Skiing
The Yawgoo Valley Ski Area Yawgoo opened its doors in 1965. At the time, there were four other ski areas in the state.
A skier travels down the advanced trail at Yawgoo Valley Ski Area, which is the only ski resort in Rhode Island. Rachel Wisniewski / The Washington Post
updated on February 6, 2026 | 10:11 AM
5 minutes to read
EXETER, Rhode Island – There is a delicate art to creating snow. Not many know that better than Joe Marfeo, 27, the head snowmaker at Yawgoo Valley Ski Area.
The outside temperature can’t be above 27 degrees, or it isn’t cold enough for the water to freeze into snow when it hits the air. If it’s colder than 10 degrees, the water will start to freeze before it even does that, jamming the machines in the process. Humidity is another variable.
For the past three winters, Marfeo has worked overnights at Yawgoo, from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m., whenever it’s been possible to make snow. Many nights and even weeks, conditions make that impossible.
Though this winter is quite cold, the past few years have been warmer and rainier, leading to significantly less snow and drastically shortened ski seasons. New England alone has lost hundreds of ski areas over the past several decades.
Yawgoo Valley has long been the lone remaining ski resort in Rhode Island.
The ski area’s tubing park has remained closed for the season thus far due to lack of snow. – Rachel Wisniewski / The Washington Post
In 2022 and 2023, Yawgoo was only able to keep one of its six top-to-bottom trails open. Though this winter has been a much better year for snow, the resort’s Outback trail has been closed all season because there hasn’t been enough snow cover to safely open it. Snow tubing, which requires even more snow, has been closed as well.
“Last year was the first year in a long time that we had every single trail open,” Marfeo says.
The variation in winter weather is a direct result of climate change. Rhode Island is the first state in the Lower 48 whose average temperature has risen by more than 2 degrees Celsius since 1895.
And, over the past five years, the pace of New England’s temperature rise has only continued to increase. Researchers Stephen and Joshua Young recently published findings in the journal Climate indicating that southern New England lost over 30 to 40 percent of its snow cover days between 2000 and 2025, one of the fastest declines in the world.
Temperature rise in the Atlantic Ocean and New England’s proximity to the coast are significant factors. Oceans store 90 percent of the excess heat trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere by greenhouse gas emissions.
One study published in the journal PLOS One suggested that all major skiing regions across the world will be affected by the end of this century, with 13 percent of ski areas projected to experience a 100 percent decrease in snow cover days.
Devoted staff runs on ’Goo vibes
A photo of Maxwell deWardener, Tracy Hartman’s father and the previous owner of the resort, in a binder of memorabilia. – Rachel Wisniewski / The Washington Post
Yawgoo Valley opened in 1965. At the time, there were four other ski areas in the state.
Maxwell deWardener was there from the beginning, working as a ski instructor and even helping build the road that leads to the slopes. In 1980, he bought the place.
Tracy Hartman, his daughter, was “basically born here,” she says, performing such jobs as selling lift tickets, taking out the trash and working the resort’s snack bar.
She’s now the CEO. Her husband, Clay, runs the outside operations. Her mother answers the phone in the office.
“If we didn’t work together, we’d never see each other in the wintertime because we’re always here,” Hartman said.
Joel Daglieri, 38, has worked at the resort for 22 years and is now one of their operations managers. His 5-year-old son has already taken three years of snowboarding and one year of skiing lessons.
Danielle D’Andrea, 27, another operations manager, has been at Yawgoo for nine years. For the past two years she’s even convinced her brother Brandon, who lives in Illinois, to fly out for the winter and help on the snowmaking team.
“People call it ‘the ’Goo vibes,” Hartman said, referring to Yawgoo. “There’s a sense of family; there’s a sense of friendship. I can’t even describe how great it is.”
‘It’s definitely getting warmer’
Christine Peterlin takes the chair lift with her son Erich; Yawgoo was the first resort in the state of Rhode Island to have one. – Rachel Wisniewski / The Washington Post
Despite its small size, Yawgoo has cultivated an immense presence in the local community over the past 60 years. Its five-week Learn to Ski program has 1,300 kids enrolled – and a waiting list. The resort has 375 season-pass holders and can sell hundreds of daily passes.
While most of their clientele is local, guests also travel from New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
A large draw is Yawgoo’s price. While lift tickets in nearby Vermont go for over $100, Yawgoo’s weekday admission is just $45.
For many in Rhode Island, Yawgoo is their only opportunity to ski or snowboard. The next closest ski resort is almost two hours away.
“If we weren’t here, these kids would never be exposed to it,” Hartman said. “It’s hard. But when you see everyone having fun, it makes it all worth it.”
A sense of purpose has sustained Yawgoo for decades – but it is also what makes the resort’s future increasingly worrisome as Yawgoo stares down the barrel of climate change.
“You can see it the past couple years. It’s definitely getting warmer,” Marfeo said. “Last year and this year it’s great, but in years prior a lot of people went out to the West Coast because it was colder out there; they had a ton of snow.”
Tracy Hartman, CEO of Yawgoo Valley Ski Area, was “basically born here,” she says. – Rachel Wisniewski / The Washington Post
Though Hartman and Daglieri see it, too, they try to focus on the positive. They relish the relationships they’ve built with the staff and the community. They enjoy the challenge of running a small business, where every day brings a new experience.
They also hit the slopes when they can.
“At some point, it’s going to go away. I don’t know when – my crystal ball’s broken,” Daglieri said. “For the time being, it just seems to work out.”
Michael Dignan helps his 1-year-old nephew Joseph Invencion ski for the first time. – Rachel Wisniewski / The Washington Post
Yawgoo customers hope that things will continue to work out. Just the other day, Hartman said, a young skier called their office and made them promise they’d be open for a “very, very long time.”
“If the scientists are right and this is really going away, that’s so scary,” Hartman said. “We’d be losing a whole way of life.”
