Summit County Ski Resort capacity reduced due to red level

With Thanksgiving week marking the unofficial start of the ski season in Colorado and fresh snow blanketing the high country, Summit County resorts are experiencing mountain capacity cuts due to new COVID-19 restrictions.

A new public health order released last week by the Summit County Health Department stated that the county’s four ski areas are “required to work with the local public health agency to further reduce their daily capacities from those designated in their existing COVID-19 operational plans. “

Keystone, Arapahoe Basin and Breckenridge are already open. Copper Mountain is scheduled to open next week.

The new cuts, coming in response to Summit County’s move to red level on the state’s COVID-19 dial, went into effect Wednesday. Summit County Manager Scott Vargo called the reductions “commensurate with risk” and “significant,” but declined to provide specific numbers or percentages.

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Summit County ski areas have been given permission to open for the season after developing COVID-19 operating plans in conjunction with the county health department in the fall.

“The original plans resulted in a reduction in capacity from what ski areas are used to,” said Vargo. “What the last identified public health order was, as a public health agency we would still have conversations with ski areas and talk about making further reductions from the initially approved plan numbers. We are happy to say that they have been cooperative. Just as any other industry or business is uncomfortable or frustrated with the various restrictions that flow from these public health orders, they recognize the challenges we face and have worked with us to work on reductions. additional.

Requests have been made to managers at the four Summit County ski areas for comment on the capacity reductions and what they mean for users who currently have reservations. Only Copper Mountain made a statement.

“Our top priority at Copper Mountain is the safety of everyone,” said spokesperson Taylor Prather. “Part of the guarantee of meeting this priority throughout the season is the adaptable Operation Stay Safe plan that we have in place, which we are prepared to adjust given the continuing dynamics of COVID-19. Examples include carefully monitoring and adjusting our parking inventory, lift ticket inventory, and online pre-booking for everything. In addition, and in accordance with the latest Summit County Public Health Ordinance, we have made the decision to offer take-out food only options and have limited indoor capacity for retail outlets. “

Prather didn’t say how many skiers and riders the county would allow in Copper, but she noted that the number of mountain abilities will change with the amount of terrain open to skiing and horseback riding.

“As the land opens up in Copper, more people can make parking reservations, purchase daily lift tickets or book activities,” said Prather. “We firmly believe that skiing and horseback riding are important not only for our mental and physical well-being, but also for the economic vitality of our mountain community, and we are doing everything we can to ensure a safe experience during for the duration of the 2020-21 season. . “

The latest orders from Summit County health officials are designed in hopes of avoiding Level Purple, which could result in a full stay-at-home order and ski area closures.

“We went through this in March and April and a good part of May,” Vargo said. “Economic devastation, psychological devastation to our community is something we are desperately trying to avoid. Our aim is twofold: The first is to do our best in public health and safety, trying to make sure that we are doing all we can to control the spread of the virus within the community.

“Second – not secondarily – we are trying to figure out how can we balance the financial impacts within the community as we need to implement some of these restrictions. It really is a very difficult balancing act for us. We really hope that the steps we take now will help preserve a really good and robust winter season for Summit County going forward.

Vargo said local and national health officials find it “frightening” that holiday gatherings could cause a greater increase in transmission of the virus.

“Right now, the order that is in place has an expiration date of December 18,” Vargo said. “This is the date we expect to have a registration with the state in regards to our activity levels. Maybe at this point we can go back to the orange level or remove some of the restrictions that are specific to Summit County (and) are not part of the state red level. We will be taking a very close look at our numbers until we get to the middle and the last stage of December. We hope we are starting to see the trend moving in the right direction. “

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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