In ski towns in western Colorado in 2005, risk was everywhere, but in a way that felt exciting. I liked the brag of drinking too much, and I was too naïve to notice harder drugs. Climate change seemed theoretical, and no one I knew had died in the mountains yet.

Corporate entities were just starting to binge-buy resorts while I somehow thought that living in my car was cool and I could exist like that forever.

But myths are complicated things to keep alive, and I eventually left ski towns to work as a writer, already seeing the ski-bum dream changing. I saw friends struggling to build careers, families and community while still chasing the fragile dream that a powder day topped almost everything.

So recently, I went back to see what was going on, to try to track the evolution of what had been my own obsession. I looped through mountain towns across the West, from Aspen to Victor, Idaho and Big Sky, Montana, to assess the current state of ski bums.

What I found was that everyone trying to build a life in those towns was struggling, from my old colleagues who had stuck around and wished they’d bought real estate to “lifties” fresh out of school.

“A lot of people here are living a fantasy I can’t obtain,” said Malachi Artice, a 20-something skier working multiple jobs in Jackson, Wyoming.

At the most basic level, the math just didn’t work. In most mountain towns, it’s now nearly impossible to work a single full-time service job, the kind that resort towns depend on, and afford rent. The pressure shows up in nearly everything, including abysmal mental health outcomes like anxiety and depression.

Ski towns have some of the highest suicide rates in the country, and social services haven’t expanded to meet demand. Racial gaps are also widening in an industry that often depends on undocumented immigrants to fill the poorly paid, but necessary, jobs it takes to keep a tourist town running.

On top of all that, abundant snowfall, the basis of a ski resort’s economy, is getting cooked by climate change.

And sure, you can argue skiing is superficial and unimportant, but ski towns — some of the most elite and economically unequal places in the country — are microcosms for the way our social fabric is splitting.

Ski towns face crucial, complicated questions: Can they build affordable housing and also preserve open space? What happens when health care workers or teachers won’t take jobs because they can’t find a way to live in the community they serve? Will a town willingly curb growth when that’s what supports the tax base?

There are no easy answers because the problems are entrenched in both that slow-moving nostalgia that stymies change, and in the downhill rush of capitalism, which gives power to whoever pays the most: The housing market always tilts toward high-end real estate instead of modestly priced homes for essential workers.

What we value shapes our lives, and so I think we must hold the ski industry to higher standards. If these rarefied places can find ways to support working as well as leisure-based communities, they could serve as lessons for change elsewhere.

During my tour, I saw necessary workers in the ski industry facing hard economic choices, but I also saw positive, community-scale change. In Alta, Utah, for instance, the arts nonprofit Alta Community Enrichment added mental health support when its employees reported an urgent need.

If ski-resort towns are going to survive, the lives of their workers need to matter, and that means caring about them — from affordable housing to accessible mental health support.

Heather Hansman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She is the author of Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns and the Future of Chasing Snow, and lives in Durango.

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No one was injured, and they hope it stays that way for the rest of the winter season.

CAIC has recorded more than two dozen avalanches in Vail and Summit County in the last week.

“Over the next couple of days, we’re going to see probably very few natural avalanches, but there’s still going to be a pretty good chance for human-triggered avalanches,” Ethan Greene, the director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, said.

One concern isn’t just backcountry skiers on avalanche terrain, but also hikers or snowshoers triggering avalanches from below.

Read the full story from our partner at denver7.com.

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And The Denver Post’s readers love to dig into those stories. This year, as always, skiing was one of the top topics of discussion, especially Epic Pass sales and a resort ranking. But hiking and camping were also big, especially when it came to Rocky Mountain National Park.

We also had an unusual sighting, literally, in our top 10. But we’ll let you see that for yourself. Here are our 10 most-read outdoor recreation stories of the year, with the number-one story at the end.

Bad drivers in the backcountry are a big problem

The sheriff in San Miguel County called a group of people who slid off Black Bear Pass in their truck “ass clowns,” which is funny. But the problem is real: More and more people, who lack skills or experience or proper maps, are driving on backcountry roads they can’t handle in Colorado — or simply ignoring closures — resulting in more rescues.

