Colorado Spring Skiing Extension Is Welcome News

If you’ve been following the weather stories from Colorado this spring, you know we’ve been getting a LOT of late season snow. So much in fact, that Vail, Breckenridge and Copper Mountain are all re-opening this coming weekend April 19-21 for an encore performance of closing weekend.

After announcing closures for the season last week, the skies opened with another 2 feet or more of snow this week, and they just couldn’t resist. As a matter of fact, neither can I! I plan to be at Breckenridge on the 19th myself.

All this late season snow is supposedly not making a dent in the drought we’ve seen in Colorado Springs (we’ve only gotten a few inches here), but that isn’t completely true. With the snow pack jumping this much late in the season, we’ll definitely see some relief in the reservoirs.

The white water rafting industry is also ecstatic, as the extra snow will ensure adequate flow for one of our most popular summer tourist activities. While most of the snow is falling in the Colorado River watershed, some of it is going to make into the Arkansas River and Pueblo Reservoir. That will be welcomed by farmers in eastern Colorado, who need it for their crops.

Late season snow is welcome news to almost everyone except golfers and commuters, but even the golf courses can use more moisture. Driving has been affected, yesterdays storm made roads quite tricky from ice in the morning, and visibility from blowing snow for the evening commute. But for most, even this is a small price to pay to restock our precious water supply!