A lack of snow this winter has made it a challenging year for many ski areas in the western United States, including the Sleeping Giant Ski Area outside Cody.
The ski area has been shuttered for a third straight year, but there is new hope involving a change of ownership and a change of seasons.
Watch the video here:
“I think everybody, growing up in this part of Park County County, imagined what they would do if they owned Sleeping Giant, says Nick Piazza, who took over the ski area outside his hometown of Cody in 2020.
"I kind of thought it would be my shot to do something good," Piazza said.
The ski area, which is just a few miles from the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park, has been around a long time since 1936.
"We bought it and we ran it very successfully for but we just kind of started running out snow," Piazza said.
A lack of snow was not the only setback, though.
Piazza and his wife, Yulia, have split their time between Wyoming and Ukraine for several years. Ukraine is Yulia's home country and is now embroiled in a war that continues to drag on. Piazza has several business investments there, and they have been trying to help refugees.
"When your friends and business partners are involved in a war. When you yourself is sort of involved in a war, you can't really," Piazza said.
Piazza put Sleeping Giant up for sale with a price tag of $500,000. He has found a prospective buyer, HMH Capital Group, which announced plans last month to spend $4 million in upgrades for a summertime operation.
In nearby Cody, some residents are not thrilled about the planned change of seasons.
"I am a little worried about the commercialization and what's going to happen with that," Jennifer Gould said.
"We need more revenue in the winter time not necessarily in the summer-time. That's what the locals up there are struggling with," Gould said.
The Forest Service still needs to approve the move. While Piazza is hopeful that snow skiing will one day make a return to the hill, he believes the new owners' plan gives Sleeping Giant the best hope for its future.
"It has just shown historically that it is really hard at the elevation it is at to make a go just doing skiing, so before the Forest Service position was no summer activities but now I think they see that a lot of those activities are happening anyway. What we are trying to do now is put it in the best position now to be successful," Piazza said.
