Aspen resort feels the pinch of global warming to a degree

Aspen Skiing Company, which manages several resorts in this popular US ski destinations, is finding it a real challenge to put down enough snow to keep the lifts open for the duration of the season. So critical has the situation become that the difference between two extra weeks of artificial snow – possibly the margin of profit for a resort – depends on one single degree change in temperature.

“To be in business,” says Aspen’s CEO Patrick O’Donnell, “we rely on putting down 2 feet of good [artificial] snow, that we make the last two weeks of October and the first two weeks of November. But many of those nights in the fall, we make snow right on the bubble. We often make snow within one degree, or one-and-a-half degrees, of being able to. If we can’t do it, we have a problem.” It’s a matter of self-preservation that the company has been pioneering corporate environmentalism. Auden Schendler, Aspen’s director of environmental affairs, has spent seven years in the resort, and has a long history of working with environmental think tanks and energy-saving improvements. Schendler now targets his efforts at projects across Aspen’s hotels, clubs, and mountains with an impressive range of environmental and conservation efforts. Aspen uses biodiesel fuel in its bulldozer-sized snowcats, and the workshop is partly heated with used motor oil from the vehicles. On its slopes, Aspen uses an almost invisible speck of dust to seed each artificial snowflake it makes — a method slightly more expensive than using just water, but one that consumes less water and less energy.