Snow farming is a strange, football-field-sized method some resorts are using to preserve snow.

Bogus Basin (Idaho) and Sun Peaks (British Columbia) stored large piles of snow under insulated blankets in 2025 to extend ski seasons; Bogus Basin kept about 80% of its pile through summer and the blankets cost roughly $120,000–$180,000.

Several ski areas are piling and insulating large volumes of snow to preserve it through warm months. The technique, called snow farming or snow storage, was used in 2025 at Bogus Basin, Idaho, and Sun Peaks, British Columbia. Resorts push natural or machine-made snow into very large mounds, cover them with an insulated blanket marketed as Snow Secure, and monitor temperatures with solar-powered sensors. Operators and vendors present the approach as a way to help guarantee slope coverage as winter seasons shorten. Key facts: - Bogus Basin and Sun Peaks used insulated, accordion-like blankets to protect football-field-sized piles of snow during spring and summer of 2025. - Bogus Basin reported that about 80 percent of its stored pile survived through the summer; Sun Peaks reported similar results and noted internal temperatures around 39.2 degrees while outside temperatures reached about 98.6 degrees. - The blankets used at the two resorts cost roughly $120,000 at Bogus Basin and $180,000 at Sun Peaks. - Snowmaking remains widely used but depends on cold wet-bulb temperatures (reported as needing to be below 28 degrees), which can limit when it is available. - Other North American resorts are beginning to adopt storage methods; Tyrol Basin (Wisconsin), Ski Apache (New Mexico), and Soldier Hollow (Utah) planned to use the Snow Secure system, and some sites have tested simpler covers like hay and tarps. Summary: Snow storage is being added to the mix of natural snow and machine-made snow that resorts use to open and operate. Several resorts plan further deployments of insulated blankets, though costs and the availability of snow to build piles affect how much storage can be created; broader uptake is underway but varies by site and season.