Snow keeps coming at Vail, Beaver Creek as crews continue opening lifts, terrain

Stupid amounts of snow continue to fall at Vail and Beaver Creek this weekend, allowing the resorts to continue opening terrain and cranking up new lifts.

“We popped 240 more acres of terrain on the front side of the mountain today, including fan favorites Harrier, Stickline and 1876! With all these new trails, we are skiing and riding more than 550 acres of terrain,” Beaver Creek posted on Facebook Saturday.

Vail opened Chairs 6 and 26 on Saturday and is now offering 94 trails served by 14 of 34 lifts for a total of 34% of the mountain open for snow riding. Beaver Creek now has 15% of the mountain open with 30 trails served by 6 of 25 lifts.

Both Vail and Beaver Creek led the state with 9 inches of new snow on Friday — on top of a foot of fresh on Tuesday. And more snow is in the forecast to keep allowing mountain ops crews to open more terrain.

“Friday’s storm delivered wind and some powder. On Saturday and Sunday, light snow could move from south to north and bring a few inches of accumulation,” Opensnow.com meteorologist Joel Gratz wrote on Saturday. “On Monday and Tuesday, narrow bands of intense snow could produce powder. On Wednesday and Thursday, more snow could fall. Then during the weekend of December 10-11, yet another storm could bring snow.”