A-Basin

I checked out Arapahoe Basin for the first time today. A-Basin is located about 4 miles up the road from Keystone near Loveland pass. It is a small (490 acres) old-school ski resort (no high-speed quads or big condos near the slopes). Most of the terrain is expert bump runs and steeps. It is a bit like Kirkwood in California with slow chairlifts and terrain that caters to experts. The cool thing about A-Basin is that it stays open much later than the other Summit County ski resorts. Most years it stays open until July. It tends to get a lot of snowfall in April and May and it is at a really high altitude. Overall, the resort seemed nice. I'd like to go there on a sunny day. It was a blustery day when we were there and visibility was poor. Much of the basin is above treeline so when it started snowing hard around noon it was a total white out. You couldn't see the snow or the fall line at all and it was tough to ski down a blue run. Once conditions got bad, we headed down to Keystone for the rest of the day where it wasn't snowing at all despite being only 4 miles away. I'll probably be spending a lot of time at A-Basin in the spring after the other resorts in the area close.