From Silver Boom to Powder Legend: The Alta Ski Area Story High in Little Cottonwood Canyon, dawn breaks with the echoing boom of avalanche cannons across serrated peaks–a morning ritual at Alta Ski Area that hints at its rich and restless history. Few ski resorts can claim a genesis as dramatic as Alta’s: a silver mining boomtown turned ghost town, resurrected in 1938 as a skier’s paradise atop Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. […] Clay Malott | March 26, 2025 0 Comments
Mount Spurr Rumbling: Alaska Volcano Unrest Spurs Eruption Watch Alaska’s Mount Spurr—a 11,070-ft glacier-clad volcano 75 miles west of Anchorage—is showing worrisome signs of life. The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) reports elevated seismic activity with numerous small, shallow earthquakes now detected daily beneath the mountain. Over the past month, more than 100 quakes per week have been recorded, some up to magnitude 2.7, totaling thousands of tremors since last […] Clay Malott | March 12, 2025 0 Comments
Vanished Slopes: Inside the Demise of North America’s Ghost Ski Resorts On a frosty morning in Michigan’s Leelanau County, the chairlifts at Sugar Loaf Mountain hang lifeless, and the once-luxurious lodge lies in rubble. It’s a scene echoed in dozens of locations across North America. In fact, nearly 60% of all ski resorts in North America have closed since the boom of the 1960s and ’70s. Economic shifts, warming winters, and […] Clay Malott | March 3, 2025 1 Comment
Skiing on the Equator: Investigating the Mythical Puncak Jaya Ski Resort Puncak Jaya—also known as the Carstensz Pyramid—is a 4,884-meter (16,024-foot) peak in the highlands of Papua, Indonesia, famed as the only place in the equatorial Pacific with year-round ice. In recent years, an intriguing rumor has circulated: that a ski resort once operated on the slopes of Puncak Jaya, making it the world’s second-highest ski area despite its tropical location. […] Clay Malott | February 14, 2025 1 Comment
The Daring Ski-Hayden Dream: War, Ambition, and Aspen’s Greatest “What if?” In the 1930s, a group of daring visionaries believed they could build a European-style ski resort high in the Colorado Rockies that might one day rival the grand destinations of the Alps. Their chosen site was Mount Hayden, rising above the ghost town of Ashcroft near Aspen—a snowy paradise they hoped would become a winter sports haven, complete with cutting-edge […] Clay Malott | February 13, 2025 0 Comments
Slippery Slopes: Climate Change Threatens the Future of Skiing in North America At the base of a Massachusetts ski hill one recent November, sunlight glared off a patch of sloppy snow “pooling like dirty mashed potatoes” as the thermometer hit 59°F.1 Scenes like this–unseasonable warmth turning early-season snow to slush–are becoming familiar across the United States and Canada. Ski resort operators and skiers are sounding the alarm that winters are warming, snowpacks […] Brains Clay Malott | February 6, 2025 1 Comment
Brain Post: Groundhog Day – Origins, Accuracy, and Cultural Quirks Every February 2, millions tune in (or head out) to see if a furry forecaster will predict the end of winter. In this post, we dig deep into the origins of Groundhog Day, the legend of Punxsutawney Phil, and what the data really says about his predictive prowess. The Origins of Groundhog Day Groundhog Day finds its roots in ancient […] Clay Malott | February 1, 2025 0 Comments
A Day in the Life on Spring Break in Jackson Hole, WY Spring mornings in the Tetons have a distinct flavor. The first rays of light touch the upper ridges, illuminating untouched snowfields where skiers and riders hope for that perfect combination of powder on shaded north-facing slopes and spring corn on the sunnier ones. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort‘s Aerial Tram ascends swiftly, carrying early risers whose breath fogs in the crisp […] Featured Article Clay Malott | January 29, 2025 0 Comments
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