DENVER - Seven Colorado ski resorts — Wolf Creek, Eldora, Snowmass, Crested Butte, Keystone, Telluride and Steamboat — are set to close for the season Sunday, with many of those closures coming earlier than planned.
Officials for Crested Butte and Eldora told Denver7 that although it is sad to see the season end, they're not looking at the 2025-2026 season in a bad light.
Despite not getting as much snow as they would have liked, officials at both resorts are looking back at the good that came with the season.
"Was it the deep powder year that we always want, as skiers and snowboarders? No, but it was really fun, and we had a blast," Eldora Marketing and Communications Director Sam Bass told Denver7's Tyler Melito.
Bass said this season gave a great opportunity for people to get out who may not normally.
"We saw really high — higher than normal — visitation levels from our own pass holders," he said. "They were coming more frequently and so that we consider a big, a big success."
Over at Crested Butte, Communications Directory Katie Lyons said the team stepped up to the challenge this winter to provide the best experience.
"One thing that I think really stuck out was, despite these challenging conditions, our mountain operations team did an absolutely incredible job getting terrain open on this mountain," Lyons said.
Mountains
Colorado ski resorts announce closing dates — with many coming early
Crested Butte received roughly 20 inches of snow earlier this week.
"We were super surprised to see this much snowfall. Felt like a very fitting April Fool's kind of joke," Lyons shared.
But that snow was not enough to fix disturbing drought numbers in the latest report by the Western Regional Climate Center released Thursday.
The report found more than 4 million Coloradans are being affected in some fashion by drought conditions. More than 21.5% of the state is in the highest drought category, known as exceptional drought. Compared to this time last year, no one in Colorado was in the same category.
Bass told me even if Eldora had received some snow this week, they would have needed a lot more.
"Because of the melt out, the rapid melt out that we saw over the last few weeks — even if we'd gotten, you know, eight or 10 inches, it probably wouldn't have made that much of a difference," Bass said. "We probably would have needed, you know, three 30-inch storms in a row."
Both resorts are looking back at this year as a learning experience.
"This was a season for the books in a lot of ways, and we're grateful that we were able to make it happen," Lyons said.
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