2016-17 Season

The 2016-17 Ski Season was busy, fun, exciting, snowy, sunny, challenging and just absolutely incredible. The mountain itself and people that hang out here are what make The Basin my favorite place to be. Thanks to all of you that came to enjoy the fun. Thanks to the employees that make The Basin happen. The place is just too fun. I have included some images from the season that make me smile.

There is even more fun to come.

What Goes Into The Decision To Close

While there are a few minor considerations that go into the decision to close, there is one major factor we consider. That factor is determining the quality of the snow in the future. This year on June 8 when we made our final closing decision, we were trying to determine the quality of the snow on June 16, 17 and 18. We don't just look at what the conditions are right now. We look at the weather and how the snowmelt is trending. We physically look at the snow. From June 4 to June 9, the base dropped 15". We look at runoff. The Snake River Spring runoff is climbing dramatically (that river water was our snowpack a few hours earlier). The snow is good right now but, looking forward to next weekend, we think our conditions will be such that we shouldn't be open.

There are some minor factors that didn't really play into the decision.

Consistently, when the snow is good, business is good and vice versa. Deciding to close was not a financially driven decision. This snow was and is melting quickly. In fact, we are better off financially when we stay open with good conditions. As the snowmelt continues and intensifies, we are running out of snow.

Personally, I love being open and preferred to stay open another weekend. At our May 31st staff meeting, I even told the crew it is likely we will be open June 16, 17 and 18 and they should make plans accordingly. Unfortunately, after reviewing the snow and the trends with the snow, it became apparent we were not going to make another weekend.

The Beavers expansion did not play a role in the decision. We cannot get started on The Beavers project until the snow has melted. Whether we were open longer or not does not impact the The Beavers Project. The snow has to melt to get that program rolling.

The day after we close, like we do every year, we will start plowing the service road to The Summit. The road takes a while to get clear and to dry out. We are anxious to get going on our Summer maintenance projects but, that did not impact the decision to stay open. Had we stayed open, we could have plowed key portions of the road and still be prepared for Summer maintenance projects.

So, it all came down to looking at the snowmelt trend, did we think conditions would be good enough to re-open for another weekend? We thought no. I look forward to your comments.

Lake Reveal has popped out and there are plenty of wet ski boots out there today. I hope we see you out for one final day of snow, mountains, skiing, sunshine, water, food, friends and fun.

Lake Reveal today

Major Rebuild

The Park Crew took advantage of being closed for four days and did a major rebuild.  The place looks great.

We Will Have A Fantastic Closing Weekend

Bill and I just took a snowcat tour up to the Summit and back. I have three notable comments from the journey.

1. We saw 15-20 mountain goats hanging around on the Summit. Those animals are beautiful.

2. We are going to re-open the next 3 days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, June 9, 10 and 11. We should have an incredible weekend of summer skiing. The forecast is for mostly sunny skies with temps hovering around 60. Most of the Upper Mountain (Lenawee Parks, Humbug, Lenawee Face, Norway, Cornice Run, West Wall, Dercum's Gulch and more) and about 1/2 of the Lower Mountain will be available for skiing and riding. The "Park Scene" will be taking off. I strongly encourage you to come out for three more fun filled days.

3. Lastly, Sunday, June 11 will definitely be the last day of the season. While I was originally optimistic we could get another weekend out of the place, that won't be the case.  This week's warm temperatures have really accelerated the snow melt and the runoff. The upcoming forecasted warm temperatures and sunny skies will only intensify that. We like to time the last weekend to have great snow and the next weekend to not quite have enough snow. We are there.

Thanks to everyone for a great season. See you over the next 3 days.

At Least One More Weekend

Today we are closing out our normal seven day a week operation. I am not sure if the day could be any better. The weather is fantastic and the snow is even better. This morning I found really good skiing on Lenawee Face, Norway, Cornice Run, West Wall, Sundance and High Noon. We have music going everywhere with High Five playing on the Black Mountain Lodge deck and The Sweet Lillies playing in the base area.

We will be closed the next four days and will re-open for skiing Friday, Saturday and Sunday June 9, 10 and 11.  By the end of the week, we will take a good look at the weather and snow conditions and decide if we can make the season even longer.

Summer skiing at its finest.

Summer In The Park

While, technically, summer is still a couple of week away, today we had "Summer Skiing." Beautiful skies, really good snow, warm temperatures, a great band (Jakarta) in the Base Area and lots of people smiling. The terrain park has been really happening lately. Lots of people sliding around and having fun. Another great day.

Paris Climate Accord Disappointment

The Paris Climate Accord is a mostly voluntary agreement by more than 190 nations creating a plan to curb green house gas emissions. At the time of its adoption in 2015, Arapahoe Basin was very pleased to support this measure. Needless to say, we are very, very disappointed to see the United States pull out of the accord. Leaders from Exxon Mobile, Royal Dutch Shell, Goldman Sachs and General Electric have all commented that pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord is bad for the U.S. It is hard to imagine but, even leaders from some of the world’s largest oil companies think this is a bad idea.

Without a doubt, Arapahoe Basin remains committed to its sustainability efforts and, more specifically, its efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change. While the potential to impact the ski and resort business is obvious, climate change is a far greater issue to our nation and the world. Now more than ever, we need to enhance our focus on climate advocacy. We need to focus on our practices of reducing green house gas emissions and using our very visible position to lead by example. We do not have the time to wait on Washington.

A Few More Thoughts On Pali

I appreciate all the comments people have made about yesterday's post on Pallavicini Lift. The comments are a reflection of just how challenging a decision we had in selecting the replacement for so many people's favorite lift. Here a few more thoughts:

-The new lift will have a safety bar. Any new lift will have that.
-Our decision was based on what was the right lift for this location.
-Choosing the appropriate capacity of the lift was extremely important.
-While managing our costs is important, pricing was really not a significant issue in this decision. It was about putting in the right lift with the right capacity that makes the most people happy.
-While we know there are people that wanted a big, high speed lift, all of our indications were that the majority of our guests really like Pali just the way it is. Its capacity matches the terrain.

It was not a decision we made lightly.