OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — The snow is still low at Hurricane Ridge, and it’s taking a toll on business.
Olympic National Park announced Wednesday that the snack bar, gift shop and ski rentals will close until “significant snow accumulations return to the Ridge.”
Park officials say that could happen quickly. Operators of snow-dependent activities hope it happens soon.
Concessions were still plodding along at the Ridge until about mid-January, when temperatures warmed and the snow disappeared.
“That just pretty much killed us,” Gary Wood said Wednesday.
Wood is assistant general manager of Olympic operations for Forever Resorts, which runs the snack bar, shop and rentals inside Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center.
With the white stuff measuring only in the inches, if at all — it was more than six feet deep at this time last year — visitation is low and business is waning at the mile-high Ridge.
“Our business has dropped off from, I would say, 80 to 90 percent from a normal ski season year when we do have snow,” Wood said.
“We’re not even getting the snowshoers and cross country skiers,” he said.
Half of staff laid off
Forever Resorts already laid off three people, or about half its staff, at the Ridge before this week, Wood said.
The other employees are working at Lake Crescent Lodge, also a Forever Resorts operation, if and until enough snow returns to the mountains.