First-of-its-kind hiking permit proposed for Blue Lakes

The gorgeous Blue Lakes in the San Juan Mountains near Telluride have become so crowded in recent years that the U.S. Forest Service wants to require permits just to hike there during the day — as well as to camp. The goal of the plan, which would be the first in Colorado of its kind on forest service land, is to reduce the environmental impact of recreation.

Colorado’s oldest chairlift will be retired at age 70

Sunlight Mountain Resort’s Sunlight chairlift began its long life at Aspen in 1954 before being relocated in 1973. Since then, it has faithfully served skiers at Sunlight. The relic of ski history engineering is still safe, but is scheduled to be put out to pasture this spring.

High-alpine lake is one of Colorado’s most spectacular hikes

Nearly 2,500 feet below the summit of Long’s Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park is a beautiful alpine tarn called Chasm Lake. The 4.2 hike to get there is strenuous, but the steep rock walls soaring into the air above the water make it one of the most beautiful payoffs in Colorado.

Another hassle awaits Rocky Mountain National Park visitors

Rocky Mountain National Park has been feeling the heat. Not only will its busiest campground, Moraine Park, be closed into this summer (see below), but visitation continues to soar, resulting in what will likely be a permanent ticketing system. To make things worse, one of its two Estes Park-area entrances, Fall River, was under construction all summer and fall.

Epic Pass prices increase, early bird on sale for 2023-24 season

Vail Resorts announced its early bird prices in March for this season’s Epic Passes — and Denver Post readers wanted to know all about it. Of course they did. The pass, which includes Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Breckenridge and Crested Butte, is one of the hottest items in Colorado. so the costs, the on-sale dates and every other detail is big news.

Colorado ski resort named the best in North America by website

Magazines, newspapers and websites love to rank things, including ski resorts, and since Colorado has some of the best in the world, they often end up on lists. In March, readers of OnTheSnow, a website, voted Steamboat as North America’s best overall resort.

Campground closure at RMNP could have ripple effect across Colorado

Rocky Mountain National Park’s largest campground, the immensely popular Moraine Park, shut down last summer so it could undergo a major modernization project, meaning 244 fewer sites in the area. That figured to put more pressure on nearby campgrounds in the adjacent and already overloaded national forests. The campground will hopefully reopen in June 2024.

Coloradans may see Northern Lights more often in coming months

Seeing the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, is on a lot of people’s bucket lists. So, how cool would it be to be able to see them from Colorado rather than having to travel to the Arctic? Space weather predictors say there is more of a possibility of that happening in 2024 with increasing solar storm activity — something that happens in an 11-year cycle.

Bigfoot may have been caught on camera from Durango train

In October, a Wyoming couple was looking for elk while riding the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in southwest Colorado when they spotted, well, something that looked like Bigfoot. The story made national news after a video taken by another passenger went viral online. Was it really the famed but elusive cryptid? We’ll let you judge for yourself. See our story, with video, here.

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When Ryan climbs and skis big peaks blanketed in backcountry powder, he sings prayers in his Native language while hoping non-Native skiers and snowboarders understand the need to respect the mountains even as they use them for recreation.

“The ski industry, and the outdoor industry, they need to reconcile with the fact that this whole industry happens on Native land,” Ryan said in a ski film he made in 2022 called Spirit of the Peaks. “They are places that have been deeply related to Indigenous people for so long, and there’s not blame in that statement, but there is responsibility that’s needed on the other side.”

Ryan’s film was produced in conjunction with NativesOutdoors, a Native-owned creative and athletic collective that also has been involved in initiatives with Winter Park Resort, Ryan’s home mountain. Through the collective, Native skiers and artists worked to create art pieces installed on the mountain this year that reflect awareness of the area’s Native heritage, connection to the land and ecology.

