Sleeping Giant Owner Tells SAM Weather, Snowmaking, and Worker Issues Led to Shutdown

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SAM Magazine—Cody, Wyo., Jan. 24, 2024—Sleeping Giant Ski Area won’t awaken from its slumber for the 2023-24 season.Sleeping Giant Live Cam

Hit by the combination of a crippled snowmaking system and an unprecedented lack of natural snow, Sleeping Giant will not open this year, resort owner Nick Piazza announced on Jan. 12 after a hoped-for January winter storm failed to deliver meaningful snowfall to the mountain.

"Unfortunately, we are no closer to being able to open the mountain than we were two or three weeks ago. We have reached a point where the loss of seasonal staff would make it difficult to open the mountain, even if we got snow tomorrow,” said Piazza in a message to Sleeping Giant customers. “For these reasons, we feel that the responsible thing to do is to pull the plug on this season.”

Piazza said the season started off promisingly, with several feet of snow falling in October. However, warm temperatures and rain have mostly been the norm since. “It’s literally been 45 degrees at night, and warm nights in Wyoming are super strange,” he said.

The resort’s typically busy Christmas week was a complete washout, said Piazza, and a burst water main in Sleeping Giant’s antiquated snowmaking system that occurred in late 2023 left the mountain totally dependent on natural snow.

“By the time we could fix that pipe we’d be into February, and because we’re in the Shoshone National Forest we’re limited by bear season, so we’d likely only have a month-and-a-half of operations after January, anyway,” he explained.

The last straw for the 2023-24 season came as staff began melting away as the resort’s projected opening day repeatedly got pushed back, said Piazza.

“It’s tough to be a small community ski mountain in these conditions,” he said.

Full refunds will be given to Sleeping Giant season pass holders, who also will be given the option to defer their pass to next season. Piazza said that the resort’s pass partners—Snow King, Ski Cooper, Bogus Basin, and Soldier Mountain—will continue to honor reciprocal perks for Sleeping Giant pass holders this season, including three free lift tickets to each mountain. Uphill access to the mountain also will continue.

Founded in 1936, “Sleepy G” sits at 6,600 feet of elevation and recently expanded to more than 80 trails and added a tubing park. Piazza purchased the ski area after the previous owner, the Yellowstone Recreation Foundation, announced that it would not open Sleeping Giant in the 2020-21 season.

Piazza said resort management will meet in the next few weeks to discuss future operations. “Our team will still be working at Sleeping Giant and I think everyone is ready to use this down time to get to work on several long-standing projects that we could not get to when operating,” he said, including improvements to the resort’s snowmaking system.

Report by Bob Curley