Sunday was closing day of the ski season at Copper, Breckenridge and Loveland, where dirt was showing in the sun but there were still feet of snow in the shade:
- Breck… 55-inch base (326 inches this season)
- Loveland… 54-inch base (327 inches this season)
- Copper… 44-inch base (340 inches this season… 2nd in Colorado behind Winter Park with 368 inches)
If you couldn’t be there, you can do what we’ve been doing and live vicariously through Instagram. Peak 6 was bumping at Breck. Loveland was still lapping the Ridge Cat. At Copper sleeves were optional, and snow pants just might have been banned.
And now there are two.
That leaves Arapahoe Basin and Mary Jane as the final Colorado ski areas with chairlifts spinning. Mary Jane is open through May 18. A-Basin will go until they can’t. Last season they shut down on June 16.
But your terrain options are shrinking. At A-Basin the Beavers and Pali Chair are finished, and the East Wall is closed for the season due to wet slide activity. Multiple small to medium wet slides have torn through nearby chutes and gullies since May 6-7, when a midweek storm dumped over a foot on the Continental Divide.
Local avalanche danger today is a layer cake, from low (below treeline) to considerable (above treeline). Tread cautiously and end your day early in the high alpine.
Local rivers are filling fast and so is Lake Dillon, rising by more than 10,000 acre-feet of water in just under a month. (One acre foot is equal to a football field of water, one foot deep). In its latest prediction Denver Water did not know when the reservoir will reach capacity, but water forecasters do expect it to fill completely this season. Summit snowpack was the highest in the state this winter.