2023-24 Colorado resorts, conditions, and meetups

[marzNC]

A couple articles with pics of opening days in Colorado in the last couple weeks.

November 13, 2023

Copper Mountain Resort kicks off 2023-24 ski season with bluebird conditions and groomed runs

Copper Mountain Resort celebrated its first day of the 2023-24 ski season on Monday, Nov. 13, with groomed runs and bluebird conditions. With one of its central base area lifts, American Eagle, now spinning from...

www.summitdaily.com

November 10, 2023

Vail Mountain opens for 2023-24 ski season with a few new features

Skiers and snowboarders approaching Gondola One during Vail Mountain’s Opening Day celebration on Friday might have noticed the ticket scanners standing farther out in the streets than normal. The move was done, in part, to...

www.vaildaily.com

 

[marzNC]

ABasin opened up a second lift this weekend.

November 18, 2023

Lenawee Express Opens Late Afternoon

The snowmakers are done and clear of the trail. The cat drivers are putting the finishing touches on the snow. The ski patrollers are string...

arapahoebasin.blogspot.com

 

[marzNC]

Looking much better for Colorado this weekend.

Since my first ski days will be at Wolf Creek, happy to see it in the center of a deep snow area.

 

[pamplemoose]

I'm driving up to Denver for a course December 9-10, and was thinking of hanging out for an extra day or two if anyone is around to ski during the week that Monday or Tuesday. I would be down to go anywhere that has snow!

 

[shadoj]

Hi Colorado folks,
Very good chance I'll be in the Grand Junction area visiting family (the main reason) ~Jan 6-11th. Will likely ski Powderhorn one of those days, and would love to run into any Divas. @RachelV mentioned checking out Sunlight (on the Indy Pass) in the Carbondale/Glenwood Springs area this year; not sure if I'll be able to squeeze that in or not due to transportation, but wanted to put the dates out there for anyone making plans

 

[marzNC]

Colorado has a lot of mountains with destination resorts and day trip ski areas. The range for snow depth for a given storm system varies quite a bit. The latest storm favored the southern mountains.

Wolf Creek is looking good!

November 25, 2023

A list of snowfall totals, plus a little more snow on Saturday | Colorado Daily Snow Forecast | OpenSnow

As of Saturday morning, snow totals range from just 1 inch to 22 inches, with the deepest accumulations in the southern...

opensnow.com

" . . .
Below are the snow totals as of Saturday [Nov. 25] as of 6 am:

Northern Mountains

7” Eldora
4” Beaver Creek
3” Steamboat
3” Vail
2” Keystone
2” Loveland
1” A-Basin
1” Breckenridge
1” Copper
1” Cooper
1” Winter Park

Central Mountains

10” Schofield Pass
7” Crested Butte
6” Irwin
6” Powderhorn (estimate, maybe more)
3” Aspen Highlands
3” Aspen Mountain
3” Monarch
2” Buttermilk
2” Snowmass

Southern Mountains

22” Wolf Creek
15” Silverton (estimate)
13” Purgatory
7” Red Mountain Pass
5” Telluride
. . ."

 

[RachelV]

Well, it's finally feeling wintery up in Summit County, but it's still skiing pretty early season conditions-wise. We definitely need a good storm or two to get a lot more terrain open. Looking fairly dry in the 10-day forecast sadly, but at least it's cold up high now.

Still hard to beat being outside in the mountains on a beautiful day, even when the skiing is mediocre.

Looking north towards Loveland Pass:


Looking south, Keystone on the right and Breck peeking over the ridge just right of the middle:

 

[marzNC]

Wolf Creek is open for 7-day operations.

The Alberta and Charity Jane lifts will open this week. Midweek they aren't running all the lifts, but that makes sense given how few people are around early in the week in general. With two snowstorms forecast in the next couple weeks, looking good for my friends and I who will be skiing WCSA the week of Dec. 11 for the third year in a row.

 

[marzNC]

The first big storm for northern Colorado delivered plenty of snow with high winds over a few days.

December 4, 2023

List of total snowfall, and when we'll see the next storm | Colorado Daily Snow Forecast | OpenSnow

Sunday was a windy and snowy day across the northern mountains with 10+ inch snow totals for many spots and wind gusts of...

opensnow.com

". . .
Storm total snowfall from Thursday through Monday morning looks like this, with each number to the right of the total showing the snowfall as of Friday morning, Saturday morning, Sunday morning, and Monday morning.

Northern Mountains

26” (2+6+1+17) Winter Park
24” (2+7+7+8) Steamboat via Snow Stake cam (officially 33” = 3+7+10+13)
23” (3+6+4+10) Copper
22” (5+5+3+9) Vail
21” (4+4+3+10) Breckenridge
20” (0+2+5+13) Eldora
15” (0+3+6+6) Keystone
14” (1+2+3+8) Loveland
12” (1+2+4+5) A-Basin
11” (3+3+1+4) Beaver Creek
11” (3+2+2+2) Cameron Pass
7” (1+1+1+4) Cooper

Central Mountains

30” (6+15+2+7) Irwin
23” (4+7+10+2) Monarch
20” (1+5+9+5) Crested Butte
11” (4+4+2+1) Aspen Highlands
11” (4+4+2+1) Aspen Mountain
11” (4+4+2+1) Buttermilk
11” (4+4+2+1) Snowmass
9” (3+5+1+0) Powderhorn

Southern Mountains

22” (6+14+1+1) Telluride
18” (8+4+2+4) Red Mountain Pass (low confidence)
17” (4+12+1+0) Wolf Creek
13” (2+7+4+0) Purgatory
. . ."