At the summit of the mountain is a new monument with a pattern created by Native artists Jordan Craig and Vernan Kee. It depicts prominent mountains in four directions — Longs Peak to the north, Parry Peak to the east, Mount Blue Sky (formerly known as Mount Evans) to the south and Byers Peak to the west — along with a river flowing from them. On the monument is one Ute word, Heniiniini, which means “There is snow on the ground.”

Elsewhere on the mountain, a new snow stake incorporates the same four mountains, rivers flowing from them, and a snow measuring stick with a Native artwork pattern.

“I wrote the initial vision statement as someone who knew all the artists who were going to be working on it, but also as someone who closely knows the community of Winter Park and tried to find that intersection of where the work of the artists and the community intersect,” Ryan, who grew up in the Front Range, said in an interview.

“I do a lot of other work with (Winter Park) to get Native American folks up to experience the mountain through skiing. Less than half of a percent of skiers, according to Snowsports Industry America (an industry trade association) are Native American or Indigenous,” he said. “Increasing that representation starts with having a reflection of ourselves be visible on the mountain, but also the other work Winter Park does to be more accessible to people of all backgrounds.”

Two years ago, Winter Park issued a statement saying it “acknowledges and honors that the land on which we operate today is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Nookhose’iinenno (Arapaho), Tsis tsis’tas (Cheyenne), and Nuuchu (Ute).” That statement also pledged, “We reaffirm and recognize that connection both through our words here and our actions.”

Reverence for the land reflected in the new artworks on the mountain also is a call to environmental sensitivity. Snowmelt at Winter Park drains into the Fraser River, which feeds the Colorado River not far from its headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park.

“All that snowfall is going to provide life to countless ecosystems and communities between here and the Sea of Cortez,” Ryan said. “People through skiing are getting connected to the snowpack, to ecology, and realizing a lot of the things that Native American people have valued about these landscapes for a really long time. To me it’s a place where we can find that commonality around conserving and protecting what is valuable, and at the same time for Native American folks, it represents a potential economic and career space for our people to be in that is more in line with our cultural values. Recreation is far more sustainable than extractive industry.”

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OpenSnow founding meteorologist Joel Gratz predicts 12-30 inches in the northern and central mountains by Monday morning, with the most intense snowfall coming Saturday night through Sunday night. The southern mountains are likely to receive eight to 16 inches, Gratz wrote in his Friday morning forecast.

“Snowfall rates should be intense, the winds will be gusty, it’ll be wonderful to watch the snow, and driving could be difficult during this time as well,” Gratz wrote. “Sunday could be the deepest day for snowfall, but based on winds and limited terrain, Monday could be the better pick for powder as more terrain opens and the winds slow down.”

Vail, Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, Copper Mountain and the Aspen resorts received  3-5 inches overnight. Vail Pass temporarily closed Friday morning, and the men’s World Cup downhill race at Beaver Creek was canceled due to weather. Telluride, which last week delayed its opening until Saturday, received eight inches overnight.

“There is not a lot of terrain open across Colorado as our snowpack is about 50-70% of the median for this date,” Gratz wrote. “Based on the latest forecast data, it looks like the next few days will deliver significant snow totals to the northern two-thirds of the state, and I think there will be a lot more terrain to ride by early next week.”

Gratz predicts gusty winds, intense snowfall and low visibility Saturday night with four to eight inches by early Sunday and more of the same through the day Sunday.

“Sunday is likely to be a wild day across the northern and maybe the central mountains,” Gratz wrote. “Intense snowfall. Gusty winds. Warming temperatures will create thicker snow. Difficult driving conditions due to low visibility from the combination of snow and wind. All central and northern mountains could see another 4-8 inches of snow during the day, and while there will be some powder, the quality of the skiing could be iffy based on strong winds and wind-blown snow. The higher elevations along the divide, and near and north of I-70 (Copper, Breckenridge, Keystone, A-Basin, Loveland, Winter Park, Eldora), could see the most snow as these higher-elevations can do well in these setups with a lot of moisture and warming temperatures.”

The storm should end by Monday morning, which might be a great time to go skiing.

