Best snow in years! Most everywhere in Colorado has excellent snow conditions and snow base depths are the biggest in years. Central and northern Colorado snowfall has been especially plentiful this season providing the best conditions in recent memory.

Spring Skiing tips: Sunny warm days and cold nights mean the snow ‘freezes’ overnight and melts and softens during the day. Many times, you’ll experience hard pack conditions (‘crunch’) early in the day and wet snow (‘mush’) late in the day. Early in the day it’s best to look for trails that are in the sunshine which will soften up first. Later in the day those trails in the sun early will get too soft and wet, so midday and later look for trails with other sun exposures which soften up later but don’t get as ‘mushy’ in the afternoon. Another option is trails that are out of the sun all day long don’t melt much and the conditions can stay more consistent all day long. Basically look at the sun exposure of a ski area’s trails. Many areas have trails that face different directions, and the trick is to figure out where to go during different parts of the day to get the best conditions. With spring skiing it’s also best to have either sunny warm days or at least 4-6” of new snow. Cloudy cold days don’t allow the snow to soften up, so they tend to provide the worst snow conditions.

Leader Tip: Not much of a rush to get skiing on those ‘crunchy’ spring skiing mornings (unless there is 4″- 6” new snow). When the snow is hard early in the day more injuries will occur when people fall. Starting a little later and skiing until late in the day tends to be a good plan for spring skiing.