TL;DR
Palisades Tahoe has scrapped its planned May 25 closing date, now targeting late April at best. The California resort is down to 15 of 39 lifts operating as early and mid-season snow shortfalls continue to take their toll on the 2024/25 season.
Poor snow forces Palisades Tahoe to abandon May closing plans
Palisades Tahoe has quietly shelved its planned May 25 closing date, becoming the latest North American resort to publicly acknowledge what's been obvious on the ground for weeks - this hasn't been a vintage season for California skiing. The resort is now targeting late April at best, with the Alpine side of the mountain likely to shut down even earlier in the first week of April.
Current operating status paints a grim picture
The numbers tell the story more clearly than any resort PR statement. Just 15 of 39 chairlifts are currently spinning, with only 71 of 296 trails open - that's roughly 24% of the resort's terrain. For context, that's the kind of operating capacity you'd expect in early December, not late March.
The resort's carefully worded update doesn't specify a firm closing date, instead committing to "stay open as long as conditions allow" - the universal resort code for "we're monitoring the snowpack daily and hoping for a miracle."
Tale of two mountains
Interestingly, there's a notable disparity between the two sides of the operation. The Palisades side is expected to limp through to late April, while the Alpine side is looking at shutdown by early April. This split closure approach isn't unusual when snow gets thin - resorts consolidate operations onto whatever terrain has the most stable base.The resort is actively moving snow around to maintain access to key terrain, which is standard practice but labour-intensive and ultimately just rearranging deck chairs when Mother Nature isn't cooperating.