“If all the snow that we’re forecasting comes to fruition, I think Monday could be a day when mountain operations crews clean up a bit, get organized, and could open more terrain,” Gratz wrote. “The potentially thicker snow quality from Sunday, due to the stronger winds and warming temperatures, may be just what we need to create a thicker base and help a lot more terrain become ridable across the state. In the backcountry, be mindful of avalanche risk, which is always heightened with new snow and strong winds.”

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In a deal that has been in the works for several months, Vail Resorts will purchase an 84-percent ownership stake in Remontées Mécaniques Crans Montana Aminona SA, the company that controls and operates the lifts and supporting mountain operations at Crans-Montana.

The purchase is part of an ongoing growth strategy which is simultaneously focused on both European acquisitions and a reduction of the company’s net-operating footprint, Vail Resorts CEO Kirsten Lynch said in a statement issued Thursday.

“Our acquisition of the resort aligns to our growth strategy of expanding our resort network in Europe, creating even more value for our pass holders and guests around the world,” Lynch said in the statement.

Read the full story at our partner, Vail Daily.

The internet has changed that, of course. Now, snow stakes often serve as marketing tools, even celebrities, for some resorts. Most have webcams focused on them around the clock so powder hounds can see for themselves how much snow has fallen. Several have time-lapse capability.

At the other extreme is Arapahoe Basin’s ultra-humble snow stake, which actually has no stake at all, and is decidedly old school in keeping with the vibe of a 77-year-old ski area nicknamed The Legend. It doesn’t have a measuring device, just a wooden A-Basin logo attached to a platform. It’s so anti-fancy, in fact, that it didn’t look, to The Denver Post, like it had been set up yet for the season — even though A-Basin was the first area in the state to open this year, as usual.

“Actually, that’s just it,” said Arapahoe Basin spokeswoman Shayna Silverman. “Our snow stake is more abstract and does not have numbers. You’ll see everything we report online, though.”

Two Colorado ski areas have redone their snow stakes this year to add some real personality.

Winter Park’s new snow stake is a work of art depicting four well-known mountains to the north, east, south and west of the resort — Longs Peak, Parry Peak, Byers Peak and Mount Blue Sky (formerly known as Mount Evans), along with rivers draining their snowmelt. It is a companion piece with a similar work of art that has been erected at the summit of the mountain. Both were created in partnership with Native and Indigenous artists to honor those peoples who summered for centuries where skiers play in the snow now.

“It’s a level of appreciation for those who came before us,” said Winter Park spokeswoman Jen Miller. “There’s something to feeling a sense of awe and wonder and connection when you’re standing at the top of a snowy mountain. There were Native and Indigenous people long before us that honored and respected the land and are better at articulating that sense of awe and appreciation. It’s really just honoring our true history and heritage beyond the ski resort.”

At Sunlight Mountain Resort on the western slope, the new snow stake has been designed to honor a unique aspect of Sunlight’s history. At the end of this season, Sunlight plans to retire the 70-year-old Segundo lift, the oldest operating lift in Colorado. Segundo began operation on Aspen Mountain in 1954 and was relocated to Sunlight in 1973. It has distinctive lattice-work steel towers, common in the middle of the last century, that remind some of childhood erector-set projects. The five-foot base of the new snow stake is designed to emulate those lift towers and was built at Conklin Welding and Fabrication in Glenwood Springs.

“We looked at snow stakes online and just felt like most were fairly generic,” said Sunlight spokesman Matt Ericksen. “Besides that, we really wanted to include some members of the community that have a ton of artistic talent. We’re a community, local-based mountain. We wanted to include some of those community members that have the ability to create a really special and neat snow stake for us. We’re also trying to pay homage to the Segundo lift.”

Barring unforeseen complications, the ancient two-person Segundo lift will be replaced next summer by what used to be Arapahoe Basin’s old Lenawee triple chair. For the past year, its parts have been stored in the maintenance area at Sunlight.

