Top to bottom skiing, more snow at Vail for Turkey Day weekend

Vail opened up for top-to-bottom snow riding out of both Vail Village and Lionshead on Thanksgiving after downloading skiers and snowboarders on Gondola One since opening day on Friday, Dec. 15.

“We are very thankful, and excited to be able to tell you that we now have top to bottom skiing!” Vail reported on Facebook on Thursday. “You may now ski down to both Lionshead & Vail Villages!”

As of Friday, Vail now has 638 acres of skiable terrain spread over 46 trails served by 11 lifts – or about 12% of its total terrain. Beaver Creek now has 361 acres on 20 trails with 5 lifts running – or about 20% of the total mountain.

Both local mountains received nearly two feet of new snow in the last week and may be able to open more terrain for the weekend as another storm rolls in Friday and Saturday.

“The storm that has been stuck well to our west will finally move over Colorado on Friday,” meteorologist Joel Gratz of Opensnow.com wrote Friday morning. “Expect intense snow in the southern mountains for a lot of the day. For other mountains, a cold front and band of heavy snow will hit between noon and 4pm.

“Then snow showers will continue on Friday night and Saturday,” Gratz added. “Total snow on Friday and Saturday should be 10-20 inches in the south, 6-12 inches for mountains favored by west winds, and 3-8 inches for other mountains. The next chance of snow will be Thursday, December 5 and around Sunday, December 8.”

However, access may be an issue as Interstate 70 was shut down at the junction with Highway 40 due to a rockslide, with no estimated time for reopening early Friday afternoon. Go to the CDOT website for more updates.

Also, some season passes are restricted for the Thanksgiving weekend. Go to EpicPass.com to see restrictions or to buy or renew before the Dec. 2 deadline.