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Colorado Arapahoe Basin 2016-2017

nay

dirt heel pusher
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Who's skiing A Basin this weekend? I wanna ski one of the two days.

We're going to close out Luv this weekend - criminal they are closing with such killer conditions all over the mountain.

Sat is looking better weather-wise - decent chance of thunderstorms on Sunday with a big upper level low spinning out in the desert southwest feeding moisture and warm temps...
 

Monique

bounceswoosh
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We're going to close out Luv this weekend - criminal they are closing with such killer conditions all over the mountain.

Sat is looking better weather-wise - decent chance of thunderstorms on Sunday with a big upper level low spinning out in the desert southwest feeding moisture and warm temps...

Thanks - this info helps!

I would have to pay for a ticket to Luv, plus ticket for husband, vs. "free" at A Basin ... so.
 

nay

dirt heel pusher
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Thanks - this info helps!

I would have to pay for a ticket to Luv, plus ticket for husband, vs. "free" at A Basin ... so.

Absolutely - only one of my crew has an A-Basin pass besides me, so my herd thins after this weekend except for a couple days of 4-pack tix I will (hopefully) poach off CL.
 

SkiNurse

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I'm heading over to the Basin now. Meeting people at Pali at 9:15am and 1:30pm. Feel free to join us if you are around!

Loveland tomorrow!
Have fun and make some turns for me! The snow is great right now.
This is how Abasin looked on May 4, 2012...
AB1.jpg ab2.jpg ab3.jpg
 

aerojack

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An epicski refugee here (and a recent member to that site at that!). Never heard of pugski until everyone mentioned it as an alternative, otherwise I would have been here sooner!

Anyways, any ideas on when Abasi will announce their June operations schedule? I think I found one for last year, and they operated on weekends through June, but not during the week. I'll be in the area first week in June, but not on the weekends.
 

Monique

bounceswoosh
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An epicski refugee here (and a recent member to that site at that!). Never heard of pugski until everyone mentioned it as an alternative, otherwise I would have been here sooner!

Anyways, any ideas on when Abasi will announce their June operations schedule? I think I found one for last year, and they operated on weekends through June, but not during the week. I'll be in the area first week in June, but not on the weekends.

Usually they make this decision on the fly based on how many people are showing up. Usually Al says that as long as they have enough visitors, they'll keep running.

Pretty much every announcement comes through Al's Blog: http://arapahoebasin.blogspot.com/
 

Doug Briggs

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An epicski refugee here (and a recent member to that site at that!). Never heard of pugski until everyone mentioned it as an alternative, otherwise I would have been here sooner!

Anyways, any ideas on when Abasi will announce their June operations schedule? I think I found one for last year, and they operated on weekends through June, but not during the week. I'll be in the area first week in June, but not on the weekends.

Welcome. Monique's info is solid. You can sign up for emails from A-Basin. They basically are emails of the blog mentioned above.

Today showed that it got warm yesterday and cool enough to freeze overnight. Anything in the sun or low as crisp. I didn't hike but the runs I saw on the East Wall made it look ok.
 

aerojack

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Thanks folks...I follow Al's blog. Was hoping there was better insider info. I'll stand by.
 

Dryheat

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I'll be at Loveland this weekend due to a strategically time business trip. If anyone doesn't mind showing a first time visitor around, it would be appreciated. I ski pretty much everything that doesn't involve mandatory air...
 

nay

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Thanks folks...I follow Al's blog. Was hoping there was better insider info. I'll stand by.

A-Basin's seasonal goal is to run full ops until the first Monday in June. This is the official target closing date and would be the 4th this season. @SkiNurse kindly provided a visual of one of the two seasons in the last 40 years or so (according to Al) where A-Basin did not make it to June :).

Zuma is usually closed by Memorial Day or maybe a week sooner because of melt at the lift base and snow too soft to get the cats back out. Pali and East Wall usually close by mid-May due to wet slab slide risk. A-Basin is the site of a long term continental snowpack avalanche study due at least in part to an inbounds avy fatality on Pali - they have sensors that measure water running under the snowpack. It can go from winter like we just had to closure in just a few days at this point if temps really spike, and there are sometimes reopenings if it cools again, but that's only if there was an early closing. They have not tried to reopen later in May recently.

From there, A-Basin does "extension weekends" in June (Fri-Sun) provided they can keep Lenawee Face to High Noon open for top to bottom skiing that includes Lake Reveal.

IMG_1046.JPG

There has been at least one extension weekend since 2013, and just one has been typical recently. High Noon gets a little ugly by the end, but those late weekends are awesome. It goes very fast - they can lose 4" a day. From last year:

May 21 - Zuma Bowl

IMG_0761.PNG

June 10 - Lenawee Face

IMG_1049.JPG

June 10 - looking back to High Noon, last run

IMG_1066.JPG
 

nay

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How were conditions today? First warm day after a powder cycle can tend to be the sticky one...
 

Doug Briggs

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It was apparently warm yesterday afternoon. Early everything was either groomed or coral reef-ish. Only East wall seemed to have anything that had stayed dry.

It wasn't warm enough by the time I left about 11:30 for off-piste except for East Wall which opened around 10. Lower groomers on the front were a delight.
 
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Monique

bounceswoosh
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It was apparently warm yesterday afternoon. Early everything was either groomed or coral reef-ish. Only East wall seemed to have anything that had stayed dry.

It wasn't warm enough by the time I left about 11:30 for off-piste except for East Wall which opened around 10. Lower groomers on the front were a delight.

Interesting. @bamaman seemed to have a different impression. Who's right??
 

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