Here’s a peek at some of the more notable snow stakes around Colorado:

Aspen, Snowmass, Aspen Highlands, Buttermilk: Snow stakes at all four Aspen Snowmass areas have wooden backgrounds with the Aspen Ski Company’s aspen-leaf logo and the name of the area in black letters, along with a large Hublot clock, a 24-hour measurement on one side and storm-total measurement on the other. They all have a time-lapse function, so you can see when the most recent snowstorm came through, but you have to click on the arrow to the left of the live images to access the time-lapse.

Beaver Creek: The Beav’s Snow Cam gets high marks for two features: It has a time-lapse function, and it has renderings of two six-inch chocolate cookies flanking the 24-inch measuring stick. If you don’t understand why those cookies are there, you’ve never had Beaver Creek’s famous free, freshly baked cookies at the end of the day. The snow stake used to have a clock and thermometer and they will be reinstalled soon.

Breckenridge: A simple 24-inch ruler marked off in two-inch increments, but like Beaver Creek, it has a 24-hour time-lapse function.

Cooper: Simply a three-foot pole marked off in two-inch increments, topped with the Cooper logo.

Copper Mountain: Copper’s sassy snow stake uses a little attitude to dress up its 18-inch measuring board. It has Copper’s logo displayed next to inches 15 through 18. It says “MEGA” next to  inches 12-13, “DEEP” next to inches 9-10, “DUMPING” next to the 6-inch mark, “POW DAY” next to the 4-inch mark and “FRESHIES” at 2 inches.

Eldora: This one is actually quite attractive, but it’s also difficult to describe, so we’ll let Eldora spokesman Sam Bass handle it. “It’s a laser-cut metal disc, with our tree logo cut out of the middle, and an amber-colored translucent acrylic disc mounted on the back with inches marked on the tree’s trunk.” Nailed it.

Keystone: Here we see a dial thermometer, a smaller circular clock within the thermometer face, an 18-inch measuring stick and a red Keystone logo.

Loveland: Another simple approach: a large plaque incorporating Loveland’s logo and a 20-inch measuring bar.

Powderhorn: A 16-inch ruler with limbs on both sides indicating snow depth in two-inch increments.

Purgatory: A two-foot measuring stick with a large Purgatory logo at the top.

Steamboat: There are two webcams. The Mid Mountain Snow Cam is located at Thunderhead and records Steamboat’s official snowfall. A Champagne Powder Cam is located at the summit of Sunshine Peak and isn’t regarded as the resort’s official snow measurement because of its higher elevation of 10,384 feet. The Mid Mountain Snow Cam is located at 9,080 feet.

Telluride: The “Powcam” is located in Prospect Basin. Like many snow cams in the state, it is set up to reflect 24-hour snow totals and the total snowfall from multi-day storms.

Vail: Another snow stake that measures 24-hour snowfall and storm totals with a time-lapse function. It has a clock and a thermometer. Measurement marks in one-inch increments are set against a photo of a blue sky over the back bowls.

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Those waxes, however, may be toxic.

Some ski waxes contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — a label for thousands of types of manufactured chemicals that do not break down in the environment. As that toxic wax glides along the snow, it slowly flakes off. As the snow melts into water, it carries the tiny deposits down into Colorado’s water supplies.

Humans who are exposed to PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” are at risk when the substances build up in the body. They can cause decreased fertility, increased risk of some cancers and suppressed immunity.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has focused more intently on ski waxes in recent years, though little has happened on the state or local levels to address the toxic waxes in Colorado — home to 28 downhill ski resorts, and even more nordic centers, that millions of skiers visit every year.

“This is a classic micropollution problem. On an individual basis, it’s small,” said Peter Arlein, founder of a Carbondale-based company called mountainFLOW that sells non-toxic, plant-based ski waxes. ”This is invisible, but it adds up.”

Many industries use PFAS to keep things from sticking. Chemicals are applied to cooking pans to create a non-stick surface, to furniture to help them resist stains, and to skis so that they glide easier and faster across snow.

The EPA has banned the production or importation of new flouro ski waxes, but already existing fluorinated waxes can still be sold and purchased. Fluorinated ski waxes often are expensive and are generally reserved for ski racing.

