Colorado Colorado late season lift served options

[MadPatSki]

Hi everyone,

My busy coaching season is almost over and I'm trying to see what are my options of a Colorado ski safari trip (never been outside October). As always, I need to navigate around April event calendar at home and fit a 10-14 day ski trip.

Besides A-Basin, how late or when do Colorado ski areas generally close? I know it is often dictated by the date on the calendar that snow.

 

[VickieH]

Copper's last day is scheduled for April 19

 

[PinnacleJim]

Loveland and Breck.

 

[ForeverSki]

Breck regular season ends April 19th. Extended season out of Peak 8 starts April 20th and goes through Memorial Day. It was out of Peak 7 last year. I wasn’t good enough to ski the high Alpine terrain, but was completely fine with skiing the blue trails off the Pioneer lift. Expectedly, it got slushy & choppy by noon.

 

[jmeb]

Loveland plans to stay open til May 10th. Typically the area is almost fully open save some of the south facing steeps below treeline.

April is a far better ski time than October. Occasional big storms and regular corn cycles. The key to spring skiing is planning your day around terrain's aspect and elevation to maximize good skiing conditions.

 

[coskigirl]

Mary Jane has been open into early May of late. https://www.winterparkresort.com/the-mountain/hours-of-operation

 

[Nathanvg]

Most of the major areas close on the 12th or the 19th or April. After that WP and Loveland close in early/mid May with abasin and breck going until at least memorial day. Aspen sometimes opens up for weekends in May too. Some areas go to weekend or Fri-Su only operations in May/June (varies year to year)

 

[Green08]

For Breck:

Before April 20 expect most other peaks to be open, certainly Peak 6 & 7

After May 3, anticipate the gondola to be closed, and busses being used to get skiers from parking to the base area on Peak 8

 

[TexasStout]

I'm planning a late April trip to CO, skiing the 24th-26th. I plan on skiing high Alpine at Breck, also Loveland and A Basin.
Fingers crossed they are still open and not affected by the virus panic.

 

[oswaldr2]

This isn't all the resorts, but covers most of them.

Colorado Ski Resorts' Closing Dates

We are unfortunately approaching the end of the Winter 2019-2020 ski season. Most resorts in Colorado have at least a month or more left, but closing day

unofficialnetworks.com

 

[mikel]

I'm planning a late April trip to CO, skiing the 24th-26th. I plan on skiing high Alpine at Breck, also Loveland and A Basin. Fingers crossed they are still open and not affected by the virus panic.

I'm thinking the only way they won't be open is if they run out of toilet paper. I say that half in jest and half serious. If any place were to close early, just guessing, it would probably be Keystone. They have a bit more than just worrying about the 1 case of the virus that skied there.

 

[Jim Kenney]

Last year we had the early May 2019 PugSki Gathering at Arapahoe Basin and conditions were absolutely superb spring ski conditions with the mtn virtually 100% open. I also skied Breck one day on that occasion and it had some fine high alpine cruising and single black offpiste slopes open. Between the two, there was plenty of double black diamond terrain open at A-Basin and plenty of relaxing high elevation groomers and open snow fields at Breck. Very satisfying mix of terrain between the two. That was an exceptional snow year, this year has not quite matched. Sometimes by May A-Basin will close their premier mogul terrain (Pali chair) due to wet slab avi concerns. If you throw in Loveland, there is potential for a tremendous variety of late season skiing for a visitor to this part of CO in a good snow year or even a decent one like 2020.
Breck May 2019, this was the first of supposedly many future seasons when they will stay open this late, and the place was empty:


A-Basin May 2019:

 

[mikel]

I took a break from A Basin a few days and went to Breck last season. Same price, fraction of the crowds, and tons easier parking. Yes the gondola stopped running when the Breck official season ended. They ran the bus and had a rep get on and give a quick briefing on being prepared to only have the upper mountain open. It was basically the no beginner terrain speech.

This was the bottom of Peak 7 on June 8th last season. Peak 6 didn't make it until June. Close though. On the couple of days I was there no "hike to" terrain was open. Independence up and over to the Tbar. From there up and traverse across. Snow up there was good. White Crown was sort of groomed. As @ForeverSki pointed out the lower runs did get soft by lunch time.

All pics are from June 8th. Notice how crowded it was. I wish I could compare it to A basin on the same day.

Bottom of 7




I think this is Angel's but not 100% sure. I'm not familiar with the trails but you can see what @ForeverSki was talking about. Everyone was up higher.



Just as a reference I took a pic of the fence to show how deep the snow still was in the higher terrain. This south of Pioneer I think close to Forget me Not

 

[MadPatSki]

Thanks for the info.

Right on I'm also looking at the Coronavirus situation. Things are evolving rapidly so I'll sit out little longer before making a decision.