Breckenridge opens 11 November with one blue run, Vail follows on 13 November

Peaks 7 and 8 at Breckenridge Ski Resort in January 2013, not the 2026 opening-day run. Photo: DReifGalaxyM31 via Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Breckenridge Ski Resort opens on Wednesday 11 November 2026, five days after its planned start on 6 November. Opening day has one intermediate run, Springmeier on Peak 8. Vail Mountain plans to follow on Friday 13 November. Both openings fall in a dry, warm week, so snowmaking carries the start of the Colorado season.

• Breckenridge opens Wednesday 11 November 2026 on one blue run, Springmeier on Peak 8.
• The BreckConnect Gondola starts at 8:30 a.m., the Colorado SuperChair at 9 a.m. local time.
• Vail Mountain keeps its opening date of Friday 13 November; its new COO says the terrain "may look a little different".
• Mountain towns expect highs in the mid-50s °F until Friday 13 November; snow chances return from 14 November.
• Western Colorado's snowpack stood at 99 % of normal on 9 November, against 25 % a year earlier.

Breckenridge had planned to open on Friday 6 November 2026. On 5 November it postponed the start without a new date, because nights were too warm for full snowmaking. We covered that delay in our report of 6 November.

On Monday 9 November the resort named Wednesday 11 November as the new date, Summit Daily reported from the resort's release. The BreckConnect Gondola starts at 8:30 a.m. and the Colorado SuperChair at 9 a.m. Skiers reach one intermediate run, Springmeier on Peak 8. The resort says it will keep making snow and open more terrain as conditions allow.

Ski patrol director Hunter Mortensen announced the date in a video on the resort's social media. "I've checked in with the snowmaking team, they've had a couple great nights of work," he said, as SnowBrains quoted him. For scale: the resort's status page lists 35 lifts and 226 trails in total.

Breckenridge is the sixth Colorado ski area to open this season. Copper Mountain had the same planned date and the same delay, and it opened on Sunday 8 November. Five areas are now open, because Wolf Creek closed shortly after its Halloween opening when floods hit the region.

The dates come from the resorts as reported by Vail Daily and Summit Daily, and from our earlier reports on Loveland and Copper. Planned dates can still move.

Vail Mountain's first-year chief operating officer, Shaydar Edelmann, told local business owners on Monday 9 November that the resort is on track. He repeated it to Vail Daily by email. "While our opening terrain may look a little different than it has in some years, we feel confident in the work our teams are doing to get the mountain ready," Edelmann wrote.

Water is not the limit this autumn. The local water district told Vail Daily that Gore Creek and the Eagle River flow above their minimum instream levels, so the resort may keep making snow. Vail Daily adds that more than 85 % of man-made snow returns to local streams in the spring runoff.

The vail.com home page shows "Opening Day is Nov. 13th". Both resort sites also say that Epic Pass prices go up on Sunday 15 November.

The National Weather Service expects highs in the mid-50s °F in most mountain towns in the week of 9 November, and around 60 °F on Thursday and Friday. There is a low chance of rain and snow showers on Saturday night 14 November, and a higher chance around 18–21 November.

"Through November, you can have wet periods and you can have dry periods, so I wouldn't say this is out of the ordinary," NWS meteorologist Kris Sanders in Grand Junction told Summit Daily.

The snowpack numbers explain the mixed picture:

Recent storms hit the southwest of the state. The resorts that are open now are all in the northern mountains, where some basins are far below median.

The bad 2025-26 season is not over for everyone. On 4 November the Snowmass Town Council voted, on first reading, to cut the yearly work-hour rule for its employee housing from 1,400 to 1,300 hours for now, the Aspen Times reported. Snowmass, Buttermilk and Aspen Highlands closed at least a week early last spring, so even full-time staff lost hours. "I think it will go a long way with our community," council member Tom Fridstein said.

Opening day in Colorado means one groomed run of man-made snow. That snow is dense and gets hard and scraped by the afternoon. A wide powder ski has nothing to do here. A frontside ski with a waist of 75–85 mm and a medium radius grips better and is easier to turn on a narrow run with crowds.

The figures are the makers' own. Thin early-season cover can hide rocks, so an older pair is a sensible choice for the first days. To compare more frontside skis by your level and the snow you ski, use the Pick-a-Ski ski finder.