Future: Keeping winter riders coming even without snow

Question: Are we steering our winter economy to the future—envisioning a preferred destination and acting to get it there on schedule—or just letting nature take its course?

I experienced Old Forge’s glory days of monster snow, hundreds of inches a year. I shoveled it, plowed it, and none of us thought those days would end.

It spurred the sport of snowmobiling locally, and businesses and recreationalists benefited for a few decades.

Ahh, deep snow and snowmobiles. Winter was heaven. Except for the plowing and shoveling.

Then for reasons that make little sense—to me anyway—our weather started plateau-ing in November, more or less, dragging itself to March.

And from December to February, all we could do was cross our fingers and pray that a Canadian cold-front would show us favor.

Now, however—in the year 2012—the question is: Continue reading →