Not wild about the mild on the slopes

CHARLEMONT -- The sign outside Stillwaters Restaurant, a roadside steak and seafood place a few miles from the Berkshire East ski resort, says it all: "No Snow, No Dough."

The mild, snowless winter that has plagued Western Massachusetts has depressed sales of more than lift tickets on the little ski mountain. Jody Nadreau has pumped only half the gas he normally would at the Charlemont Mini-Service gas station on Saturdays. Melody Whelden has struggled to keep the three rooms in her Melody's Place bed-and-breakfast booked on weekends.

And Chris Carcio, manager of the Cold River Package Store across the Deerfield River from Berkshire East, says his sales are down about 60 percent from a normal January, when he could count on doing a brisk business in the half-pints of whiskey and schnapps that skiers slip into their parkas to help them keep warm on chairlift rides.

"I've never seen it so pathetic over there," Carcio said, pointing toward the ski hill during an interview earlier this week, when most of the mountain was mud. "It is definitely not a good season for us at all."

Heading into the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend -- normally one of three biggest seasonal moneymakers, along with Christmas-New Year's and the Presidents Day weekend -- New England ski resorts are hoping there's still a chance for the weather and their business fortunes to bounce back.

Two days of sub-freezing temperatures this week allowed ski resorts to fire up their snowmaking gear, but rain is in the forecast today and may linger until tomorrow. Berkshire East, which had been shut for seven days before reopening yesterday, had just 6 of its maximum 45 trails open, but was hoping that more manmade snow overnight would allow it to open a few more today.

Even if conditions improve, it might be too late to salvage the season for ski resorts and those that benefit economically from the industry.

"Just about every ski area in New England has to be down from last year, and last year wasn't good," said Arthur Woolf, an economist at the University of Vermont who follows the regional economy. "They've got to be really hurting. They could wind up even with last year if we get some snow and it stays through March and April, but I don't think this is going to be a year they have any fond memories of."

The way the snow woes at Berkshire East have sapped other businesses in town, Woolf said, mirrors what dozens of other New England communities have contended with this winter. Last month was the warmest December on record in Boston and many other parts of New England. The National Weather Service center in Albany, N.Y., just over the Western Massachusetts border, recorded just 0.3 inches of snow fall in the region last month, compared with 12.8 inches in a normal December.

At 1,840 feet high, Berkshire East doesn't pretend to be a rival to Stowe, Killington, Sugarloaf, or any of the massive corporate-owned ski resorts in northern New England that have industrial-scale snowmaking operations and fancy lodges and restaurants.

Lift tickets at Berkshire East are just $48 daily on weekends, $25 during the week, with generous discounts for children and senior citizens, less than half what elite resorts charge. For people from Worcester, Hartford, or Springfield, it can provide an economical day trip destination or an easy weekend venue.

Still, the revenue from the several hundred skiers Berkshire East would normally draw on a winter's day represents an economic infusion the area can't easily go without. Even in the best of times, the "west county," the stretch of hill towns along Route 2 in Franklin County leading up to the Berkshires, is an area of the state that struggles to keep a viable year-round economy humming.

Skiers and snowmobilers account for about 20 to 30 percent of the local tourism economy, said Ann Banash, who runs the business-backed Greenfield visitors' center. Along with maple syrup in the spring, camping and Deerfield River rafting in summer, and foliage touring in the fall, skiers are a key piece of the local economy, Banash said. "If it starts snowing, there's still the possibility of it being a really good season," she added.

But Whelden, who bought her 10-room Victorian for $97,000 in 2000 after it was condemned and spent five years lovingly restoring it as a family home and bed-and-breakfast, said she worries that the damage from the mild winter won't easily be overcome.

"Say I had a really great February. Then I am just playing catch-up with the bills I didn't pay in January," said Whelden, who last summer opened an antiques shop in hope of making the innkeeping business more viable. "It's crushing me. It's killing me. I'm praying that something breaks" with the weather to get skiers and snowmobilers up into the town, she added.

Todd Gerry -- a Charlemont resident who makes his living through a combination of carpentry, farming, snowplowing, and other jobs -- said, "I need the snow. I need the money." If snow finally comes, Gerry said, "I think you could make up a portion of it, but not all of it. You've lost two months." The only upside: He's burned at least one fewer tank of heating oil this winter.

After 41 years in the skiing business, the last 30 as owner and operator of Berkshire East, Roy Schaefer said he's learned how to get through a bad winter like this, and he holds out hope it could still turn colder.

It is difficult to determine how much revenue he has lost because a portion of his business is from prepaid lift tickets from schools and season pass owners, not daily visitors. Schaefer keeps his operation frugal and unmortgaged and pays cash, from profits, for adding new trails and amenities.

"You've got to start out every year like it's not going to be a good year," Schaefer said. "After 41 years, I'm a survivor, and I'll survive another year."

But he added: "I've never seen a beginning of a season like this one."

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.