Summit County Opens the 2016/17 Ski Season

Summit County is officially open for the 2016/17 Ski Season!

Arapahoe Basin opened for the season on Friday, October 21^st and started turning the Black Mountain Express lift at 9 a.m.

A-Basin was the first ski resort to open in North America for the 2016/17 ski season. It was only closed for 131 days with the last day of the prior season being Friday, June 12^th.

A-Basin began making snow on October 3^rd and made the decision to open on Friday with an 18-inch deep base of snow.  The earliest A-Basin has ever opened was an October 8^th opening.

Loveland Ski Area – neighbor to A-Basin, typically opens around the same time. They were slotted to open this coming weekend (10/28) but due to warmer temps, have been unable to make enough snow to open.

The rest of Colorado’s ski areas typically open the first week of November or just before Thanksgiving. Keystone is shooting for a Nov. 4 opening while Breckenridge and Copper Mountain plan to open for the season on Nov. 11th. Winter Park Resort is planning to start its lifts Nov. 16, and Vail is slated to open Nov. 18.

This ski and snowboard season comes after a record year in the 2015/16 during which Colorado’s resorts saw more than 13 million visitors. That was up from about 12 million in 2014/15.  There are high hopes of maintaining the upward trend this year.

See you on the slopes!

Local Resort Openings:

• Nov. 4 – Keystone Resort & Wolf Creek Ski Area
• Nov. 11 – Breckenridge Ski Resort
 & Copper Mountain
• Nov. 16 – Winter Park Resort
• Nov. 18 – Vail
 Resort & Eldora Mountain Resort
• 
Nov. 23 – Beaver Creek Mountain