Who Will Open First? Colorado Resorts Are Racing To Start Ski Season

Each year, ski areas try to open earlier and earlier. Despite the fact that neither climate change or your ski bases are in favor of a late October opening date, the race is on as soon as temperatures drop and snow making guns can fire up.

Summit County, Colorado ski resorts tend to have the best chances of those early season openings, but sometimes a sleeper mountain like Wolf Creek or Purgatory comes in a snags the title.

Rumor has it Keystone is hoping to snag the earliest opening date, but ultimately Mother Nature will decide who gets the most snow and keeps the temperature down enough to keep snowmaking.

Vote below for which resort you think will open first. Keep reading for updates from each resort as they race to stake their claim as the first ski resort open in Colorado for Winter 25/26.

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Keystone

Keystone is committed in the race to open first. Groomers are hard at work pushing around man-made snow and the 4" of natural snow the mountain has received over the last few days to connect trails.

The mountain needs an 18" base tree-to-tree to open, but this can be achieved by moving snow around strategically, and continued snowmaking. Keystone is only slated to get about 2" in the next storm, but rumor has it they're really vying to win the race to open. It's looking pretty wintry based on these photos shared to Keystone's social media.

Loveland Ski Area

Loveland hasn't been quite as lucky as other areas when it comes to early season snow, but the last storm certainly helped. The mountain fired up their snow guns about a week ago and 3" inches of early season snow fell over the last two days. The next storm should be more fruitful for them, but only by a bit. Snowmaking crews are hard at work though and Loveland isn't too far from A-Basin, which means they could still be on track for an early opening day.

Arapahoe Basin Ski Area

Arapahoe Basin (A-Basin) is known for having a particularly long ski season due in part to it's high elevation and large amount of north facing terrain. As soon as their summer season ended, A-Basin rolled out the snow guns and prepped for temperatures to drop enough for snowmaking.

Several weaker and multiple early-season storms have rolled through Colorado. As of October 20th, a few new inches of snow had fallen and conditions had warmed up just a bit, melting snow on south facing slopes. Luckily, some of that melted snow goes right back into the North Fork of the Snake River and gets diverted to A-Basin's snowmaking reservoir, according to the ski areas's blog.

A-Basin isn't forecasted to get quite as much snow as other spots during the next weather event (about 2"), but a little bit goes a long way this time of year!

Copper Mountain

Copper has a set opening day of November 7, 2025, unlike the other mountains. However, Copper has a tiny bit more on the line with the FIS World Cup coming to the mountain on November 28 & 29. Snowmaking started at Copper on October 1, and are pointed in the direction of their halfpipe. Copper hasn't gotten quite as much natural snow as other places, but the upcoming storm has them seeded at the top for 4" of freshies.