Conditions Report
Report from Thursday, February 20, 2025
A-Basin—it’s one of the highest-elevation ski resorts in North America, has one of the longest ski seasons on the continent, and is one of the most challenging ski resorts in the country. For a ski resort that doesn’t even rank in the top 50 in terms of skiable acreage in North America, Arapahoe Basin certainly punches above its weight class in terms of reputation and brand recognition. When visiting Colorado for a week-long ski, Arapahoe Basin felt like the proving ground I had to visit–a place where an East Coast skier like me can truly experience hardcore skiing.
Quick Facts & History
- Date Opened: 1946
- Multi-Destination Pass: Ikon Pass
- Number of Trails: 147
- Skiable Acres: 1,428
- Vertical Drop: 1936′ (lift-served), 2,530′ (total)
- Base Elevation: 10,520′
- Summit Elevation: 13,050′
- Average Annual Snowfall: 350″
- Terrain Breakdown:
- Beginner: 4%
- Intermediate: 23%
- Advanced/Expert: 73%
- Number of Lifts: 9
- Night Skiing: No
Since joining the Ikon Pass, Arapahoe Basin, like many other ski resorts, has at times fallen victim to overcrowding. Being located up near the continental divide, this has been particularly difficult for A-Basin, who has had to implement Parking Reservation requirements for weekends and holidays to manage its limited space. Knowing this, I was somewhat worried about what crowds may be like, even on a Thursday when I planned to visit. Gridlocked traffic in Silverthorne on the way there felt like a bad omen. But the reality was the complete opposite of what I expected. Rolling up to the parking lot 15 minutes before the lifts started spinning, I only had to park four rows back from the main lodge. Odd, but I’ll take it.
With no fresh snow on the ground the day I visited, I mixed things up by taking advantage of the crisp groomers that lined the mountain. As much of a challenging mountain as Arapahoe Basin is, it’s nice to know that all of its lifts have at least one intermediate groomer that can be taken down the mountain. When you get up into the high alpine terrain of the resort and fly down groomers, you truly feel transported to a different world. The parking lot and main base area are out of sight, and for a brief moment in time, it feels like it is just you on an island surrounded by white peaks. You just can’t get that at most ski resorts.
After a couple of warm-up groomers, I took the Lazy J Tow to get over to the Montezuma Bowl on the backside of the mountain. The views from the backside were just as fantastic as the front side, yet dramatically different. As the clouds cleared from the upper part of the mountain, you could see nearby Keystone Resort followed by Breckenridge in the distance. Three iconic Summit County resorts, so close together but vastly different in terms of what they represent.
While the Montezuma Bowl offers a wide selection of challenging terrain, the bigger challenge the day I visited was its exposure to the sun. Fresh snow from that week became crusty on the top and turning was a full workout by the time you finished descending the bowl. This added challenge wasn’t a fun one, so I was glad to return to the front side of A-Basin where most of the trails were better protected from the sun.
After initially browsing the trail map, I had assumed that as a glade fanatic, I would gravitate the most to The Beavers area of the resort. The tree skiing in this area is great but if you are just lapping the Beavers Lift for that, you have a somewhat long cat-track at the top before you really get into the thick of it. At any other ski resort, this would be completely acceptable and nothing to note, but at A-Basin you have to compete with the legendary Pallavicini lift. There are very few chairlifts that are legends themselves, but Pallavicini is one of the rare few.
The in-bounds Pallavinci zone really isn’t that big. They pack a lot of trail names into the area but overall your options on the fall line are quite narrow. Yet its initial appearance is misleading. It combines steep, consistent fall line skiing either through moguls or trees with a classic but new double chair that makes me reminisce on my favorite double chairs I rode growing up as a kid. It gives you a 1,300′ vertical drop, long enough to give you a good workout each run but not too long to have you wishing to go inside for a break. And the lift is right off the parking lot, not in some place tucked away requiring two other lifts to get to.
I can’t say this about many lifts I’ve skied, but I do truly understand what makes Pallavicini so legendary.
After receiving several feet of snow in the past week, an entertaining sideshow I got to experience throughout the day was the recently unionized Arapahoe Basin Ski Patrol doing some of the most badass avalanche work I have ever witnessed in person. Of course, it is common to hear bombs going off throughout the day after heavy snowfall at any Western ski resort, but at A-Basin, this work is up close and center stage on the East Wall. Whether it was watching when riding up the Lenawee Express or when eating lunch on the Black Mountain Lodge deck, I’ve never been able to experience avalanche mitigation work so close.
As they worked their way across the East Wall, each blast would rattle you to your core, and I have never appreciated the risks and lengths ski patrol go to on a daily basis more than at that moment. Too bad for them it preceded to snow another 7″ overnight, likely meaning they would have to start that same process all over again the next day.
As the afternoon progressed, heavy cloud cover rolled in followed by intense snow, blanketing the resort in a whiteout. As I left A-Basin after my first visit there I had the urge to keep getting turns in by the time I got down to Silverthorne. There is something mysterious about this place, perhaps its elevation and seclusion, that keeps skiers coming back. I’ll be back one day, but until then, this ski resort will be a living legend in my mind.
Conditions
Ski Stats
Weather Outlook
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For more information, check out Arapahoe Basin’s website.
