Eager skiers overwhelm reservations system
The trails at Arapahoe Basin are ready to welcome back skiers and riders. An online reservations system intended to facilitate the reopening process wasn’t.
A variance issued by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment allows the area to reopen Wednesday after a 10week closure because of COVID-19, but the daily capacity is limted to 600. About 4,000 skiers and riders went online Monday evening hoping to score required reservations.
“Four thousand people logged on at 7 o’clock last night for 600 spots to go skiing, and it just crushed the system,” said chief operating officer Alan Henceroth, who was working Tuesday to improve the process before reservations for Thursday become available.
On Tuesday afternoon, A-Basin scrapped the initial online system and replaced it with a random draw. Skiers were invited to register for the draw for skiing on Wednesday from 3-5 p.m. Tuesday and were to be notified Tuesday evening if they were successful. Beyond that, a notice on the area’s website said, “We will update you as soon as possible on how to visit Thursday, May 28, and beyond.”
Three lifts on the front side of the mountain will be running Wednesday, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Six inches of new snow fell on Sunday.
“The snow’s really good,” Henceroth said. “It’s definitely spring/summer snow, but we still have a lot of it in the areas we’re going to be open. It might not be powder skiing, but it’s six more inches of snow.”
There will be no food services, but restrooms will be open. Tailgating and other gatherings will be prohibited. Visitors will be required to maintain social distancing wherever possible and wear face coverings where it’s not. No one will be allowed to enter parking lots without proof of a reservation.
Skiers will only be allowed to ride chairs with people in their party. Singles will ride alone.
In a normal season, Arapahoe Basin would expect 1,000 to 2,000 skiers and riders on weekdays in May with weekend numbers exceeding 3,000, so the limit of 600 is a severe restriction. More than 6,000 skied there when the area closed last season on July 4.
“We had to reduce numbers, because a lot of people want to go skiing,” Henceroth said. “We couldn’t have a crushing, busy day. That just wouldn’t work. Eventually we accepted the reservation system. Frankly we resisted that for a little while, but it was so clear we had to have some type of system to limit the number of people here.”
The reopening plan was worked out in collaboration with state and county health officials, a process that has been in the works for weeks. Colorado ski areas were closed by order of Gov. Jared Polis on March 15.
“Very early on following the closure, we just reached out and talked to every stakeholder we could think of,” Henceroth said. “We started talking to the Summit County Health Department, the county commissioners, the county sheriff, the governor’s office, the Colorado Department of (Public) Health and Environment, the Forest Service. We just tried to reach out to anyone that A-Basin being open or closed would touch. It was such a time of uncertainty, especially those early weeks.”
Most Colorado ski areas would have closed in March or early April even without the governor’s action, but things are different at Arapahoe Basin thanks to its relatively high elevation and tradition of exceptional spring skiing.
“Our season was still very much building” when the closure order came in midMarch, Henceroth said. “We hadn’t even approached our peak. We typically don’t close until midJune anyhow, so there was no reason for us throw in the towel. We committed to keeping our full-time yearround employees, although at reduced pay that they could augment with their vacation time. We didn’t have anything else to do except figure out how we were going to get reopened.”
The request for a variance was submitted by Summit County Public Health, which also asked CDPHE to allow dine-in service at restaurants. That request was denied.
A-Basin isn’t likely to make much money out of the deal, given that 95% of the skiers and riders using the mountain will be passholders and there will be no restaurant or bar services.