Is This The Last Ski Area in North America That's Still Open?
Ski areas in North America have been closing down over the past fortnight due to the coronavirus pandemic, but there has not been the national lockdown that several European countries have enacted, and decisions have been made at state or province level and in some cases left to individual resorts.
The last ski area open in Canada, the fairly remote Hudson Bay resort in northern BC (pictured below) had its last skiing day on Sunday and the number of centres still open in the US has been declining by the day too.
Montana, Idaho and Washington State in the lightly-populated North-western US still had more than half-a-dozen areas operating at the weekend between them, each arguing that they had measures in place to prevent virus spread, had closed indoor facilities and so on, but most of these have decided to close early due to the virus.
49 Degrees North in Washington State (pictured above) was one of the last to do so, closing as of today, due to new protocols from the state government. The resort issued a statement to local skiers;
“Thank you all for your support and enthusiasm, particularly over the last couple of weeks. Through your cooperation and effort we were able to balance the need for healthy outdoor activities with the protocols and social distancing requirements that we are all trying to adjust to. We hope to get a few more days in before summer is here, and we hope that all of you will be there to join us.”
The last that is still saying its open at this point (10.30 GMT on 15thMarch) is Teton Pass (pictured top), a ski area in Montana that opens Friday to Sundays. It currently says it plans to re-open this weekend from the 27th to 29th March and then for what is its planned final weekend of operations of the season anyway, the following weekend, April 3rd to 5th.
Most ski areas are closed elsewhere in the world, except in Iceland, Sweden and Japan where they continue to operate,
Ski areas in China began re-opening at the weekend (at least centres where the season hadn’t ended anyway), two months after the lockdown began. Skiers and boarders had to produce health certificates to be able to buy lift tickets and were advised to wear surgical masks on the slopes.
