Is Climate Change Ruining Your Favorite Ski Spot? by Connecticut Public Radio/WNPR

The late-winter Nor’Easter that dumped snow across New England on Tuesday and Wednesday was a welcome sight to the region’s ski areas, which have been seeing shortening ski seasons in the past decade, due to climate change. According to University of Waterloo climate scientist Daniel Scott, no ski area in southern New England will remain profitable after 2040. As Maine Public Radio’s Fred Bever reports, ski areas in northern New England could benefit.

Skiing is a pricey hobby. A lift ticket at Sugarloaf in Maine will run you $95. At Stowe in Vermont, it’s $124 for the day. Even at Ski Sundown, a small mountain in Connecticut, a ticket on a Saturday or Sunday costs $60.

But at Veterans Memorial Ski Area in Franklin, New Hampshire, admission is just $20. Instead of a chair lift, there’s a metal bar that goes behind the thighs, attached to a rope that pulls skiers up the 230-foot hill.

Once upon a time, these no-frills ski areas were the rule in New England, rather than the exception. So what happened? The team at New Hampshire Public Radio’s podcast Outside/In went to Franklin to figure out how skiing “got fancy.”

More from this episode of NEXT: https://nenc.news/podcast/episode-33-goodbye-winter/