{"id":253003,"date":"2026-04-05T15:18:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T15:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/253003\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T15:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T15:18:28","slug":"heavenly-becomes-9th-tahoe-ski-resort-to-close-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/253003\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavenly becomes 9th Tahoe ski resort to close early"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The resort is now the ninth in the Tahoe region to close early this season, as persistently warm temperatures and below-average snowfall have thinned snowpack across the Sierra.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSaying this is a tough call is an understatement,\u201d the resort said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/skiheavenly\/reel\/DWpp_MpD8Ev\/\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">social media post<\/a> announcing the closure. \u201cOur team gave it everything we had. Moving snow, patching runs together, enduring some record high temperatures. But even with this recent dusting, we\u2019re losing some key throughways and it\u2019s time to wrap it up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Heavenly had planned to operate through April 19. Instead, its lifts will stop spinning Sunday\u00a0\u2014\u00a0the same day nearby <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/tahoe\/article\/northstar-early-closure-tahoe-22154507.php\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Northstar is set to close<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The early shutdown follows a winter that state water officials have described as one of the weakest for snowpack in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During the California Department of Water Resources\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/climate\/article\/california-snowpack-22159607.php\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">final snow survey of the season<\/a> on Thursday, some sites showed patches of bare ground where snow typically blankets the landscape this time of year.<\/p>\n<p>After a solid start in December, snowy conditions quickly unraveled. January brought dry weather, and an unusually warm March\u00a0\u2014 the warmest on record in South Lake\u00a0Tahoe\u00a0\u2014 melted much of the remaining snow, according to regional reporting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s no secret this ski and ride season had its challenges with warmer weather and lower snowfall totals,\u201d Cole Zimmerman, Heavenly\u2019s senior manager of communications, said in a statement. \u201cEven so, there were plenty of bright spots.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Across Tahoe, those challenges have been stark. As the Chronicle previously reported, March temperatures ran roughly 9 degrees above average, accelerating snowmelt and forcing resorts to scale back terrain or close altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Even late-season storms have done little to help.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Heavenly picked up about 8 inches of snow this week\u00a0\u2014 not enough to keep key runs connected\u00a0\u2014 while higher-elevation resorts such as Kirkwood, which received 18 inches, plan to stay open longer.<\/p>\n<p>Heavenly will keep its gondola open for sightseeing through April 19. The resort also plans to mark its final ski weekend, coinciding with its 70th anniversary, with events and celebrations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s send it off right this weekend,\u201d the resort said.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The resort is now the ninth in the Tahoe region to close early this season, as persistently warm&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7,20,1727,101,103,102,104,106,105,28457,2422,19],"class_list":{"0":"post-253003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-climate","10":"tag-outdoors","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news","17":"tag-tahoe","18":"tag-travel","19":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}