Industry News
Aspen, CO – On Monday, January 11, the Pitkin County Board of Health voted to move the county into tighter COVID restrictions. The county’s positivity rate was a whopping 12.7%, according to local data on Monday. After a severe spike in incident rates, which were at 2,934 on Monday, the county has no choice but to tighten restrictions. The county will move down to orange level restrictions once incident rates drop to 700 or below for a 14-day period.
The county has made changes to indoor dining, the ski area, and lodging. There is no longer indoor dining permitted—dining is permitted with your household only—and restaurants’ last call is now at 8 PM. The ski area will be improving mask enforcement and only allow outdoor grab-and-go dining. Lodging will be limited to 50% capacity and enforce only one household per unit. The ski area updated its COVID-19 operations after these changes. These are the main changes happening to Pitkin County—most businesses besides restaurants have been operating at a Red-Level since December 21.
At this time, Aspen ski areas will not be implementing a reservation system. If other restrictions do not lower numbers, the ski area is ready to add a reservation system.
There have been numerous outbreaks among employees of Skico. Last Friday, 18 lift employees called in sick. Six tested positive, and 12 tested negative. It is extremely difficult for employees living in company housing to take all of the proper precautions to slow the spread. Despite this, the Skico positivity rate is less than half of the county’s positivity rate. Similar to many businesses, resort employees partake in a daily health check-in.
Despite these restrictions, Buttermilk Mountain will still be hosting ESPN’s X-Games on January 29-31, 2021. The event will only have media crews and athletes—no spectators.
