Vail opens Blue Sky Basin with more storms in forecast

Vail opened Blue Sky Basin on Sunday, and now is offering more than 4,000 acres of skiable terrain and 23 of 33 lifts as a warmer, drier week is in the forecast with another storm for the weekend.

Vail Mountain COO Beth Howard issued this statement on Facebook on Sunday:

“To our Vail Mountain community: I wanted to follow up on my previous note to all of you. Thank you for spending the holidays with us here at Vail Mountain. We had non-stop snow, opened nearly all of our front-side terrain and our Legendary Back Bowls. The employees here are incredibly dedicated and worked hard to make this happen.Thanks to the recent snowfall and the incredible work of our Operations and Patrol teams – Blue Sky Basin is OPEN TODAY, serviced by Sky Line Express (#37). We’re planning to have Pete’s Express (#39) and Pride Express Lift (#26) ready for MLK weekend. As of today, we have 4,105 acres and 23 of 33 lifts open for you to enjoy.We want to thank you for your patience and we are thrilled to start opening Blue Sky Basin today. See you on the hill, Beth Howard, COO, Vail Mountain.”

Howard’s statement on Sunday follows one she sent out over the holidays addressing the issues of crowding, terrain openings and labor shortages.

Colorado Opensnow.com meteorologist Joel Gratz on Sunday wrote that it would “be cold and offer leftover powder from Saturday’s 1-7 inches of fresh snow. We will see dry weather with comfortable temperatures through Thursday, then the next chance for snow could arrive on Friday, January 14th. After that, more snow is possible during the week of January 17th, though we’ll continue to be on the edge of the storm track.”

Gratz added on Monday that after a very snowy three weeks, the next three weeks will be more on the dry side:

“Following a stormy three-week period around the New Year, our snowpack is currently nicely above average and conditions are wonderful,” Gratz wrote. “That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that the upcoming weather pattern is not going to be very favorable for snowfall during the next two weeks, but I am keeping my eye on three times when we could luck out and see some snow.”