In 2020, ski wax company Swix Sports settled alleged violations for importing ski waxes with PFAS that violated the Toxic Substances Control Act. In 2021, a different company, TASR, settled alleged violations for also importing ski waxes with PFAS.

“Review of the risks from PFAS in ski waxes is particularly important,” the EPA said in an alert, given the potential exposure for ski wax technicians and skiers who apply their own wax. “Additionally, PFAS may enter the environment from the use of waxed skis and from the ski wax shavings scraped off during application.”

Colorado lawmakers in 2022 banned the sale of an array of products to which PFAS were added — including rugs, food packaging and cosmetics — but did not address ski waxes.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has not investigated how PFAS from ski wax might be affecting the state’s water. But a department spokeswoman said the agency was aware that some waxes contain forever chemicals.

“The Water Quality Control Division has been laser-focused on monitoring for and mitigating PFAS in drinking water because we know when drinking water is contaminated with PFAS, it could be a significant source of exposure,” spokeswoman Kaitlyn Beekman said in an email. “If any communities have concerns about the presence of PFAS in their drinking water, the division has resources, including grants, to help them with further testing to identify any potential contamination.”

No bans in Colorado

While neither local governments nor resorts in Colorado’s ski country have banned the use of fluoro waxes, at least one Rocky Mountain ski town has outlawed the products.

Park City, Utah, in March banned the use or sale of fluorinated ski wax after connecting PFAS in its water supply to a cross-country ski area that is directly above an aquifer, said Michelle De Haan, the city’s water quality and treatment manager. Further testing in the spring matched the chemicals found in the water with those tested at the cross-country race start line, as well as near the lifts at the resort.

“This is impacting our drinking water and our environment broadly,” she said. “It doesn’t go away. We don’t want the concentration to get worse or for it to hit another water source.”

Enforcing the ban is difficult, De Haan said. The city has focused its efforts on public education. Officials have encouraged people and ski shops to turn in any fluorinated ski wax sitting on shelves.

Since last winter, they’ve collected more than 600 pounds of wax, which must be incinerated by a contracted company.

“Being a small town, the community has responded well,” she said.

The ski competition community has begun to ban fluorocarbon waxes, though enforcement has proved tricky there, too. The International Ski and Snowboard Federation multiple times has postponed the implementation of a ban on the substance because testing whether athletes are using banned waxes is slow and expensive.

The federation, which oversees the highest level of alpine sport competition, finally banned flouro waxes for the 2023-24 season. It will randomly test for the substance.

In Colorado, Summit County officials are aware of Park City’s initiative but have no plan to follow suit, said Sarah Wilkinson, a county spokeswoman. The county will test for PFAS when there is a concern, she said.

But there have been voluntary changes.

Arapahoe Basin years ago swapped to a biodegradable ski wax, Purl, and recently added mountainFLOW wax to its shop, said Mike Nathan, the sustainability manager at the ski area. Arapahoe Basin will start a takeback program this winter in which people can drop off any fluoro wax they have and receive a free wax from the shop.

“It might be tough for us to ban it or know what people have on the bottom of their skis and snowboard,” Nathan said. “We’ll certainly be hoping to motivate people.”

Alternative wax options

As the ski world moves away from fluorinated waxes, companies are producing waxes that are better for the environment.

In 2019, Carbondale-based mountainFLOW began selling plant-based, flouro-free ski wax. Arlein, the founder, worked in the ski industry for more than 20 years, including years spent waxing skis in a shop’s small back room.

“The more I learned about it, the more I became passionate about something that was better for the planet,” he said.

People who have applied fluorinated waxes to skis, a process that includes melting the wax and releasing vapors, are most at risk of experiencing harmful health effects. The chemicals can build up in their bodies, increasing the risk for cardiovascular disease, liver damage, cancer and hormonal problems. Studies conducted in Norway and Sweden found that wax technicians working for World Cup ski teams had blood levels of some chemicals that were up to 45 times higher than the general population.

