A pair of popular ski areas have announced they’ll open on Saturday, Nov. 2 following some late-October snow and sustained cold in the high country.
Both Keystone and Arapahoe Basin – two neighboring resorts who vie to be Colorado’s first to open every year – made the announcement on Thursday.
A-Basin will technically open first at 8:30 a.m. Saturday. Keystone says it will load its first gondola and chair lift at 9 a.m.
Keystone’s website was reporting 8 inches of snow over the seven days leading up to Thursday. A-Basin had documented wet bulb temperatures (a measure of temperature that takes humidity into account) as low as 10 degrees this week, allowing for successful snowmaking.
“We still have some more snow to make and [snowcat operator Scott Buell] will be busy up until Saturday morning,” read a post on A-Basin chief operating officer Alan Henceroth’s blog, “but it is time to kick off ski season.”
Keystone and A-Basin, located about five miles apart south of Loveland Pass, would become the second and third Colorado resorts to open. Wolf Creek opened on Oct. 22 thanks to a 21-inch snowstorm over the weekend of Oct. 19-21.
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