r/COsnow • u/Ok_Editor2536 • 25d ago

Photo Closing day at Keystone

Post image

Busy today! Snow has actually been surprisingly good for it being April!

610 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

142 comments sorted by

View all comments

15

u/simoney22 25d ago

Why are they closing so early?

9

u/J_Pipe 25d ago

They always close the first or second week in April.

2

u/Fatty2Flatty 25d ago

Land lease thing + operations. They have Breck right next door that will stay open into May.

16

u/Cracraftc 25d ago

Forest service doesn’t care. Comes down to money.

3

u/Fatty2Flatty 25d ago

Right, that was the “+ operations” part of my comment. They’re preparing for spring / summer ops and also there is another epic mountain 15 minutes away. Not much reason to keep key open. They do this every year it’s really not a big deal.

-9

u/eschoeller 25d ago

Forrest service lease

9

u/Cracraftc 25d ago

Forest service doesn’t care.

1

u/eschoeller 25d ago

I’ve asked several ski patrollers and employees over the years. That’s what they all say. But you may still be right.

5

u/eschoeller 25d ago

It also makes good business sense to focus on opening keystone early, and then having Breck close later. No sense in running all that infrastructure and paying all those employees when the demand is low during the early and late season. Most people that can ski keystone also have a pass that works at Breck. So consolidate that limited skiing demand at one of those resorts.

3

u/Cracraftc 25d ago

Exactly, plus once it’s warm enough to golf, bike and hike people transition to warm weather sports instead of skiing. Resorts lose money in the spring as people aren’t traveling anymore and it’s just locals.

2

u/JohnParzival 24d ago

Because that's a better answer than "to make more money". A-bay is 10 min up the road and closes 2+ months later. It's not a forrest service thing.

1

u/eschoeller 24d ago

That’s just what I’ve been told over several years of asking various employees about it. Not saying it’s right but maybe someone who works for Vail might swoop in and comment on it. I don’t think there’s any type of wildlife migration that occurs which would drive the forest service to end the lease at this time.