The shortest season I've seen is some of those courses in the mountains of North Carolina. I remember stopping through to see Linville on a beautiful fall day with the foliage at peak color ... right about this time of year, actually ... and the course had been closed for a couple of weeks.
The mountains of Colorado are also a short season. When I went to Keystone, the pro was a guy I'd met at his winter job in Florida. I asked him how long he had been there and he said "18 months," and then said "well that's 4 1/2 years, but only 4 months a year".