Colorado
Colorado ski season could be several weeks shorter by 2050 as climate warms
Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post
Skiers and snowboarders exploring Copper Mountain’s Resolution Bowl on a recent weekend dodged semi-exposed rocks, the tips of small trees and yellow tufts of exposed grass, sneakily covered by a slick layer of ice.
It felt like an early-season ski day, but it was late January. And this was smack in the middle of one of the biggest snowstorms of the unusually dry, warm winter.
Colorado’s ski season began with a slate of delayed openings, as resorts including Beaver Creek, Powderhorn and Purgatory pushed back the start of the season because of a lack of snow. In early February — two months from peak snowpack — at least a third of the runs at Breckenridge, Crested Butte, Eldora and Loveland remained closed. Winter Park Resort had opened less than a third of its terrain.
“The stuff that is open in the trees at Mary Jane is more likely to mess up your skis than be enjoyable,” Hunter Diveley, a 27-year-old who lives in Englewood, said of the section of Winter Park known for its advanced terrain.
Read more from Elise Schmelzer at DenverPost.com.