It is no stretch to say that snow is the key to success for Jon Lillis.
The reigning world champion in aerials skiing is also a restaurant owner in Park City, Utah, and business at his hotpot eatery increases more than 100 percent when nearby ski resorts are open.
As winters grow warmer and the ski season starts later, not only does it affect Lillis’ ability to train and, as is the case this year, prepare for the Winter Olympics, it also affects the bottom line at his business.
“We expect to do 70 percent of our annual revenue while the ski resorts are open,” Lillis said. “So the longer they’re not open, and it seems to be getting later and later every year, the window where we’re making all that money gets smaller. In ski towns, it’s the tourism market that keeps business alive.”
BIG BUSINESS
A study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the athletes’ group Protect Our Winters found that the 23 million people who participate in winter sports added an estimated US$12.2 billion each year to the US economy.
However, as ski seasons grow shorter, all those numbers have declined — about US$1.07 billion gone between 1999 and 2010 — and bad ski years take a significant toll on nearly every business in a ski town such as Park City.
In Colorado, the council found that “low-snow” winters caused an 8 percent decline in skier visits, which resulted in a US$154 million decrease in revenue.
HALF A WINTER
Under a worst-case scenario, the council predicts snow depths in the western US could decline between 25 and 100 percent, and the length of the snow season in the northeast could be cut in half.
One troubling sign this season: A late autumn warm spell across the nation left only 3.5 percent of the 48 contiguous states with snow cover on Nov. 26, the lowest that figure has been since record-keeping began in 2003.
“If ski resorts can’t stay open for a certain number of days per year, then there’s a chance the skiing sport won’t be around in 20 years,” Lillis said.
ATHLETIC FUTURE
Lillis bought the Park City restaurant in the hopes of expanding to other ski resorts. He knows that soon he will depend on his business, not his athletic talent, to make his living.
In October, he saw firsthand how climate change affects his day job.
Ahead of the Feb. 9 to Feb. 25 Winter Olympics in South Korea, he and the US aerials team traveled from Park City to glaciers in Switzerland and Finland so they could train on snow that had not yet fallen in Utah.
“It definitely has become harder to train early season” in the US, Lillis said in October in an interview in Switzerland. “Right now, to train in that environment, it’s 65°F to 70°F [18°C to 21°C]. There’s not a chance for any training [back home] over the next month or month-and-a-half.”
The team returned to Park City with the hope of training at home starting this month, but with little snow to work with, it took extra effort to build a jump. The team only got in two days of training before heading to China for this season’s first World Cup event.
All of which means that in addition to altering the training schedule, business at Lillis’ restaurant, Shabu Shabu, will take longer to pick up.
For a skier who is also a business owner in a ski town, it is a double-edged sword.
“If enough ski resorts close, if there aren’t enough days in the year to ski, if ski companies are going out of business, it’s all related to there being enough snow in the winter to have these things available to people,” Lillis said. “It does worry me that that won’t be around.”
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