Mother Nature has waived the checkered flag, and with temperatures dropping and snow falling in Colorado’s high peaks, ski resorts are racing to open their slopes to the public for the 2025-26 winter season.

Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, Loveland Ski Area and Keystone Resort — all of which plan to open for as soon as conditions allow — fired up their snow guns Sunday night to start making snow for the upcoming season.

“This is a huge sign of winter,” A-Basin communications manager Shayna Silverman said. “Get excited for winter, get your skis and boards waxed and get your pass ready. Opening day is going to be here before you know it.”

The snowmaking weather comes on the back of a weekend packed with precipitation. On Sunday, snowstakes at Aspen Mountain recorded between 2-3 inches of snow, with Beaver Creek also getting a dusting, according to OpenSnow.

In a blog post Monday, OpenSnow founding meteorologist Joel Gratz said there is a chance for a small amount of snow in Colorado’s northern mountains from Oct. 16-19, then a chance for the first “real” snowstorm of the season starting around Oct. 21.

“The main story of the next two weeks will be a trend toward colder temperatures and favorable snowmaking conditions starting on or around Oct. 16 and continuing through a lot of the rest of the month,” Gratz wrote.

Snowmaking ramps up in Colorado

A-Basin started its snow guns up around 8 p.m. Sunday night as a test, but it ended up “going well beyond that,” Silverman said, with the cold conditions allowing for nearly 12 hours of snowmaking. By Monday morning, High Noon — the intermediate run that is the first to open at A-Basin — was cloaked in a thin layer of white.

While it is still too early for A-Basin to announce an official opening date, Silverman said the ski area — which is often the first to open for the season in Colorado — is “on track with past snowmaking seasons.” The snowmaking team is working around the clock with the goal of opening the slopes to the public as soon as conditions allow, she said.

“They’re out there all day and night this time of year, monitoring conditions and jumping on the precise weather conditions where we can produce snow,” Silverman said. “They’ll continue to do that until we get to opening day.”

For “perfect snowmaking conditions,” Silverman said the snowmaking team is looking for a “wet bulb temperature” — a measurement that takes into account humidity as well as temperature — of about 26 degrees Fahrenheit. If forecasts hold true, next week in particular could make for great snowmaking conditions, she said.

Down the hill from A-Basin, Keystone Resort also began snowmaking on Sunday night and into Monday morning. Keystone senior communications manager Max Winter said the ski resort is looking to get the top half of Schoolmarm trail open to the public as soon as possible.

“We saw a really nice window overnight and stretching into today,” Winter said. “Over the next weeks, we’re seeing some really, really strong windows for snowmaking.”

Last year, A-Basin and Keystone both opened Nov. 2.

Winter noted that the snow guns at Keystone are built to be ready to take advantage of prime snowmaking conditions as soon as they materialize.

“Each of our guns is equipped with its own weather station that can actually sense the ambient temperature and humidity to take advantage of those cold weather windows as soon as they open,” Winter said.

Snow guns were also pumping on the other side of the Continental Divide on Sunday.

While Loveland Ski Area had seen some natural snow already this season, communications manager Loyrn Roberson said drier conditions, as opposed to more humid conditions, are preferable for snowmaking.

“When we see that natural snow come in, people often get really excited,” Roberson said. “But what that means is there is more moisture in the air. Higher humidity isn’t necessarily a good thing when we’re making snow. We want dry, clear skies to make the most snow.”

Noting that current forecasts show next Wednesday, Oct. 22, as a potentially ideal day for snowmaking, Robertson said, “It looks like we’re heading into a really, really strong weather window.”

While Copper Mountain plans to open to the public Nov. 7, snowmaking has also started there. 

Copper Mountain communications manager Olivia Butrymovich said that snowmaking has been ongoing at the ski resort for several days in an effort to open the mountain by the end of October for early season race training, including for the U.S. Ski Team.