St. Mary’s Glacier Melts Out Early, Ending Aspen Skiers’ Backup Season

Aspen —St. Mary’s Glacier is gone. Or rather, it will be gone by October.

That is the hard fact. For decades, that high-altitude slope served as the emergency backup for local die-hards trying to maintain a streak of skiing in every month of the year. It was the last resort when the lower valleys dried up in late summer. Now, the snow is melting out early. The Aspen Times reported that locals are already scrambling to find alternative terrain just to keep their records alive.

This isn’t just a nuisance for hobbyists. It’s a data point.

The short version: 2025-26 is tracking poorly against historical baselines. According to data from the Aspen Water Department, total snowfall through February hit 71.5 inches. That sounds decent until you compare it to the 1976-77 season, which totaled 85.7 inches for the entire year. We are running out of snow faster than the 1970s.

But here is where the narrative gets tricky.

If you look at the long-term trend, 2025-26 is only the 12th lowest snowfall season on record since 1934. The worst seasons were decades ago. The winter of 1952-53 saw 89.9 inches. The 1953-54 season dropped to 59.1 inches. Those are the real outliers. The current drought is severe, but it is not unprecedented. It is not even the worst in the last century.

So why the panic?

Because the timing is wrong. In 1976-77, the mountain opened on January 11. Patrollers spent the early season shoveling brown ice out of Tucker Snowcats near Grand Junction and Kleenex Corner. It was ugly, but it was manageable. The season started late, but it started.

In 2025-26, the mountain opened on time. That is the anomaly. We did not have to wait. We did not have to shovel. We had snowmaking.

Read that again. We opened on time because we made the snow.

That changes the economic equation. In 1976, we were gambling on natural precipitation. We lost. In 2025, we are buying reliability. We are paying for the guarantee that the lifts will turn on January 1.

Who is paying?

The cost of snowmaking is rising. Energy prices are up. Water rights are contested. The infrastructure that allowed us to open on schedule is expensive to maintain. And it is not infinite.

The records show the strain. Johnny Love has 289 months of consecutive skiing. Bill Von Stocken has 322. Brian Wiens claims a 31-year streak. These are not casual skiers. These are people who have tracked every inch of snow in this valley for decades. They are the ones feeling the squeeze first. They are the ones finding that September is no longer skiable. They are the ones losing their fallback slopes.

If the die-hards are struggling, the average skier is not far behind.

The conversation about climate change is loud. It is necessary. But it is also easy to get lost in the global metrics. The temperature curves. The sea level rise. The carbon parts per million. All valid. All critical.

But for the people living on the Western Slope, the metric is simpler. It is the depth of the snowpack in February. It is the date the last glacier melts. It is the number of days the lifts run.

Those metrics are deteriorating.

The 2025-26 season is a warning shot. It is not the apocalypse. It is not the end of skiing. But it is a clear signal that the old patterns are breaking. The reliable wet winters are becoming less reliable. The dry spells are getting longer. The recovery periods are getting shorter.

We are adapting. We are building more snowmaking guns. We are extending the season. We are marketing the shoulder months. We are telling ourselves that we can manage the risk.

And maybe we can.

But the margin for error is shrinking.

St. Mary’s Glacier was that margin. It was the buffer. It was the safety net that caught us when the primary slopes failed.

Now that net is dissolving.

What replaces it?

We don’t know yet.

We are looking for new slopes. We are exploring higher elevations. We are testing new water sources. We are waiting for the next forecast.

The weather folks are promising rain. They always promise rain.

Last year, they promised rain. It didn’t come.

This year, they promise snow.

Will it come?

Make no mistake: if it doesn’t, we will know.

We will feel it in our pockets. We will see it on the mountain. We will hear it in the locker rooms.

The streaks will break.

The records will stall.

The conversation will shift from "how much snow do we have?" to "how much snow do we need?"

That is a harder question.

The answer is probably more than we think.

The 1976-77 season proved that. We survived on 85.7 inches. We barely survived.

2025-26 is tracking toward a similar total.

Are we ready to barely survive again?

The die-hards are still skiing. They are still counting the months. They are still building the streaks.

They are toughing it out.

Boys, tough it out.