OpenSnow forecasters give some clues about when and why the big snow falls at Colorado ski areas
Keystone Resort
Posted inOutdoors
Vail Resorts sees uptick in skier traffic over last year’s record showing — but not in Colorado
The company’s five resorts here are seeing mellow traffic despite well-above-average snowpacks
Posted inBusiness
Vail Resorts rebounds from pandemic, labor struggles with best-ever financial performance in 2022
The largest resort operator in North America reported a record 17.3 million skier visits and $2.5 billion in revenue for its fiscal 2022
Posted inOutdoors
Bull moose dies at Keystone ski area after getting tangled in snowmaking electrical cords
Colorado Parks and Wildlife is working with Keystone and Vail Resorts on ways to better protect wildlife after what agency spokesman called “a unique, highly rare” incident
Posted inNews
Forest Service OKs Vail Resorts plan to restore Keystone tundra. But expanded terrain’s opening will be delayed.
The U.S. Forest Service is allowing Vail Resorts to continue building a new lift at Keystone after the company submitted a plan to repair tundra damaged by a temporary road that extended beyond permitting boundaries. But the monthlong delay in construction will prevent the resort from opening new terrain in Bergman Bowl by this winter. White […]
Posted inNews, Outdoors
Forest Service halts new Keystone chairlift after resort mistakenly builds road in protected tundra
The U.S. Forest Service has halted construction of a new lift in Keystone after the resort mistakenly built a temporary road in protected alpine tundra. Keystone has Forest Service permission to build a road to the bottom of its new Bergman Bowl chairlift and a temporary road higher in the bowl to access lift towers. […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Economy, Environment, News, Outdoors, Water
Climate change is eroding work to clean up the Snake River. Is Summit County snowmaking making it worse?
KEYSTONE – The Snake River wends through this resort village, rushing streamside condos, beckoning anglers to cast after rainbow trout and, at some point in the year, funneling into equipment Keystone ski area uses to make snow. But a few miles upstream, the river is a braid of smaller streams that scour a mineral-rich basin […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Outdoors, Outsider
Epic crowds are colliding with epic labor shortages at ski areas
Alex Kaufman thought it would be an amusing website. Something to poke fun at the largest resort operator in North America. So he bought epicliftlines.com for $12 last March, just as Vail Resorts announced a plan to slash the price of its popular Epic Pass by 20%. “I thought ‘Oh, this could become a thing. […]
Posted inNews, Outdoors
3 ski areas in Colorado are vying to be first to open
Three Front Range ski areas vying for the annual distinction of being the first to open for the season could begin snowmaking operations very soon. They just need Mother Nature to cooperate. In 15 of the past 20 years, at least one of those areas — Arapahoe Basin, Loveland and Keystone — has opened during […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Outdoors
Ski patrollers at Breckenridge vote 43-42 to unionize
Ski patrollers at Breckenridge have voted to unionize. By one vote. The 43-42 vote announced this week on the National Labor Relations Board website adds Breckenridge to a growing list of ski areas with unionized patrollers. Patrollers in Crested Butte, Steamboat, Telluride, Utah’s Park City and Washington’s Stevens Pass are part of the United Professional […]