After one ski season under his belt, Sleeping Giant Ski Area owner Nick Piazza is looking to get ahead of the curve by further investing in his mountain this summer.

“In my businesses, I know things are running well if we’re not talking about things for tomorrow or next week, but we’re talking about things for two months from now,” he said.

Piazza is forgoing the summer zip line season in order to focus on construction efforts for the mountain. Although the zip line has traditionally been the mountain’s biggest money-maker, he said it only makes sense to take a season off and come back in 2022 in a more prepared state.

“It never really got big enough to really solve the issues of the ski season,” he said of the zip line. “So we had to make kind of a bet, and our bet was we really care about the ski season, so why don’t we try to make that the best it can be rather than operate a whole other business and try to learn that again.”

After closing for this season, a group of smaller ski and snowboard hills along the northern tier of the U.S. Rockies will work toward making improvements that range from new lifts to base area upgrades to snowmaking.

Local hill Sleeping Giant will shut off its two ski lifts at the end of this season, as the non-profit that runs the ski and snowboard mountain can't make ends meet for winter operations.

In the state of Wyoming, the major resorts hang tight to the Tetons in the west, while a host of smaller, town hill-type mountains spread out across much of the western half of the state.

Just a stone’s throw away from the Yellowstone East Gate Entrance in Wyoming, Sleeping Giant Ski Area provides an intimate yet enthralling experience for skiers of almost any level.

It may seem the only movers and shakers in the ski resort industry these days are the mega resorts, with hundreds of ski trails, multi-million dollar base lodges and well-connected regional season pass partnership deals. With the bright optics of these flashy resorts, it's easy to forget the “mom and pop” style ski areas are just as critical for the ski industry’s future.