Vermont Has More Open Resorts Than Colorado. Nobody Saw That Coming.

It's April 10. The 2025-26 ski season is in hospice. And the state with the most open ski resorts in America right now isn't Colorado, or Utah, or California.

It's Vermont.

Nine mountains are still spinning lifts in the Green Mountain State. Colorado -- the self-proclaimed capital of American skiing -- is down to six. Utah has five. California has four. The Pacific Northwest is doing its own thing (as always), but if you're looking at the scoreboard, Vermont is winning.

This is the upside-down season. And we should probably talk about it.

The Scoreboard

Here's who's still open in Vermont as of today:

• Killington -- closing date TBD (Killington gonna Killington)
• Sugarbush -- tickets available through May 3rd
• Jay Peak -- closing date TBD, 44 trails still running
• Stowe -- tickets through April 19th
• Mount Snow -- closing April 19th
• Okemo -- closing April 19th
• Stratton -- closing April 12th
• Bolton Valley -- closing April 12th
• Smugglers' Notch -- closing April 12th
• Burke Mountain -- closing April 12th

That's actually ten resorts. Meanwhile, Colorado's roster has been gutted. Vail closed Wednesday -- 11 days early. Beaver Creek, Highlands, Powderhorn, Ski Cooper, Hesperus, Keystone -- all gone. The survivors are A-Basin, Breck, Winter Park, Copper, Steamboat, and Loveland. Winter Park's Mary Jane side might not make it past this weekend.

Why Vermont?

Two words: snowmaking infrastructure.

Vermont resorts have spent decades perfecting the art of making winter happen when the sky won't cooperate. It's a survival skill born from necessity -- Vermont winters are notoriously inconsistent, and resorts that can't make snow don't survive.

This year, though, the natural snow showed up too. Jay Peak, tucked against the Canadian border in its own personal snow globe, racked up big numbers all winter. Killington's reputation as the "Beast of the East" is well-earned -- they'll blow snow on Superstar until the parking lot is 80 degrees if they have to. Sugarbush is talking about May. May!

Meanwhile, Western resorts built for deep natural snowpacks got exposed by the worst drought in 50 years. Colorado snowpack hit 24-30% of normal -- the worst since 1941. When you're built for abundance and the abundance doesn't arrive, there's no backup plan.

Vail Is Catching Heat on Two Continents

It's not just Colorado. Vail Resorts is getting roasted 4,500 miles away in Switzerland.

Crans-Montana, the Swiss resort Vail acquired in 2024, closed its season on Easter Monday despite what everyone agrees are excellent conditions. The Plaine Morte glacier sits at nearly 10,000 feet. There's plenty of snow. Neighboring resorts in the same canton -- Verbier (open through April 26), Adelboden, Leukerbad -- are all capitalizing on the same late-season snowpack that Crans-Montana walked away from.

A Change.org petition gathered over 1,200 signatures begging Vail to extend just six days through the Easter holiday break. Easter is peak tourism week in the Alps -- families from across Europe plan around it. Hotels, rental shops, ski schools, restaurants -- the entire local economy was counting on those final weeks.

Vail said no.

The petition didn't just complain about the closure date. It cataloged a broader decline since Vail took over: poorly prepared slopes, a snowpark that opened only weeks before the season ended, unreliable beginner areas, and an overall drop in service quality. Sound familiar? It's the same playbook that's sparked backlash everywhere from Park City to Whistler to the Cloudflare CEO's viral Twitter thread.

The contrast is brutal. Nearby resorts are extending seasons while Vail shuts one down during the Alps' biggest holiday week. If you wanted a single image to capture the tension between corporate optimization and mountain community values, this is it.

The Antitrust Story Gets Deeper

Speaking of Vail's growing list of problems -- KSUT Public Radio published a piece this week connecting the current class-action lawsuit to its roots in the 1970s.

In 1975, Aspen and Vail tried to raise lift tickets from $10 to $12 mid-season. Colorado officials accused them of price-fixing. Senator Floyd Haskell introduced a bill to prevent companies from buying multiple resorts and give the Forest Service more regulatory oversight.

It almost worked. But when Senator Malcolm Wallop revived the bill in the '80s, industry lobbyists gutted the regulations. What passed instead gave companies 40-year leases on thousands of acres of public land with minimal congressional oversight.

"The things people worried about 50 years ago are exactly what's happening now," said John LaConte, the journalist who broke the story for The Lever.

That deregulation paved the road to today: two companies controlling 29 of the 31 largest resorts in the country, day tickets north of $350, and a class-action lawsuit that's not going away.

The Climate Elephant

New research from the University of New Hampshire dropped this week. They surveyed ski industry professionals in the Granite State and found that 85% are either "alarmed" or "concerned" about climate change -- compared to 54% nationally. More than half said the industry isn't doing enough about it.

These are the people running the lifts, grooming the trails, managing the snowmaking. They see the trend lines every day.

The 2025-26 season is the thesis statement for climate anxiety in skiing. The West got hammered by heat and drought. The East adapted with infrastructure and grit. The question isn't whether climate change is reshaping the sport -- it's whether the industry will acknowledge it out loud.

(Spoiler: they mostly won't. But their employees will, apparently.)

Where to Ski This Weekend

If you're still chasing turns, here's the cheat sheet:

Vermont: Killington, Sugarbush, Jay Peak, and Stowe are your best bets. Jay has the snow. Killington has the stubbornness. Sugarbush might be open in May.

Colorado: A-Basin and Breck are your safest choices. Winter Park is a coin flip past this weekend.

Utah: Snowbird is sitting on 80+ inches of base and hasn't talked about closing early. They're aiming for May 25.

PNW: Mt. Baker, Crystal, Stevens Pass -- all still going strong. The Pacific Northwest didn't get the drought memo.

Mammoth: Still targeting Memorial Day. Because Mammoth.

International: Verbier through April 26. Whistler through Memorial Day weekend.

The Takeaway

Nobody plans a ski trip to Vermont for the bragging rights. It's not Vail's back bowls or Jackson's Corbet's or the Tahoe lifestyle. Vermont is the Honda Civic of skiing -- reliable, unpretentious, gets the job done.

But this year, while Western resorts were shutting doors and Swiss locals were signing petitions, Vermont just... kept skiing.

Ten mountains. Late April dates. A couple aiming for May.

In the upside-down season, the Beast of the East earned its name.