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Vail tops 200 inches so far this season with Saturday’s classic Back Bowls powder bonanza

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February 18, 2024, 9:50 am

Vail’s Back Bowls on Saturday, Feb. 17 (Vail Resorts photo).

With more than a foot of snow Friday and Saturday, Vail topped 200 inches of snow so far this season and served up some fairly ideal ski conditions over the busy Presidents Day weekend.

Beaver Creek saw even more snow over the same timespan, tallying 18 inches in the past week and rapidly approaching the 200-inch mark at 186 for the season.

Forecasters are calling for more snow this week and possibly a much bigger dump toward the end of the month.

“Sunday will start dry then wind up with snowflakes in the air as a storm tracks across northern Colorado during the afternoon,” Opensnow.com meteorologist Joel Gratz wrote on Sunday morning.

“Monday and some of Tuesday may be dry, and then a few waves of snow could bring some powder from later Tuesday to Friday morning,” Gratz added. “After that, Friday afternoon through Sunday will be dry before a stronger storm arrives early the following week (Feb 26-28).”

At Vail on Saturday, untracked snow and sunny skies brought out big crowds of snow riders but lift lines in the Back Bowls rarely topped five or 10 minutes. And untracked snow remained in the front side trees until late in the afternoon. Still, Vail is looking to the future by outlining major new lift upgrades with its landlord, the U.S. Forest Service (check out the excellent Storm Skiing Journal for more details).

A ski season that started slowly in terms of snowfall has now turned into an average to even above-average snow-riding season after multiple large storms since the first of the year, including massive dumps now over MLK and Presidents Weekend.

Here’s a video of the author on Rasputin’s Revenge on Saturday:

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David O. Williams

Managing Editor at RealVail
David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.