Vail’s Back Bowls need ‘about another foot’ of snow to open this season

With more than a foot of fresh snow over the weekend, Vail still needs another foot of snow to get the Back Bowls open for the season.

“Vail Mountain’s operations team continues to closely monitor conditions and prepare terrain in the Back Bowls,” Vail Resorts Senior Director of Communications John Plack wrote in an email Monday. “While recent periods of persistent sunshine affected south-facing slopes, the past two storms have helped establish a stronger base and meaningful progress is underway. We estimate we still need about another foot to get Back Bowl terrain open.”

Vail reported 2 inches of new snow Monday morning, on top of 4 new inches on Sunday and 8 new on Saturday’s snow report for a 14-inch total since Friday night. Still, the season is halfway over and Vail has only seen 83 inches, or just under 7 feet, when it typically enjoys more than 300 inches (25 feet) over the course of the entire season, from mid-November to mid-April.

Beaver Creek received 16 inches of snow since Friday night but is still lagging behind Vail at just 70 inches for this historically warm and dry season. The most recent storm brought a wave of much colder air into the Eagle River Valley.

“While we don’t yet have a specific opening timeline, we’re encouraged with this past storm cycle and cold temperatures,” Plack said. “This will support continued progress on this iconic terrain. No one is more eager to open the Back Bowls than our team, and we’ll continue to keep guests informed as conditions evolve like we did with the video from Ski Patrol Director Chris ‘Mongo’ Reeder.”

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In the video, Reeder talks about the south-facing, more sunbaked aspects of Vail’s Back Bowls. Blue Sky Basin, a north-facing extension of the Back Bowls that opened in the early 2000s, was originally conceived of and pitched during the Category III approval process to the U.S. Forest Service as a north-facing alternative to the south-facing Back Bowls in low snow years, with snow riders downloading the Tea Cup Express chairlift to access the terrain. That has never happened.

“In Blue Sky Basin, sufficient snow coverage on critical connector trails is required to ensure safe access and preserve existing snow conditions,” Plack said. “We’re closely monitoring weather and snowpack and will open additional terrain as soon as it’s safe to do so. We do not download guests into Blue Sky Basin via Teacup Express.”

Unfortunately, this season’s prevailing high-pressure weather pattern may be settling back in for the next couple of weeks, meaning snow riders will likely have to wait for that additional foot of fresh snow to fall sometime in February in order for the Back Bowls to drop rope.

“We are coming off a fun weekend storm cycle with powder on Saturday (a rarity this season) and very cold temperatures on Sunday,” opensnow.com meteorologist Joel Gratz wrote Monday. “For the next two weeks, we’ll continue to experience a mostly dry weather pattern, although some snowflakes may appear from time to time. Looking ahead to February 10 and beyond, there are signs of hope for storms to return — come on, atmosphere, make it happen!”

The latest opening for the Back Bowls in recent memory was the 2011-12 ski season when the terrain didn’t open until Jan. 19, 2012. Prior to that, longtime Vail skiers seem to recall the 1976-77 season as one of the driest on record, with the Back Bowls opening later than the end of January. Vail Resorts does not have available data on whether the Back Bowls never opened during a particular season, dating back to the ski area’s launch on Dec. 15, 1962.