Vail Resort won’t extend ski season

VAIL — Vail Mountain has seen record snowfall this year, but the ski season won’t even make it halfway through April. That has some saying Vail Resorts should extend the season — something that Vail did last year and Aspen Highlands, Wolf Creek, Monarch and Purgatory have already done this year.

“It has to be the earliest closing in recent memory, and we’re having one of the best three or four snow seasons in some time,” said Dave Chapin, an owner of Vendetta’s bar and restaurant in Vail Village. “It would have been a great thing to extend the season.”

They could at least keep a few chairs running on the front side, Chapin said.
But Vail Resorts isn’t budging.

“The closing date for Vail Mountain is and will remain April 13,” spokeswoman Jen Brown said in an e-mail.

The earliness of that date has more to do with how Easter falls this year than with how much snow is on the ground, Brown said.

The March 23 date is the earliest Easter has been in almost a century. Front Range and out-of-state guests lose interest in skiing a week or two after Easter, Brown said.
Beaver Creek and Copper Mountain also close April 13. Breckenridge shuts down April 20.