WHITEFISH, Mont. — A chairlift cranks into gear as a group of ski patrollers at Whitefish Mountain Resort gets the mountain ready for another season.

This is a typical safety training. They'll practice how to evacuate people off chairs if there were an emergency. But not much here feels typical. For starters, no one is in boots or on skis. Despite the training happening in late November, there is no snow at the base lodge, and the slopes leading up the mountain are brown, which is adding to the broader anxiety in the resort tourism industry right now.

"Yeah, if we don't have snow, that's going to dictate how our season goes," says resort spokesman Chad Sokol.

Going into the Thanksgiving holiday — the traditional start to the ski season — resorts across the West delayed openings due to l

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