About 600 people attended this event where Aaron Rice, one of our Adventure Scholars, was one of the four presenters along with a climate scientist from the University of New Hampshire, the President of the Green Mountain Conservation Advocacy Group, and the former CEO of Alterra.

Alterra, based in Aspen, Colorado, owns 35 ski areas including Sugarbush.

There were several key takeaways from this conference:

1. Temperatures which support snow making have been declining at the rate of one day per year for each of the last 20 years.

2. Ski areas have to heavily invest to ensure adequate infrastructure (snow making ponds, efficient distribution, equipment and so on) to ensure increased capacity to make snow to make up for the shortfall.

3. The phrase Climate Change understates the problem. This is a Climate Crisis and needs to be recognized as such. Each of us who care about outdoor winter activities needs to register our concerns with our elected officials. If we give it attention, they will give it attention. The alternative is the status quo.