• Women skiers, this is the place for you -- an online community without the male-orientation you'll find in conventional ski magazines and internet ski forums. At TheSkiDiva.com, you can connect with other women to talk about skiing in a way that you can relate to, about things that you find of interest. Be sure to join our community to participate (women only, please!). Registration is fast and simple. Just be sure to add [email protected] to your address book so your registration activation emails won't be routed as spam. And please give careful consideration to your user name -- it will not be changed once your registration is confirmed.

3 Colorado Resorts Close Because of TOO MUCH SNOW!

ski diva

Administrator
Staff member
From SKI Magazine:

A third resort in the state is closed for business after getting blasted with 15 inches in the last 24 hours, and 30 inches over the last three days. Arapahoe Basin announced it was shutting the mountain down on Tuesday afternoon due to avalanche concerns and road safety on both Loveland Pass and Highway 6.

cbmr_6jpg.jpg

In the white room at Crested Butte, which closed on Monday due to too much pow.

Down south, skiers intending to hit Monarch Mountain on Tuesday morning woke to the news that it would not be running its lifts. With Monarch Pass closed, employees could not get to the resort. Both of these come after Crested Butte closed on Monday citing dangerous on-mountain conditions for guests and employees. Snow totals for CB are sitting at 30 inches in the last two days and nearly five-and-a-half feet in the last week.
 

bounceswoosh

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
*confused* Truck has chains ... how can he be stranded while pizza guy is not?

Also, love the shorts.
 

Little Lightning

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
*confused* Truck has chains ... how can he be stranded while pizza guy is not?

Also, love the shorts.
He was waiting for Vail Pass to open. We breezed through to Copper this morning because I-70 was closed at the tunnel. Truckers waiting for Vail Pass to open were lined up all along the chain up area, shoulders on I-70, Highway 91 and we think in Coppers Far East Lot.
 

skibetty

Certified Ski Diva
Crazy!!! Who would ever have thought that a ski resort would have to close due to too much snow!! Keeping fingers crossed that I can make it up tomorrow!!
 

Little Lightning

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Crazy!!! Who would ever have thought that a ski resort would have to close due to too much snow!! Keeping fingers crossed that I can make it up tomorrow!!
https://arapahoebasin.blogspot.com/...m.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
Copper was great today although we heard some upper lifts were closed. We stayed on the Timberline lift due to high winds. If you make it you will have awesome conditions.
Temperatures have been very warm the last couple of days. 39 Monday morning at 7 am. With the heavy snow and high winds there have been numerous avalanches around the county. CDOT kept 70 closed until they were sure there would be no more slides. Vail Pass didn't open until early afternoon and Silverthorne to the tunnel was still closed at 3:00.
Not sure what the forecast for tomorrow is but check road conditions before you leave. It would be frustrating to miss the first session. I was always amazed how the women made it up for WW when conditions seemed so bad. Also, there should be someone from ski school to hook you up with the group if you're late. Good luck with the drive.
 

Christy

Angel Diva
This is a good winter for a lot of places. Even Sun Valley is getting a lot of snow. The animal shelter there, where we got our dog, is sending desperate emails asking for people to come and help dig them out. Mission Ridge, which is on the dry eastern slopes of the Cascades and never gets real storms, got 39" in 24 hours recently, and they were not set up to deal with it. They opened but it took a while to dig out. (They also had to post messages saying, this is not a joke). Here it's been one storm after the next since Thanksgiving. Good stuff!
 

Christy

Angel Diva
Scrolling through my Facebook feed this morning my Portland friends are posting a foot of snow in the city, which is insane for them.
 

Christy

Angel Diva
And Sun Valley got another 16 inches in the last 24 hours. 27.5 I the last 72. That's not an insane amount for Alta or a PNW ski area, but it is for them. Can't wait for our next trip in a couple weeks. Maybe this is the year to do an early spring trip there--usually the snow melts pretty fast but I have a feeling it's gonna last a little longer this year…
 

Christy

Angel Diva
Are the highways in Colorado not usually prone to avalanches/in slide paths, but with the volume of snow right now they are?
 

Little Lightning

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Are the highways in Colorado not usually prone to avalanches/in slide paths, but with the volume of snow right now they are?
Yes, some highways in the state are prone to avalanches. They even have the chutes named so they know where to work. However, CDOT is being stretched very thin right now because snow pack in all areas of the state are above average.
 

bounceswoosh

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Are the highways in Colorado not usually prone to avalanches/in slide paths, but with the volume of snow right now they are?

CDOT bombs regularly, but I don't ever remember I-70 being blocked for avalanches. Berthoud Pass (on the way to Winter Park) does have avalanches that block traffic pretty regularly.
 

Little Lightning

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
The section of I-70 known as the narrows going into Vail is an avalanche zone but CDOT blasts there regularly. We've been stopped for blasting. This avalanche was natural caused by warm weather and heavy snow. Here's what 9 news is saying about it.
https://www.9news.com/traffic/avalanche-blocks-i-70-on-vail-pass/384711537
Loveland Pass has been closed all week. However, it's unusual for the road up to A-Basin to be closed this long. I also don't remember avalanches around Eisenhower Tunnel.
Wasn't there a huge avalanche back in the early 2000's that took out a lot of vehicles east of the tunnel?
 

Jilly

Moderator
Staff member
SnowHot saying on FB, that Northstar is closed because of weather and power issues.
 

Little Lightning

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I did some searching. There are 2 doz. + avalanche chutes along the I-70 corridor between Denver and Vail. In March of 03, 10 ft of snow fell causing 2 avalanches on I-70 east of Eisenhower tunnel. On New Year's Eve in 07, 2,000 travelers were stranded in Silverthorne due to I-70 being closed due to avalanche danger.

https://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/10/avalanches-close-colorado-mountain-roads/ Pretty scary experience for the truck driver.
 

Little Lightning

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I did some searching. There are 2 doz. + avalanche chutes along the I-70 corridor between Denver and Vail. A couple of highlights. In March of 03, 10 ft. of snow fell causing 2 avalanches on I-70 east of Eisenhower tunnel. On New Year's Eve in 07, 2,000 travelers were stranded in Silverthorne due to I-70 being closed due to avalanche danger.
Vail avalanche Monday night.
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/10/avalanches-close-colorado-mountain-roads/ Pretty scary experience for the truck driver.
Okay, now it all makes sense. It just didn't seem like a big enough storm to be causing this kind of havoc. It's not like CO doesn't know how to deal with snow. So the Ski Magazine headline isn't really what happened.
Correct! CDOT does an amazing job keeping the roads open.
 
Last edited:

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
26,235
Messages
497,602
Members
8,503
Latest member
MermaidKelly
Top