October came and went without the usual flirtatious dusting of snow on the peaks. By November, thick foggy clouds arrived, but only rain fell, coating the town in a cold mud.
The resorts announced opening day suddenly cancelled. Their PR teams issued optimistic forecast updates and tried to distract people with a weird proposal to close imaginary runs in the morning to keep imaginary powder fresh for imaginary afternoon skiers. Pure delusion.
Holiday break arrived and the town filled anyway because reservations had been paid for and flights had been booked, and, deep down, everyone believed winter and snow had a sacred contract.
Locals reassured one another in the check-out lines at the market and the liquor store that the snow would come eventually. After all, why would it not? It always had.
Snow-making guns were turned on for a few sacrificial hours one night, then fell silent. Even synthetic snow couldn’t survive the warmth.
Tourists wandered Main Street in puffy jackets, sweating like overstuffed sausages, filling the bars to capacity as they hot-boxed commiseration over the lack of snow.
At Deer Valley, ski instructors refashioned themselves as hike docents, guiding families along dirt trails where groomers should have been.
Families snapped photos of children posing with rental skis that never touched snow. Instagram still glowed with angles that could be mistaken for winter; a tight shot of goggles, a ginger cocktail in a stemmed glass, a Prada ski jacket against a white cloud. Beneath every frame was the same bleak raw ground.
January brought the cancellations and then the layoffs. Seasonal workers never arrived. J-1 students rerouted to mountains that had snow. Owners of swanky second, third, or fourth homes stayed away.
City tax revenue precipitously fell from black to red. The Town Lift dangled above dead grass and cheatweed, its chairs swaying uselessly.
In a bizarre contradiction, construction continued in full force despite the failing businesses because no winter weather ever arrived to stop it. Even the final Sundance felt like a potluck at a hospice.
Churches, temples, and the synagogue filled with locals hoping their attendance might coax a miracle. Dedicated ski bums gathered silently at the 9th and 9th Whale sculpture in Salt Lake City to hold a candlelight vigil. Nothing came of it.
The snowplows lay fallow because there was nothing to plow. Someone in Florida even offered to buy them. Locals woke before dawn, haunted by phantom echoes of avalanche-control blasts from winters’ past.
By February, Main Street was a flurry of FOR LEASE signs. Nothing remained but the carcass of a resort economy picked clean by cancellations. Anyone could easily find parking, which was the most terrifying omen of all. The emptiness was no longer abstract; it lived in the vacancies.
Restaurants stayed dark on weekends. The Egyptian Theatre marquee blinked UPCOMING with no event behind it. Condos that once cost more than most Americans earn in a decade hit the market at motivated prices, then at any price.
Buses still ran their loops, sliding past empty stops, LED signs cheerfully announcing routes to resorts without skiers. Real estate offices closed, then art galleries, then the boutiques that sold ironic No Friends on a Powder Day T-shirts. Nobody was safe.
By March, the hospitality industry hoarded service workers like rare birds. The city council held emergency meetings trying to understand what a ski town with no skiing was supposed to look like. Even the Vintage tent at St. Regis, a legendary apres hotspot once promised to stay open through a nuclear apocalypse, was taken down and folded into nothingness.
Without tourists, the town shrank to a thin band of full-time residents who walked their dogs more than usual as if shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. Even the typical 224 traffic congestion had become a distant memory.
Summer arrived with its usual concerts, mountain biking, and sunsets on the ridgelines, yet everything felt shadowed by a deeply foreboding existential dread that Park City might no longer be a winter destination.
People avoided the topic the way one avoids the edges of an open grave. Resort companies quietly began strategically planning their exits. City council meetings dwindled to a few weary faces arguing over which services to cut next.
Then, just as the new season approached and the town braced for another year without snow, it happened.
It snowed.
And nobody spoke of the year without snow ever again.
Matt Lawyer is a Park City resident.