part, Sierra-at-Tahoe is still vying for a return to operation this season, even if it means only opening one or two chairlifts.

Against charred trees, crews work on the Grandview Express chair lift, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022, at Sierra-at-Tahoe in Twin Bridges, Calif., repairing damage from last summer’s Caldor Fire. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

“I wish more than anything we could put a date on the calendar, but there’s so much that we just don’t know yet,” said Katie Hunter, the resort’s spokeswoman. “We’re not giving up on spring.”

At first, Sierra-at-Tahoe looked like it would be spared from the Caldor Fire, when it ignited Aug. 14 south of the Grizzly Flats community, nearly 27 miles away from the resort.

But high winds and a surplus of dry vegetation left by California’s historic drought pushed the blaze east over the next two weeks. Shortly before Labor Day, the fire blew through Strawberry along U.S. 50, overtaking Camp Sacramento and making a run up Echo Pass.

Cabins burn on the north side of Highway 50 near Sierra-at-Tahoe in Twin Bridges, Calif., as the Caldor Fire explodes Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Resort leaders at Sierra flipped on snowmaking machines and aimed them at buildings, and a team sent by the resort’s insurer covered the lodge and other offices in fire-resistant gel.

Still, Sierra-at-Tahoe’s ski runs – thought to be a natural fire break – did little to halt the flames as they ran uphill through the West Bowl and torched broad swaths of forest known for great tree skiing.

“There’s so much destruction in there, it should probably just be clear cut,” Beran said.

Replacement utility poles for Caldor Fire damage remediation are loaded onto a truck by a contractor staging in the Sierra-at-Tahoe parking lot, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022, in Twin Bridges, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Down below, the resort’s parking lots may have blunted the fire’s spread, helping to spare the resort’s base lodge and plaza. But when the smoke cleared, five of Sierra’s nine ski lifts needed new ropes, and several needed new communication cables.

Seven snowcats – some of which can cost upwards of $500,000 – burned inside a concrete storage facility, as did many of the resort’s snowmobiles and snowblowers. Several mechanics’ toolsets, worth tens of thousands of dollars, were also destroyed.

In all, recovery costs could stretch into the tens of millions of dollars, Hunter said. More than 550 people lost their jobs due to the resort’s closure. The economic impact on El Dorado County, including the loss of tax revenues, is likely to be “significant,” said Carla Hass, a county spokesperson.

A few miles east of the resort, for example, David Schlosser said he has considered taking out a line of credit for his ski rental shop and general store, Strawberry Station, after those customers vanished.

David Schlosser, owner of the general store in Strawberry, Calif., drives a vintage VW bus out of his garage, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

“It’s not even like having a business,” Schlosser said.

The impact of the fire on Sierra-at-Tahoe and the surrounding area represents the starkest example yet of the increasing danger that wildfires represent to ski resorts across the West.

Insurance premiums for North American ski resorts in fire-prone areas have jumped a “significant” amount recently – the highest increases being here in California, said Tim Hendrickson, a senior vice president for MountainGuard, which insures about 200 ski resorts across North America, including Sierra-at-Tahoe.

“It’s a combination of the incredible build-up of fuel over time, and the effects of climate change, that is creating a perfect storm,” Hendrickson said.

But insurance plans don’t cover the trees, which are often federal property. The majority of ski resorts in western states – including Sierra-at-Tahoe and about 80% of ski resorts in California – operate on leased public land.

Sierra-at-Tahoe’s leaders acknowledge there’s little precedent for the type of work that lays ahead – and for determining who will pay for it.

Vast swaths of the forest between the resort’s ski runs may need to be cut in phases over the next “many, many years,” said Jeff Marsolais, the El Dorado National Forest supervisor. That’s because fire-ravaged trees usually fall down in pieces, posing a threat to anyone nearby that can persist for years.

Sierra-at-Tahoe has been responsible for clearing away timber that may directly impact its infrastructure, Marsolais said. So far, that’s meant downing all the trees within 150 feet of its ski lifts.

Meanwhile, the federal government will have to pitch in a “significant portion” of funds for forest work elsewhere at the ski area to help it recover, Marsolais said. But the details are still being worked out, and other entities are expected to pitch in, including a local resource conservation district.

Paul Beran, director of mountain operations at Sierra-At-Tahoe, explains the challenges of reopening the ski resort damaged in last year’s Caldor Fire, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022, in Twin Bridges, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

“There is no playbook for the magnitude of what we’re dealing with, and so we’re really having to work it out one obstacle at a time,” Marsolais said. “The really cool thing is there’s nobody who’s been involved in this from start to finish that isn’t pulling in the same direction.”

So while Sierra-at-Tahoe still hopes to salvage the current ski season, it remains unclear whether it can.

At least 15 feet of snow fell in December – a record dumping that would usually be welcome, but this time meant halting the resort’s recovery work while crews spent the next several weeks digging out of the fresh powder.

A replacement rope for the Grandview Express chairlift had to be specially manufactured in Europe, and its delivery became snarled in the global supply chain crisis. When it finally arrived stateside, the rope got stuck in Nevada during the snowstorms.

Different parts specifications by the two utilities operators powering the resort have also complicated efforts. And the resort’s leaders are still assessing which trees need to be removed before visitors can begin shredding the slopes.

“I feel really good about where we are as a company, and the work that we’ve done that we have to get complete to get us reopened,” Beran said. “But there’s so many variables that are out of our control that are tough.”

Beran minces no words: Sierra-at-Tahoe will look – and ski – differently whenever it does open.

“I’m sure you’re going to see more snow than you used to,” Beran said. “It used to just be a blanket of trees.”

“Every local who skis here has their little stash. And they’re like: I can go there in three days and no one will have ridden it or only a few of us will have ridden it,” Beran said. “It could be more like the Oklahoma land rush on a powder day.”

But that’s a concern for another day. For now, he’s just determined to get people back on the mountain – however it looks.

“The mountain, I know it’s going to ski different,” Beran said. “I know in a lot of ways, it’s going to ski better.”