But as the industry shifts, Arlein has concerns about the waxes that will replace fluoro versions. Most are still petroleum-based products, he said, which carry their own ecological impacts.

“For the most part, we don’t know what’s in the wax, and we don’t know what they’re using instead of flouro — it could be good or it could be worse,” he said.

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Colorado’s snowpack statewide was at 53% of average as of Friday. Only Beaver Creek, Crested Butte, Powderhorn and the Aspen area mountains are at or near average snowpack for this time of year. Nearly every area that is open for skiing is offering 6% of its skiable terrain or less. The only exception is Eldora, which is reporting 15% of its terrain in operation.

The storm this weekend may help, according to the OpenSnow forecasting and reporting service, and it could deliver a foot or two to Purgatory and Wolf Creek, but elsewhere it may be only good for three to eight inches. Snow is expected to continue through Saturday afternoon, according to OpenSnow’s Joel Gratz.

“I think most locations should keep expectations on the low side with 3-6 inches as a reasonable average, though areas east of the divide, some spots in the west-central mountains, and many areas of the southern mountains will see the highest snow totals with snowflakes flying through sometime on Saturday,” Gratz wrote in Wednesday’s forecast. “This storm will not raise the statewide snowpack up to average, but it will deepen the base across the state, and parts of the southern mountains could rocket from nearly dry to a decent snowpack by the end of the storm.”

Gratz doesn’t anticipate another storm until next weekend at the earliest, but temperatures will be cool next week, which would help maintain what negligible snow there is on the ground and enable ongoing snowmaking operations.

Here’s a list of select ski areas with the percentage of open terrain they reported on Wednesday, according to figures provided by Colorado Ski Country USA and Vail Resorts:

Arapahoe Basin, 2%; Copper Mountain, 3%; Eldora, 15%; Loveland, 4%; Aspen Mountain, 5%; Snowmass, 1%; Purgatory, 2%; Steamboat, 6%; Winter Park, 4%; Vail, 7%; Keystone, 9%; Breckenridge, 6%; Beaver Creek, 1%. Crested Butte is not reporting the percentage of terrain it has open, but it is operating only six of 165 trails.

“The longer-range forecasts are slowly trending toward a stormier outlook for the western U.S.,” Gratz wrote, “so I am cautiously optimistic that we’ll see a storm (or two or three) during the first half of December, and maybe with some luck, one or two of these storms will produce significant snow and help increase available terrain across the state.”

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Telluride Ski Resort, which had been scheduled to open on Thanksgiving, is now looking at Dec. 2 or Dec. 8, according to a post on its Instagram page.

Steamboat, Beaver Creek and Crested Butte are slated to open Wednesday. Aspen Mountain and Snowmass will open on Thursday, and Powderhorn will open on Friday. That will bring the number of open areas in Colorado to 16.

Aspen Snowmass announced on Tuesday that it will open 41 acres on the upper slopes of Aspen Mountain and 16 acres in Elk Camp Meadows at Snowmass.

Most of the areas currently operating have had meager natural snowfall that is 20% to 50% below normal, and less than 6% of the trails are open at those areas. Steamboat officials said the resort will open Wednesday with 25 acres, which would amount to about 3% of its skiable terrain when fully open. Steamboat is at 52% below normal for snowfall.

“We’re eager to kick off another incredible season at Steamboat and applaud our operations teams in their efforts to get the resort open,” said Dave Hunter, vice president of resort operations, in a news release. “This preseason has been dryer than usual, but we’ve maximized snowmaking opportunities and will continue to take advantage of cold temperatures and natural snow to open more terrain. We can’t wait to see what this winter has in store for us.”

Other areas opening this week are expected to announce later in the week how much terrain they will have to offer. Telluride said an update on its opening day can be expected next Monday.

“We pride ourselves on opening with a quality product and wall-to-wall coverage that provides a fun and safe skiing experience,” said Patrick Latcham, vice president of sales and marketing.

Asked about refunds at Telluride for this week because of the postponed opening, resort spokesman Sabastian Wee said skiers affected should contact the resort at 970-728-7517 or passes@telski.com.

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