 

[marzNC]

About a year ago I decided to check out Winter Park on the way to Wolf Creek in early Dec. With the recent dump, I'm starting to understand why planning an early season trip to WP is not an unreasonable option but not really a sure thing either. I waited until late Nov when was clear that Mary Jane would be open before booking lodging for Dec 9-11, 2022. I had some flexibility because I was driving to Colorado with a ski buddy.

@Amie H also did an early season trip to WP last year.

Winter Park Nov 2022

Thanks to info from @IceHeeler I decided to head to Winter Park today. Per her advice, I parked near the cabriolet ($10 fee) but did walk through to base, which wasn't horrible, and on the way back I used one of the free wagons to haul my gear. It was COLD. At the top of the gondola, the liftie...

www.theskidiva.com

As of Dec. 4, 2023, WP doesn't have much terrain open yet.

 

[skibum4ever]

We are waiting for terrain updates before we decide among Mammoth (no snow but a lot of trails open), Utah, and Colorado.

 

[Amie H]

@marzNC interesting side note: of all my posted YouTube ski vids, Winter Park elicited the most questions from viewers. I got a funny one the other day: "Is there an area we can just walk up with our boards at WP instead of paying $125 lift ticket, because we only want to be out there 2 hours."

 

[marzNC]

@marzNC interesting side note: of all my posted YouTube ski vids, Winter Park elicited the most questions from viewers. I got a funny one the other day: "Is there an area we can just walk up with our boards at WP instead of paying $125 lift ticket, because we only want to be out there 2 hours."

They should just go to Eldora. Or Hoedown Hill.

August 2023

With 130 Vertical Feet & 4 Carpets, Hoedown Hill, Colorado Is Set to Be America’s Newest Ski Area

“We are planning for big crowds.”

www.stormskiing.com

 

[RachelV]

Well... things continue to be below average in Summit County. I do think they're doing a little better just west of here at Vail and Beaver Creek... they've gotten a bit more over there in most storms so far this season.

Not looking too optimistic for a turnaround anytime soon:



The good news for Diva West is that one of the few places in Colorado bucking the trend is ~*~ STEAMBOAT ~*~. Shaping up to be skiing great by the time we get there so far!

 

[marzNC]

The variation in snow fall from the last storm to hit Colorado was impressive. Steamboat won for sure with 27 inches. Beaver Creek got 13 inches and Vail came up with 10 inches. Wolf Creek got 10 inches. Apparently Joel of OpenSnow had a good time skiing there with his family after the storm finished.

From OpenSnow on Dec. 25, 2023

 

[MissySki]

Well... things continue to be below average in Summit County. I do think they're doing a little better just west of here at Vail and Beaver Creek... they've gotten a bit more over there in most storms so far this season.

Not looking too optimistic for a turnaround anytime soon:

View attachment 22116

The good news for Diva West is that one of the few places in Colorado bucking the trend is ~*~ STEAMBOAT ~*~. Shaping up to be skiing great by the time we get there so far!

View attachment 22117

Lucky us, hope it keeps up! Can’t wait!

 

[Amie H]

I'm nervously watching Beaver Creek's snow reports/trail status reports daily. Thus far most of the terrain I love so much - including the "ski in" to my hotel - is CLOSED :(

Sadly the next few days look melt-y, high 30s/low 40s. HOPING for a blowout snowstorm the 1st week of January!

I took trip insurance and truthfully may cancel the whole thing if conditions don't improve or deteriorate. I'm hopeful, though. *fingers triple crossed*

 

[TrixieRuby]

I just returned from a 5 day trip to Steamboat--the first day, the 22nd, was spotty, but the resort did a good job with snowmaking and we were happy all day. The next 4 days it snowed non-stop, gently, with light dry snow, and we had a great time. Steamboat got lucky! And, by the way, I highly recommend the Bear Claw Condos--we had a three bedroom, on the 2nd floor of Bear Claw II, with excellent ski in ski out access, a hot tub and pool, a bar, dryng racks for boots, laundry, and more. Great spot!

 

[RachelV]

Well, what A-Basin has open is skiing pretty good, but there's not that much open for late December. It's thin - the bottoms of my skis are officially a disaster. Luckily this doesn't really bother me.

Top of Slalom Slope and a small portion of the West Wall is all that's open from the Pali chair. The rest of the Pali terrain looks maybe 1 or 2 good snows away from opening.



They've got the pod of trails below the new Steilhang Hut (what I've been affectionately calling the sausage hut) open, but that's more or less it for Lenawee Face. Fun skiing, but thin!



tl;dr - you can have a fun 2-3 hours at A-Basin right now if you don't mind sacrificing your bases.

 

[marzNC]

Probably not many area Divas have skied Hesperus, but sorry to report that it won't be open at all for 2023-24. Heard from a ski buddy (Bill) who likes to spend a day there every so often about the lift problem. With only one lift that can't be repaired quickly, Hesperus won't be open at all, including for folks who weren't planning on riding the lift and just hiking for their turns.

December 27, 2023

Mechanical Failure Closes Colorado's Hesperus Resort For 2023-2024 Season​

Bighorn Chairlift Gearbox Busted

https://www.powder.com/region-colorado/mechanical-failure-closes-colorados-hesperus-resort-for-2023-2024-season

View of Hesperus, right next to US160, driving from Taos to Telluride in February 2018