Chester Bullock’s Guide to Colorado Skiing

Too much of a good thing apparently. The KBPI Hump Day Hooky promotion has been substantially changed. From their website:

The next Humpday Hooky will be on Wednesday, February 4th. Coupons will be available starting at 5PM on Tuesday, February 3rd. You will need to print your coupon out before 9AM on Wednesday, February 4th. Additionally, only the first 500 people will be able to redeem their coupons for $10.67. After the initial 500 all other tickets will be at regular price. We’re sorry about the inconvenience this causes.

This sucks. Guess it was too popular, and KBPI couldn’t afford to make up the difference to Vail Resorts. Too bad, it sure helped a lot of people.

Many thanks to Paul Witt at Vail Resorts for getting their snow report data fixed. We are supposed to start getting snow again in the mountains Thursday night, and this is one of the few places you can get conditions for all Colorado ski resorts.

In case you have noticed that snow report data is not being updated for the Vail Resorts areas (Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Vail), I think I have isolated a problem in their RSS feeds. I have notified them, hopefully it clears up soon. But no new snow is falling anyway, so there isn’t anything to report.

One other tip if you do the KBPI Humpday Hooky promotion next month. If you need skis, you might consider AB Ski & Sport in Frisco. They just a few doors down from the Christy Sports in Frisco. While they are not honoring the Christy Sports coupon, they didn’t have 45 minute lines waiting to get gear either. I have known the folks at AB Ski for a long time now and they will treat you right.

Yesterday I went skiing at Breckenridge as part of the KBPI Humpday Hooky promotion. Basically you get a lift ticket at Breckenridge for $10.50. That’s almost an $80 discount over their normal lift ticket price. Last year there weren’t a lot of people taking advantage of it, but yesterday there were a ton of people there. And of course, the weather was an issue higher up. I elected not to bring my camera with me, opting instead to just shoot pics with my cell phone camera if conditions warranted. But man, do I hate my cellphone camera. It is a Verizon XV6900 (also known as a HTC Touch), and it was definitely not designed for taking pictures.

After I got done skiing the knee deep powder at the top of Peak 7 (and learning how out of shape I am), I headed back down to the parking lot to get some pictures. The one above is the gondola that connects a parking lot in the town of Breckenridge with the base areas at Peaks 7 & 8. Parking there is $10, so I got to ski yesterday for a total of $20.50. Not bad at all. Next one will be in February. Keep an eye here for announcements about the next Humpday Hooky. I plan on being there.

Oh, and I have a new tip for people skiing Breck. If you don’t need anything other than maybe a lift ticket (no locker, etc), get off the gondola at Peak 7. No lines, immediate access to the Peak 7 lift, which then gets you to the T-Bar immediately. Definitely beats the old way of doing things. And it especially beats the lift ticket line at the gondola base, which was crazy yesterday.

Happy New Year to you! Hopefully the massive dumps keeping happening in the Colorado mountains. For anyone who is wondering, the next Hump Day Hooky ($11 lift ticket at Breckenridge) is 1/14. More info at the KBPI website. Hope to see you there.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas, and definitely hope some of you are still in the Colorado mountains (although you might get stuck there today). Silverton is reporting of new snow in the last 24 hours, and the storm is just getting started for them. Wow…

27″ reported at Wolf Creek in the last 24 hours, 16 at Purgatory. 11″ at Breck. Good lord, today is one of those days if you can get there…

As promised, the Colorado Ski Area Lift Ticket Pricing Guide has been updated for 2008-2009. No real surprises, almost everyone went up. As always, check with lodging companies or ski shops for discounts and deals. I have linked to some of the known deals or businesses offering discounts on the guide page.

Looks like it is supposed to continue dumping in the mountains. Hope your holidays are full of powder.

Colorado’s ski areas continue to get belted with snow (just look at the chart above).  This has to be shaping up as one of the best December’s on record.  Forecast for today includes 3″-6″ additional for most locations, with another 1″-4″ projected for tomorrow.  It has snowed every day this week in the mountains, which is awesome.

Also, high season lift ticket pricing will be going into effect at areas that have variable pricing.  I will have theColorado Ski Area  lift ticket pricing charts updated this weekend.