Stories in this list received the most page views on SummitDaily.com in the past week.

1. Breckenridge Ski Resort moves opening day to Wednesday

After getting blanketed with over 14 inches of fresh snow over the weekend, Breckenridge Ski Resort has announced it will open for the 2022-23 ski and ride season two days earlier than planned — Nov. 9.

“This is super exciting for us,” senior communications manager Sara Lococo said. “From what I can tell over the past 10 years, we have only opened up early one other time and that was in 2018. This is definitely really cool and exciting. We are thrilled to be able to kick the season off early and welcome the community back to the ski slopes in Breck.”

Breckenridge was moved by several factors to open up the two days earlier than anticipated.

“With weather and the temperatures we have been seeing, we have made really strong progress on snowmaking,” Lococo said. “Anytime that we can get skiers and riders riding sooner, we are all about that. The opportunity presented itself and we were able to get our staff in place and get our operations where they need to be in order to open.”

— Cody Jones

2. Meet Adam Frisch, the candidate who shocked Lauren Boebert and his fellow Democrats

Win or lose, Democrat Adam Frisch shocked Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert and the national Democratic establishment that gave him little chance of succeeding in Tuesday’s election. 

Logging thousands of miles driving across a district the size of Mississippi, his goal was to meet voters in person and overcome the stigma of being a millionaire from Aspen. The race in the 3rd Congressional District was still too close to call on Nov. 9, but Frisch held a narrow lead in a district that was widely believed to favor Republicans.

Frisch, a former currency trader whose only political experience was serving on Aspen’s city council, sought to make a case that he was a moderate Democrat who would focus on western Colorado and not be a part of what he calls the D.C. circus.

— The Aspen Times

3. $300M Keystone project, Kindred Resort, marred by big-dollar lawsuits, allegations of crime

The co-developer of a $300 million resort in Keystone says $8 million went missing from the project and the firm was then pushed out for revealing the other developer’s bank fraud.

That developer accused of fraud says the other developer is a liar, sham and grifter who committed a federal crime while running a scam that cost the project $72 million.

The Kindred Resort, which broke ground earlier this year and is expected to open in 2025, will be a ski-in, ski-out hotel and condo complex on four acres. Its 95 condos range in price from $1 to $6 million, according to the Summit Daily News.

Lawsuits sitting at courthouses in New York City and Breckenridge reveal deep and lasting animosity between the two firms picked by Vail Resorts to co-develop the project. The result could be costly litigation, with each side demanding the other pay tens of millions of dollars.

— BusinessDen

4. I-70 eastbound near Vail Pass reopens after closure due to snowstorm

The interstate is now open after “safety concerns” closed Interstate 70 eastbound between Copper Mountain and Vail Pass around 6:51 p.m. Nov. 9, according to a Colorado Department of Transportation alerts.

The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather outlook that was set to expire at noon Nov. 10. 

Gusts of wind up to 50 mph and between 3 to 8 inches of snow are forecasted during the storm. Eagle County is forecast to receive more snow than Summit County, meteorologists said.

— Andrew Maciejewski

5. Colorado River conditions are worsening quicker than expected

Running out of time and options to save water along the drying Colorado River, federal officials said they’re considering whether to release less water from the country’s two largest reservoirs downstream to Arizona, California and Nevada.

Without enough snow this winter, the water level at Lake Powell — the country’s second-largest reservoir — will drop below a critical level by next November, according to a new report from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Below that point, the Glen Canyon Dam will no longer be able to generate electricity and experts worry whether conditions will worsen to the point that the structure will no longer be able to send water downstream at all.

Conditions on the Colorado River are worsening quicker than expected. The seven states in the river basin made little progress saving water over the summer and Colorado is heading into its third La Niña winter in a row, likely indicating below-average snowpack. A worst-case scenario, once considered only as a hypothetical, now presents a very real threat.

“It’s going to be ugly,” Mark Squillace, a water law professor at the University of Colorado, said. “The bottom line is there just isn’t going to be enough water available.”

— The Denver Post