A-basin to require parking reservations

You’ll need one before 1 p.m. on weekends and holidays; they’ll cost $20 online

Arapahoe Basin has announced it will implement an online parking reservation system next season on weekends and holidays because of the limited capacity of its parking lots.

Chief operating officer Alan Henceroth made the announcement in his semi-regular blog, which appears on the A-basin website, and said the decision is unrelated to the ski area’s sale to Denver-based Alterra Mountain Company, which is set to close this year.

“We’re doing this with or without Alterra,” Henceroth said in a phone interview. “We need to do it. We’ve had really good success controlling our big days, limiting ticket sales, limiting pass sales. Despite that, the number of cars arriving (is) creeping up.

“We’ve had seven or eight really challenging days this year with parking, where more people arrived than we had space for (and) we created some backups on the highway,” he added. “It’s time to get to the heart of the problem, which is controlling the number of cars that arrive.”

The capacity of A-basin’s parking lots is 1,750 vehicles. The mountain can accommodate more skiers and riders, but the parking lots can’t.

“Our mountain has a whole lot more capacity than our parking lots,” Henceroth said.

Henceroth and his team are working on a new master development plan — a document that ski resorts file with the U.S. Forest Service every 10 years or so — that would add 350 more parking spaces in the near future.

Parking reservations will be required next season before 1 p.m. on weekends and holidays, and will be purchased online for $20.

Vehicles with four or more skiers won’t have to pay the $20, but they still will need a reservation. A limited number of season parking passes will be sold for $150, although they also will need to make reservations.

“It is pay, but it’s really about the reservations,” Henceroth said. “Reservations are what make this work.”