It’s like returning to your childhood home to find a shopping mall where you expected the little league field.

Ski slopes should have snow on them in February, at least in the northern hemisphere. At least on Earth.

I learned to ski at Meadows when I was 12. Sometimes you ski powder and sometimes you ski ice. It’s Oregon, after all. But, every time I have been up I knew I could count on one thing… Snow.

At the risk of providing an even worse analogy, whenever I looked around me today and saw green grassy hillsides and dirt, it was like going to the zoo and finding the zebras striped teal and gold. You don’t get used to it in a single afternoon.

Hefty swaths of alpine grass and bramble lined hillsides I had skied over a hundred times. Stumps three feet in diameter rose eight or more inches from the earth along classic ski runs beside streams I never knew existed. Waterfalls leapt from these streams and wholly altered a landscape usually defined for me by the shadow and glare of blanketing snow.

Moguls today were mud and rock. Some runs dumped you out into a field of such obstacles and they became nature’s slalom course. Make your way between this muddy hummock and the clods of dirty grass nearby. Take two quick turns to set up the tight corner around a rock while avoiding the limb protruding from the snow.

Ski resort business is probably the least of our big picture worries when so little snow has fallen on the Cascades this late into winter. That said, I don’t know how you stay afloat financially. Sure, you can operate only three lifts—like today. And sure, you can tell the employees who operate those other nine lifts and some of your restaurants to stay home—like today. At some point, the bottom line must bottom out. Hopefully they have a buffer.

Because Mt. Hood just can’t keep snow on her slopes this year.

Allow me to illustrate:

Earlier this week snow level at the base was 31 inches. Then they got 4 inches of new snow. Today the base was 27 inches. Try that on for size.

It takes some rainy days to square that math.

Not the worst weather on Hood and far from the worst snow. But…

When I was soggy, when I had reached my limit of tiny sleet crystals gnashing at exposed bits of my face, I retreated to the lodge, dodging tufts of grass, bits of bark, and a wide, slushy puddle stretching over a house-sized zone out front in the snow.

Just before I entered the glassed-in stairwell to the lower level and sanctuary in my locker full of dry clothes, I passed two young men standing with snowboards. They stared past me up toward the most barren slope, one usually home to slalom runs and teeming with racers-in-training.

Dude One said, “I think we could make it down Stadium.”

I followed their gaze to the slope (pictured below). One could potentially do this. You can see the path you might take…

Dude Two waited several beats to respond.

“You first.”

Good rejoinder.

Dude One shook his head and said, “I’m ready to hit that hot tub.” They headed back toward the lodge.

The other funny thing I heard today was a woman talking to a man as they descended a flight of stairs behind me. She said, “I just hope my face doesn’t stay like this.”

I assume she referred to windburn, the kind reddening my own nose and small strips of my face below sideburns and above where my Turtle Fur reached.

Sadness swept over me when I realized I had turned around too late and they were rounding the corner for the next flight of stairs. I would never know her affliction.

As it is, everything else I imagined she might mean was funnier than windburn.

To me.

Which is what counts.

Winter weather has been anything but wintery this year.

The next big winter storm could be just around the corner. The base depth could crack 30 inches again, maybe 40. Then and only then will the dirt, the rocks, and the grass, disappear beneath a protective, blinding layer of white. Places like the mid-mountain Mazot grille and bar won’t need those five or six wooden steps up to the door where oftentimes there are steps cut into the snow down to that same door.

Scarcity is a game-changer. Oregonians are used to living in a land of plenty when it comes to natural resources. Snow on the ski runs is no such luxury this season. We consider ourselves hardy folk so it’s no surprise that people still make the trek to Meadows.

No surprise, either, that getting in some runs is still magic. There will always be the exhilaration of falling fast down a slope while you breathe in letting the wind push its cold air deep into your lungs.

Something may be missing (snow pack) but it’s not everything.