Soon after announcing that season passes are on sale, Arapahoe Basin Ski Area unveiled on Thursday, March 21, that it will begin charging for parking on certain days during the 2024-25 winter season.

The system will be effective from mid-December 2024 through early May 2025 with paid parking and reservations only required for weekends, holidays and other peak days. 

A general parking reservation will cost $20 per car in all four of A-Basin’s lots, including Early Riser, High Noon, Last Chance and Upper Last Chance. Parking will not require a reservation after 1 p.m. on weekends or holidays and will remain free during weekdays. For those wanting to pay a one-time fee, A-Basin will offer a limited number of $150 parking passes that will cover all general parking costs all season.

A-Basin will continue its carpooling program, but it will bump its required number of passengers from three to four people. Carpoolers will be able to park for free, but will still have to reserve parking ahead of time. 

“We are incredibly appreciative of the people who have carpooled here over the last few years, but we did bump the change up to four in an effort for carpooling to be more meaningful and impactful for people,” chief operating officer Al Henceroth said. “We are really trying to reduce the number of vehicles that come to A-Basin.”

In a blog post about the season pass announcement and the upcoming changes to parking, Henceroth stated that parking has always been a challenge for A-Basin to control on busy days and that the decision was made independently from Alterra Mountain Company, which is slated to buy the ski area ahead of next winter.

“The sale to Alterra is not complete yet, and we are not working with Alterra yet,” Henceroth said. “We made this decision on our own in an effort to maintain the quality of the ski experience at Arapahoe Basin.”

Henceroth elaborated in an interview with the Summit Daily News on Thursday afternoon that visits to the ski area have been on a steady uptick this season and that parking lots have reached capacity on busy days, as early as 10 a.m.

“We are talking about doing this on weekends and holidays and maybe a few other peak days, from mid-December to early May,” Henceroth said. “Maybe 50 days, we haven’t exactly fine tuned the numbers. We have seen a lot of variability over the seasons when people arrive and have had seven to eight days when we have had some real parking challenges.”

After limiting season pass, ticket sales and Ikon Pass access, Henceroth truly feels like a reservation parking system is the next logical step in preserving the guest experience at A-Basin.

“The number of cars here are starting to creep up again,” Henceroth wrote in his blog post. “We really think that implementing a parking reservation system is the next logical step to keep the ski experience really high.”

Henceroth has discussed the parking reservation concept with A-Basin guests and has received reactions that range from understandable skepticism to embracement. One of the biggest criticisms of the new parking reservation system is how it could affect the spontaneity of skiing when guests now have to reserve a parking spot on potential last-minute powder days.

“People want a really high-quality experience,” Henceroth said. “That means that they don’t want things to be crowded. They want to be able to move through The Basin. They want to have fun. They want to be able to arrive in a nice, easy and simple way. We think on those challenged days the arrival experience isn’t what we want it to be. People can make a reservation, know they are going to get a spot when they get here, arrive and have a great day of skiing and riding.”

Over the next few months, A-Basin plans to move further along with the reservation plan and complete details about the online parking reservation system, including information on how to make a reservation, how many reservations a person can have at once and the impacts to uphill access. More information is set to be released this fall.

In regards to the 2024-25 season and Ikon Passes, nothing has been decided yet since the sale of A-Basin from Dream Unlimited to Alterra Mountain Company hasn’t officially gone through, but as of now, there are still five days on the Ikon Base Pass and seven on the full Ikon Pass. A-Basin stays committed to letting guests know when the deal with Alterra closes and the ski area has more information.