Colorado Ski Season 2026-27: When to Go

As a regional pattern, the earliest Colorado areas usually start turning lifts around October 20, and most of the state is running by about December 5. The early-October openings are two or three areas racing each other on a single strip of manmade snow; the rest of the state follows in November and December, and a warm autumn can push that back a fortnight. Opening day for any individual area is the area's own announcement, and it changes every year, so check the area's website before you drive.

Late January through mid March, when the snowpack is deep and the storms are still cold. March is the snowiest month at many Colorado study sites, and the crowds thin midweek. By the NOAA NCEI 1991 to 2020 normals at Climax (11,344 ft, about 24 miles from the nearest listed area), the snowiest months here are Apr, Jan, Mar. Weigh that against the crowd calendar: the busiest weeks of the year are Christmas to New Year, the mid-January holiday weekend, Presidents' week in February, and the March spring-break weeks.

Apr first, then Jan and Mar, at the Climax reference station used on this page. That station averages about 295 inches of snow a year at 11,344 ft. It is a valley or mid-mountain gauge, not a summit reading, so treat it as the shape of a normal season near the ski terrain rather than as what falls on the runs.

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center Dec to Feb outlook, issued August 20, 2026, reads as equal chances (no lean) for temperature and wetter than normal for precipitation at Colorado's reference cities. Wetter than normal with no temperature lean: more precipitation events, and whether they snow depends on each storm's cold supply. Ice and mixed events become more likely in the transition zones. A tilt is a probability shift, not a promise: CPC forecasts by region rather than issuing one call per state, and taken from CPC's official Dec–Feb probability map at each state's three reference cities, since CPC publishes probabilities by region rather than a call per state.

Most areas usually wrap up around April 12, with the last holdout nearer June 1. Spring conditions arrive from about Apr, the first month where the reference station's normal high reaches 38°F while nights still average at or below freezing. That freeze-thaw pair is what makes corn snow: hard in the morning, soft by late morning, slush by mid afternoon.

OpenStreetMap currently maps 26 operating lift-served downhill ski areas in Colorado that meet the size floor used on this page. The largest by vertical drop is Aspen Snowmass, at about 4,400 feet from 8,116 to 12,516 feet. Those figures are computed from OpenStreetMap run and lift geometry, not taken from resort marketing, so they can differ from a resort's own published numbers.

Yes. USDA NRCS runs SNOTEL, an automated network that physically measures snow depth and the water held in the snowpack. Colorado has stations near several of its ski areas, and this page reads them live. A SNOTEL site is a forest clearing rather than a ski run, so it tells you what is on the ground nearby, not what is groomed or open.

Today's conditions are on each area's own website: base depth, lifts open, runs open and opening day are the resorts' own facts, published by them. This page is about timing across a season in Colorado: which weeks historically deliver, what this winter's outlook implies, and when the crowds arrive.