Late last month, on the first cool evening in a while, the sunset cast long shadows over Keystone Canyon. It was the perfect time for an after-work spin.
Will Boyer was there to ride his mountain bike. On that day, the trails were still in good shape. But once they bake in the sun for a few weeks, he said, the dirt gets loose and harder to ride.
“Sometime during the summer you get to that one day where you're out, and you're like, ‘Oh my gosh, I'm just riding through a trench of dust.’” Boyer said. “I'm hoping that we get some monsoon moisture coming in.”
After a season that saw the lowest peak snowpack on record, those dusty conditions could be right around the corner.
As climate change intensifies, studies show that winters are warming faster than other seasons across much of the U.S. The impact on sports like skiing and snowboarding is obvious: Less snow means less time on the slopes. But winter warming also has year-round effects.
According to Nevada State climatologist Baker Perry, Western states saw what’s called a snow drought last winter, as high temperatures caused more precipitation than usual to fall as rain.
“The winter was terrible from a water resource perspective, from a snow perspective,” he said.
Normally, Nevada relies on mountain snow to gradually melt and provide water throughout the year. But when precipitation falls as rain, it runs off much more quickly.
That’s led to critically dry conditions across the state. According to recent data from the U.S. Drought Monitor, all of the state is rated at least “abnormally dry,” with around 75% of Nevada experiencing full-on drought conditions.
“It's not just the snow drought that we're coming off of. It's not just the record warmth in the winter that we experienced. It's not just the record warmth in March, but all of these things compound,” Perry said.
According to Curtis Johnson, though, having a dry winter wasn’t all bad.
“Actually, dry conditions in the wintertime for us means a longer building season,” he explained.
Johnson is president of the Biggest Little Trail Stewardship. The nonprofit maintains trails around the Truckee Meadows, including Peavine Peak’s extensive singletrack network. It’s also raising funds to rebuild a shade structure at Sierra Vista Park, which burned down last year.
Johnson said ideal trail-building conditions are usually in the spring and fall, when there’s just enough moisture in the soil to allow it to fully pack down. During a normal winter, rain and snow turn trails into sticky, peanut butter-like mud that takes on deep ruts, while the dusty conditions of peak summer present their own challenges.
“Right now, you bring that dry soil back into the trail, and people ride through it or walk through it, and just poof! It's gone,” he said.
But while last year’s dry conditions meant more time to work on trails during the winter, Johnson could lose some days later in the year if the hills keep drying out. For example, if officials issue a red flag warning, crews can’t use power tools.
Red flag conditions occur when high temperatures coincide with low humidity and strong wind. It’s a dangerous combination that drives up the risk of large fires — and smoky skies that can linger for weeks.
That was the case in 2022, when the Mosquito Fire burned 76,788 acres west of Lake Tahoe and blanketed Reno-Sparks with dense smoke.
Boyer said on hot days, he hits the trail early in the morning to beat the heat. But if the air quality’s bad, he can’t ride at all.
“Oh man, brutal topic,” he said. “When there was, like, a couple smoky years in a row, I was actually even considering if Reno was a place that I would want to live long term.”
It’s still yet to be seen if 2026 will bring more catastrophic wildfires. Perry said the snow drought means the risk is elevated, but El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean could also bring heavy rain.
“We have higher ocean temperatures that can oftentimes result in higher moisture and water vapor content in the atmosphere,” he said. “More moisture that's available in the atmosphere can certainly, at times, result in wetter extremes.”
Weather in the Eastern Sierra is notoriously hard to predict. But if that pattern develops, it could mean trail users like Boyer get what they want.
“The perfect condition is not immediately after a rain, it’s like, after the rain, and then 10 other people rode the trail,” he said. “‘Brown pow,’ as some people call it.”
