DILLON — Arapahoe Basin Ski Area officials announced Thursday that the mountain will close for the season June 7. After reopening May 27 following the COVID-19 shutdown, A-Basin Chief Operating Officer Alan Henceroth wrote in his blog post that the ski area is shutting down because of the lack of snow.
“Every season, no matter how hard we try and stop it, the snow still melts,” Henceroth wrote. “… We think Sunday is a good day to close out the season. The snow is almost gone.”
Despite saying open until Fourth of July last year, A-Basin spokeswoman Katherine Fuller said this year’s June closing is not uncommon.
“It fluctuates,” Fuller said. “It’s usually in mid- to late June. June 7 was always the date we were planning for, but considering we made it to July 4th last year, this feels super early.”
Fuller noted that the Pallavicini chairlift’s last day was Sunday, and with the chairlift closure, two runs were closed. On Thursday, A-Basin’s terrain status webpage showed seven runs open on a 19-inch base. When the ski area reopened eight days ago, there were 20 open runs.
The ski area was able to reopen after being closed for more than two months by limiting the number of skiers and snowboarders per day to 600. Henceroth wrote in his blog that he was “bummed” not everyone will have the chance to ski over the course of the 12 days A-Basin will be open.
Fuller noted that the ski area has filled the 600 spots every day but that there was not a system in place to weed out people who already had gotten a reservation for a previous day.
“We know it wasn’t perfect, the demand was extraordinary, and we learned a lot. So this is really paving the way for summer and next fall,” Fuller said.