Winter Park Pushes Back 2020-21 Opening Date

Earlier today, Winter Park announced it would be delaying its 2020-21 opening day. The decision was made due to a number of factors, including effects from a nearby wildfire, current weather conditions, and public health guidelines. Given current social distancing mandates, the resort says it hopes to open with enough terrain to allow visitors to reasonably disperse around the mountain.

Winter Park says it now expects to open on November 30 at the earliest. However, this date is not set in stone and could be pushed back further.

This announcement comes as parts of Colorado, including Winter Park’s neighboring Summit County, are experiencing a major surge in COVID-19 cases.

Our Take

People who had trips booked for November will assuredly be disappointed with this decision. Since the affected dates are before December 10 (as of now), Ikon’s Adventure Assurance will not cover the delayed opening.

Rising COVID cases may seem like the primary culprit here, but it doesn’t look like Mother Nature has helped much either. Temperatures have been warm around the Front Range over the past few weeks, hampering snowmaking operations. While one might reasonably expect the resort to produce enough cover within the three-week window between now and November 18th, the resort will need to offer more opening day terrain than usual to allow for sufficient social distancing.

This is the first official delayed opening we’ve heard about in Colorado, although some resorts haven’t made any opening date announcements yet. Given the less-than-ideal snow cover and worsening COVID situation, we wouldn’t be surprised to see similar announcements from other Colorado Front Range resorts soon. We’re especially keeping an eye on Keystone, which is supposed to open November 6 (and still plans to as of this article’s publishing).