As the spring break holiday kicks into high gear, most of Colorado’s major ski resorts have yet to open all of their terrain.

With week-long vacations at schools around the country and Colorado’s snowpack nearing its peak, March is usually one of the busiest times of year for the state’s ski resorts. But this year, the state is headed into the busy season with a record-low snowpack and dozens of trails closed at its ski resorts.

Vail Mountain, Beaver Creek Resort, Breckenridge Ski Resort, Arapahoe Basin Ski Area and Winter Park Resort all had 25 or more trails listed as closed on their websites as of Friday. None of the major ski resorts in Colorado that are accessible on the Epic or Ikon passes have opened 100% of their terrain this season.

At Steamboat Resort, only 77% of the skiable terrain was open on Friday, according to the ski resorts website. Steamboat director of communications Maren Franciosi said that while the Mahogany Ridge and Pony Express lifts typically open around or just after the New Year, those lifts have yet to open this season.

Winter Park, meanwhile, had about 69% of its skiable terrain open on Friday, according to its website. The website showed 146 of 171 trails open, with mostly black diamond and double-black diamond trails closed.

At Vail, the Back Bowls opened later this year than they ever have and, at Breckenridge, the Imperial Express also had its latest opening since the lift was installed in 2005, Vail Resorts Chief Executive Officer Robert Katz told investors earlier this week. Katz reported that skier visits to the ski giant’s North American resorts were down 13% due to the poor winter for snow in the West.

Vail Resorts spokesperson Emily Kowalenko noted that Breckenridge is “really rocky up high, and our high-Alpine terrain at Breck has been some of the slower and more challenging terrain to open.”

Still, Breckenridge has opened all five of its peaks, including high-Alpine areas like Imperial Bowl, the Lake Chutes and hike-to terrain at Peak 6, Kowalenko said. The main zone that remains closed at Breckenridge is the upper part of Peak 7, she said.

Thanks to the ski resorts’ snowmaking and grooming teams, Kowalenko noted that Keystone was the first ski resort in Colorado to open this year. She said Keystone has opened all of its beginner and intermediate trails and about 75% of its expert terrain. At Keystone Resort, 122 of 142 trails were open on Friday.

Copper Mountain communications manager Olivia Butrymovich noted that last year the ski resorts saw major winter storms early in the season that brought record-breaking amounts of snow, including more than 100 inches by the end of November.

“Winters in Colorado are naturally variable,” Butrymovich said. “We experienced a nearly record-breaking early season last winter, while this season has unfolded differently. As a ski resort, we understand that variability is part of the business, and we do not expect every winter to look the same.”

While this winter has not been on par with others, Copper has been able to open the vast majority of its terrain. Only seven runs remain closed on Friday. Butrymovich said those runs rely entirely on natural snowfall.

Most winters, Arapahoe Basin Ski Area communications manager Shayna Silverman said the entire mountain would usually open by this point in the season.

After opening the Montezuma Bowl on the first weekend of March, A-Basin now has all its lifts running. Silverman noted that what remains closed is A-Basin’s “most extreme terrain,” like the East Wall and the Steep Gullies. She said the ski area isn’t ruling out that those zones could still open.

“There’s no denying that our snowpack has affected our terrain offerings this season and it’s been a difficult winter to get more of our mountain open,” she said. “But that being said, we never give up on skiing and riding here.”

The Steep Gullies have opened every winter since they were incorporated into the bounds of the ski resort starting in the 2017-18 season, according to A-Basin. Meanwhile, the East Wall has only remained closed all season once in its more than 50 year history, during the 2011-12 winter, when Colorado also experienced abysmal snowpack conditions.

With about 120 inches of snow so far this season, Silverman said this year is tracking ahead of the 2011-12 season at A-Basin. To start looking at opening the East Wall, the ski area typically needs a base of 50 inches or more, she said. Right now, the base is at 43 inches.

Aspen-Snowmass communications manager Janelle Sohner noted that while other ski resorts struggled to open terrain, the four Aspen peaks bucked the trend and were able to open significant amounts of the terrain for much of the season.

“Despite broader coverage about warm and dry conditions across the West, Aspen-Snowmass has delivered an excellent season for our guests,” Sohner said. “Across our four mountains, we’ve consistently had more than 98% of terrain open.”

A bill to give counties more ways to fund affordable housing cleared the Colorado legislature Wednesday and is on its way to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk. 

Senate Bill 1 would allow counties to spend property tax revenue collected in their general fund on affordable housing efforts, and allow counties and municipalities to sell buildings and land they own to fund workforce housing developments, except for parks. 

The bill also grants more flexibility for when communities hold local elections to form and fund multijurisdictional housing authorities, and expands eligibility for tax credits that help finance middle-income housing developments. 

The measure is sponsored by Sens. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, and Jeff Bridges, D-Greenwood Village, as well as Reps. Andrew Boesenecker, D-Fort Collins, and Chris Richardson, R-Elbert County. 

Roberts, who represents ski towns with some of the highest housing costs in the state, and where housing needs stretch across a broad income spectrum, said the bill gives communities more options for combating their affordability issues. 

“This gives them more tools to have local control over their housing decisions,” he said during debate on the bill in the Senate last month, “and makes sure that they can put more of their community members in housing they can afford so they can continue to live in those communities and make them great places to be.”

SB 1 is supported by an array of local governments and housing groups who say the bill is a common-sense measure that lifts restrictive provisions on how governments finance affordable housing. 

While counties, for example, can use voter-approved property tax dollars, often referred to as a mill levy increase, to fund specific initiatives, like housing, they currently don’t have authority from the state to use property tax revenue that goes to their general fund for housing. The general fund is often a county’s largest fund account and typically supports core programs, like public safety and human services, as well as county departments. 

“The bill would allow counties to contemplate affordable housing as we do any other kind of infrastructure such as water, sewer and roads,” Summit County Commissioner Tamara Pogue said during the bill’s first hearing in late January. “It gives us the flexibility to weigh all these needs as we prepare our budgets, allowing us to make the most thoughtful and balanced decisions possible on behalf of our communities.”

Pogue added that in mountain communities like hers, the cost of building affordable housing continues to become more expensive. She said the county had a housing project estimated to cost $55 million in December 2024, only for that to jump to more than $80 million in March 2025. 

“If counties aren’t given the flexibility to leverage our general funds as we try to fill that gap our efforts will be significantly harder than they already are,” Pogue said. 

The bill ultimately passed both legislative chambers with broad bipartisan support, with the Senate voting 28-6 on Wednesday to approve changes made to the bill in the House, where it passed by a vote of 53-10 the day before. 

A handful of Republicans opposed the measure, with some saying they had a fundamental disagreement with letting affordable housing be the role of local governments. 

“This would be a fine tool for local governments, if that were the proper role of government — to provide housing for the people,” Sen. Mark Baisely, R-Sedalia, said while debating the bill in the Senate last month. “… The way that we should lower the cost of housing would be less and less involvement by the government in our lives, including in our housing.” 

Sen. Janice Rich, R-Grand Junction, said she had concerns about proliferating what she called “high-density development” that could lower homeowners’ property values. Rich said homeowners’ property taxes should not be used to pay for government-supported housing. 

Roberts said his bill does not place any mandates on local governments when it comes to housing, something that has proven to be a thorny issue in the legislature in recent years. Unlike more controversial measures to usurp local zoning codes, which Republicans staunchly opposed, Roberts said SB 1 preserves local control. 

“I thought that’s what my friends on this side of the aisle wanted,” he said.