Utah Business -- Salt Lake City - The Utah ski and snowboard industry closed the 2012-13 winter season Memorial Day weekend with a total of 4,031,621 skier day visits, up more than 5 percent from the previous season's 3,826,130. The industry ending above four million visits for the sixth time in the last eight years, a significant increase after the lackluster 2011-12 season, which was down 9.4 percent from the 2010-11 season.

Early season storms helped meet the pent-up demand for snow sport enthusiasts and started the season out strong. Although the season snowfall was below average, the total snowfall exceeded the previous season's low totals.

Ski Utah is confident that awareness and demand for the Utah winter sports is continuing on a positive trajectory. Utah skier day visits for 2012-13 performed better than the Rocky Mountain (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming) average increase of 1.9 percent.

"Utah ski and snowboard resorts did an outstanding job getting the word out on early season snow," said Ski Utah President Nathan Rafferty. "Even when the storms slowed, new and upgraded snowmaking systems ensured that all of the resorts had exceptional snow all winter."

Nationally, skier day visits were up to 56.6 million, up 11 percent from 51 million the previous season. This is the biggest rebound in 30 years with visits up in all regions.

Total Utah statewide skier days for the past 10 years are as follows: