RENO, Nev. (AP) — Last winter, most Lake Tahoe ski resorts had to delay their regular November openings because there was not enough snow.

This season, some of them were sometimes forced to close because there were too many of them.

Merciless winter more than 50 feet (15 meters) of snow fell mountain resorts around Voz over the past three months along the California-Nevada line.

The latest Sierra storm, which brought heavier snow, wind gusts over 100 mph (160 kph) and even some flooding, forced about half a dozen to close on Friday.

Even when the resorts were open for business, the storms caused frequent closures of mountain highways and the main U.S. interstate that connects San Francisco and Reno to Lake Tahoe atop the Sierra Nevada, making it nearly impossible for out-of-towners to get around at times. their way to the slopes.

But locals who have been skiing at Tahoe for decades say any setbacks are offset by excellent snow and the real payoff: skiing into late May and possibly longer.

“It’s a skier’s heaven because I can ski by Memorial Day,” said Dan Lively, 66, a Reno resident who has been skiing for about 40 years.

“The conditions were fantastic. It’s the best I’ve had in forever,” he said.

Resorts that cater to people like him agree.

“Storms have a small financial impact, but snowstorms also drive attendance and we can stay open longer, so they balance each other out,” said Patrick Lacey, a spokesman for Palisades Tahoe, the resort that was forced to close Friday by one gust of wind. reached 139 miles per hour (224 kilometers per hour).

“We have the biggest snowfall in 75 years,” he said.

Friday marked the third time the slopes were closed due to weather at three other popular Tahoe resorts owned by Vail Resorts of Colorado – Heavenly, Northstar California and Kirkwood.

“If anything, here at Tahoe, we expect the unexpected,” Vail Resorts spokeswoman Sarah Roston said in an email to The Associated Press on Friday.

For the 2021-2022 season, “we delayed the opening because we didn’t have enough snow,” Roston said.

“Then we got a ton of snow in early December and that resulted in some closures,” she said. “This year has been one wild winter; that’s for sure.”

The latest storm a week ago forced the cancellation of the final day of the Nevada High School Cross Country Championships at Mount Rose, halfway between Reno and Lake Tahoe.

Chad Bunker of Sparks, Nev., who frequents Mount Rose, said he’s heard some people complain about a series of storms that sometimes kept them from riding the slopes.

“Yeah, you can’t get there if it’s not fun, but that just means it’s going to be even better if you can get there,” said Bunker, 56, who has been skiing since he was 5 years old.

The Central Sierra Snow Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, in Donner Pass, north of Lake Tahoe, reported earlier this month that October-February was the snowiest period on record since 1970. The snowiest winter was in 1951-52, with nearly 68 feet (812 inches, 21 meters).

Tahoe’s Palisades, which averages 400 inches (10 meters) a year and recorded 350 inches (9 meters) last year, recorded 607 inches (15 meters) before Friday’s latest storm. That’s still down from the 2016-17 season record.

Lively has a season pass at the Palisades, home of the 1960 Winter Olympics, so he can ride out the storm to still make the runs.

But he sympathizes with those traveling from Sacramento or the Bay Area affected by bad weather, including a blizzard that closed Interstate 80 for several days starting Jan. 1.

He said he has spent as much time monitoring highway web cameras this year as he has at individual resorts to check the condition of the slopes.

“I-80 was closed three times last week. Another day the traffic was so bad you couldn’t get there,” Lively said, reflecting on the day it took him two hours to drive just 15 miles (24 kilometers) on the way out of Reno before he “finally gave up “. “

Todd Cummings, who started skiing in the 1980s in New England and now lives in Santa Cruz, California, managed three trips to Tahoe resorts this winter despite the storms.

“You can never be happy — too much, too little,” said Cummings, who grew up in Rhode Island.

He is not against the trials of travel, when they pay off with piles of fluffy snow on mountainous and quiet slopes.

“I’ll deal with it any time,” he said. “I just need to know how to drive in the snow, get used to four-wheel drive, chains.”