Week Ahead: Vail Closes Wednesday. The Lights Are Going Out.

Vail Mountain -- the flagship, the brand name, the resort that is Colorado skiing for millions of people -- will close for the season on Wednesday, April 8. That's 11 days ahead of its original April 19 target.

This isn't some small indie hill quietly locking the gates. This is Vail. And when they say the snow isn't there, you know it's bad.

"The combination of fresh snow, community celebrations, and a strong closing stretch highlights the spirit that carried the resort through a challenging winter," the resort said in a statement that tried very hard to sound upbeat. But the numbers don't lie: Vail was running 8% of its terrain when it made the call. Eight percent.

Colorado's Magnificent Seven

After Easter Sunday's mass closures wiped out Keystone, Crested Butte, Wolf Creek, Steamboat, and Telluride in one shot, just seven Colorado ski resorts remain open as of today:

• Aspen Mountain -- Closing April 19
• Vail -- Closing April 8 (Wednesday)
• Arapahoe Basin -- TBD
• Breckenridge -- TBD
• Copper Mountain -- TBD
• Loveland -- TBD
• Winter Park -- TBD

By Thursday, that number drops to six. The "TBD" resorts are essentially making week-by-week survival calls based on conditions. Don't be surprised if a few more fold before mid-April.

For perspective: at this point last season, Colorado still had 15+ resorts running with decent spring coverage. This year, seven resorts are splitting what's left of the snow between them like the last slices of a very thin pizza.

Terrain Available: A Reality Check

Let's be honest about what "open" means right now in Colorado:

• Aspen Mountain: 32% terrain
• Copper Mountain: 32%
• Loveland: 33%
• Breckenridge: 15%
• Vail: 8%
• Winter Park: 8%
• Arapahoe Basin: 8%

If you're heading to Breck, Vail, Winter Park, or A-Basin this week, you're skiing a handful of runs. They're open in the same way a restaurant with one table and a microwave is "open." Technically correct. Practically limited.

Copper, Loveland, and Aspen are your best bets for something resembling actual skiing.

Utah: 8 Down, 7 Standing

Utah started the season with 15 ski resorts. Eight are already done:

Beaver Mountain, Cherry Peak, Deer Valley, Eagle Point, Nordic Valley, Powder Mountain, Snowbasin, and Sundance have all locked up. The survivors:

• Alta -- April 26
• Brian Head -- May 10 (the dark horse)
• Solitude -- May 17 (longest planned season in Utah)
• Brighton, Snowbird, Park City, Woodward Park City -- All TBD

Alta and Snowbird still have legitimate spring skiing thanks to their elevation and north-facing terrain. Brian Head and Solitude are the sleeper picks -- both targeting dates that would've been considered ambitious even in a normal year, let alone this one. We'll see if they make it.

The PNW: Still the Exception

The Pacific Northwest continues to be the one region where this season actually worked. Mt. Baker is still open for daily operations with a 384-inch season total that puts every other US resort to shame.

Crystal Mountain, which had originally planned to wrap April 19, got enough late-season snow to add a bonus weekend on April 25-26. That's the opposite of what's happening everywhere else -- a resort extending instead of cutting short.

Mt. Hood Meadows has called it, which is notable -- they're usually one of the last to close in Oregon. But the broader PNW story remains: if you want to ski right now, go north.

Mammoth: The Last Fortress

Down in California, where the Sierra snowpack crashed from 75% to 18% of normal, Mammoth Mountain remains defiantly open. 122 trails. 107 inches at the summit. And a commitment to stay open through Memorial Day.

While Palisades Tahoe, Heavenly, Northstar, and most of Tahoe shut down weeks early, Mammoth benefited from a historic February dump that locked in enough base to survive the spring. They're even running a discount lift ticket promotion for holders of other resort season passes -- basically saying "your mountain is closed, come ski ours."

It's smart business. When everyone else is shutting the lights off, the one resort still running becomes a destination by default.

The Antitrust Subplot

Meanwhile, the legal drama keeps building. The class-action antitrust suit filed against Vail and Alterra two weeks ago is getting international attention, with CBC, Vancouver Sun, and Deseret News all running stories this week. The core claim -- that the duopoly deliberately inflated day tickets to funnel skiers into $1,000+ megapasses -- is resonating hard with a public that just watched walk-up prices hit $356 at Vail for a day on 8% of the terrain.

The timing isn't lost on anyone. Vail is closing early after its worst season in memory, skier visits down double digits, and now faces a federal lawsuit alleging the business model is fundamentally broken. That's a lot of bad headlines for one spring.

What to Watch This Week

Monday-Wednesday: Get your last Vail turns. Closing Day party Wednesday at Avanti in Golden Peak, 1-5 PM. DJ, drinks, and the kind of forced revelry that happens when a season ends before anyone wanted it to.

All week: Watch the TBD resorts (A-Basin, Breck, Copper, Loveland, Winter Park) for closing date announcements. When three of them are running 8-15% terrain, the writing is on the wall.

Weekend: If you want real skiing, head to Mammoth, Alta, Snowbird, or anything in the PNW. These are the last places where spring skiing is spring skiing and not just a patch of snow near a parking lot.

Prediction markets: Our Mammoth Season Total market (O/U 300 inches) closes April 15. With the summit sitting at 107 inches of depth and Mammoth reporting 271 season inches so far, the under is looking likely -- but one good Pacific storm could flip it.

The View From Here

We said it two weeks ago: this season isn't ending. It's evaporating. And this week, when Vail -- Vail -- closes 11 days early with 8% terrain, it's not a data point. It's a period at the end of a sentence.

The 2025-26 season will be studied, argued about, and cited in climate reports for years. Colorado's snowpack hit its lowest point since 1941. Over 60 resorts closed early or never opened. The industry's two biggest players are being sued for antitrust. And Alterra still doesn't have a CEO.

There's still skiing to be done -- Mammoth, Alta, the PNW, a handful of stubborn Colorado holdouts. But the chapter is closing. Make your turns count.

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Check real-time conditions at snowradar.com/resorts, and follow our prediction markets for the Mammoth season total.