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Snowpack's below normal for January Skiers pray for storms By Paul Fattig of the Mail Tribune Night skiing resumes at Ski Ashland MOUNT ASHLAND -- After being temporarily discontinued for the holidays, night skiing has resumed at Ski Ashland. Night skiing is now scheduled until 10 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday through April 1, weather permitting. Ski Ashland halted its night skiing operation early in December to retain the limited, early season snow cover for the crowds who traditionally ski or snowboard during the holidays, explained Gene Landsmann, the marketing director. Enough snow fell last week to allow night skiing to resume, Landsmann said. Three chairlifts will operate during night skiing; lift tickets are $16 for skiers 13 and older, $11 for youth nine to 12 and free for those eight years and younger. Mother Nature's winter coat isn't exactly threadbare, but Kevin Conroy says there are thin patches in the Southern Oregon mountains. For instance, the snowpack is only 33 percent of normal with a scant 4.1 inches of snow on Big Red Mountain at 6,250-foot elevation in the upper Applegate Valley drainage, reports Conroy, a snow surveyor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service office in Klamath Falls. Over at Diamond Lake, the snow depth is barely 50 percent of average, although the Fish Lake snow pack is 74 percent of normal for Jan. 1, Conroy said. Throughout the Rogue-Umpqua basin, the high mountain snowpack is currently about 64 percent of average, he said. "But it's still early -- we could get a lot more in the next few months," he said. The mountain snowpack is important because water from melting snow feeds streams and rivers during the summer when there is little rain. It also provides recreation during the winter for places such as community-owned Ski Ashland, where there are 27 inches of snow at the lodge and 44 inches on the peak. But last year at this time, there were 80 inches of snow on top of the mountain. "Business is down a little because people want large quantities of snow," said Gene Landsmann, Ski Ashland marketing director. "But they forget that we do a tremendous amount of slope grooming," he said. "We're in the snow farming business. We can operate with less." Although the season began Dec. 5, five days earlier than average, Landsmann acknowledges the mountain could use a bit more snow. "Everybody has been saying it's a La Nina year, " he said. "Well, La Nina had better start moving." He was referring to the huge area of colder-than-normal water known as La Nina found in the Pacific Ocean, which weather scientists have credited with creating wet weather cycles in the Pacific Northwest. That's opposed to its water-borne twin El Nino, a system influenced by a warmer-than-normal area of the Pacific that scientists believe brought drought-like weather to the region earlier this decade. State climatologist George Taylor has called for winter storms beginning in January that will be colder and wetter than normal. The effects of La Nina will continue to soak and chill the region through March, Taylor predicted. Like Conroy, Steve Johnson, snow ranger for the Ashland Ranger District of the Rogue River National Forest, isn't concerned that the regional mountain snowpack is currently below normal. "For me, there is no cause for concern," said Johnson, who has been keeping track of snow depths in the higher regions of the district for some 20 years. "It's still relatively early in the winter. "We had a similar situation about five years ago, then all of a sudden we got a lot of rain and snow in February and March," he added. "We ended up above normal for the winter." What's more, the last two winters had above-normal snowfall and precipitation, leaving the groundwater tables and reservoirs in relatively good shape, he said. "Because of the past two years, we've been used to above normal snowfall by now," he said. "But this is nothing out of the ordinary. The verdict is still out." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA