Copper and Breckenridge delay 6 November openings: nights too warm for snow guns

The top of the Falcon SuperChair at Breckenridge on 26 December 2013. Photo: DReifGalaxyM31 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Copper Mountain and Breckenridge both announced on Thursday 5 November 2026 that they will not open on Friday 6 November, and neither has a new date. Both resorts got about 4 inches (10 cm) of snow in the night of 4–5 November, but the nights stayed too warm to run the snow guns at full power. Arapahoe Basin and Keystone remain Colorado's only open ski areas, with one run each.

• Breckenridge announced the delay at about 9:40 on 5 November, Copper Mountain before noon; both say they will open "as soon as possible".
• About 4 inches (10 cm) fell at Copper and Breckenridge on 4–5 November; Aspen Snowmass recorded up to 8 inches, Keystone and A-Basin 1 inch.
• The National Weather Service forecast for Breckenridge: sunny from Saturday 7 November, lows of 20–27 °F (−7 to −3 °C), highs up to 57 °F (14 °C) on Monday 9 November.
• Mt. Rose in Nevada still planned its opening for 6 November, Banff Sunshine for Saturday 7 November; Brian Head in Utah postponed on 4 November.

Breckenridge planned the first lifts of its 2026/27 season for Friday 6 November. On Thursday morning the Vail Resorts area told the Summit Daily that it would wait. Senior communications specialist Emily Kowalenko said overnight temperatures had "hovered just barely too warm to run snowmaking at full power for sustained periods." The resort's own site carries a banner that reads "Pray for Snow! Breck to open ASAP." CBS Colorado reported that the resort wants "a deeper base" before it opens the gates and asks skiers to watch its social channels for a date.

The snowmaking and mountain teams "have a start on the terrain we plan to open", Kowalenko said in the same statement, which the resort also sent to SnowBrains. Breckenridge opened on schedule on 7 November 2025, SnowBrains noted. No Vail Resorts press release on the delay existed on the company's newsroom as of 07:30 CET on 6 November.

Copper Mountain followed before noon. Its home page now shows the line "Welp... We're delaying Opening Day, but we'll open as soon as possible." Communications manager Olivia Butrymovich told SnowBrains: "Temperatures in the mountains have been cool but not consistently cold enough to support efficient snowmaking." In the same statement she said much of the autumn moisture had fallen as rain, with limited snow reaching the village, and that the resort could not guarantee "a safe and quality early season surface" by Friday. The 4 inches that fell overnight on 4–5 November did not change that. The Woodward Barn Bash at Copper still goes ahead on Friday 6 November, according to the resort's site.

Copper Mountain in February 2016. Photo: Alexa Gaul via Wikimedia Commons, CC0

The figures come from OpenSnow data reported by the Vail Daily on 5 November. OpenSnow's founding meteorologist Joel Gratz wrote in his Colorado forecast of the same day: "Coming up, we'll have 7-10 days of dry and warm-ish weather, and then storms should return at some point in the November 14-18th time frame."

Arapahoe Basin reported 1 of 147 runs and 1 of 9 lifts open on an 18-inch (46 cm) base as of 6 November, with 1 inch in the previous 48 hours. Keystone, open since Friday 30 October after a Vail Resorts announcement of 28 October, lists 1 of 144 trails and 1 % of its terrain. Loveland and Winter Park have no date and aim to open "as soon as possible"; Eldora says it is "less than 30 days away". Vail Mountain targets 13 November, Steamboat 21 November.

Outside Colorado, Mt. Rose above Lake Tahoe kept its plan to open on Friday 6 November with the Lakeview Express at 9:00 and the Kit Carson Traverse, and Banff Sunshine opens on Saturday 7 November with its gondola, a magic carpet and a hike-up rail park. Brian Head in Utah postponed its 6 November opening on 4 November, as we reported in our Brian Head article; Mammoth opened on 5 November (our Mammoth article). The dates that were on the table a week ago are in our 6 November openings piece.

Snow guns need cold, dry air. SnowBrains puts the minimum at 27 °F (−3 °C) and the efficient range at wet-bulb temperatures of 10–20 °F (−12 to −7 °C); the Summit Daily gave a wet-bulb target of about 26 °F in October. The National Weather Service forecast for Breckenridge, issued at 11:47 MST on 5 November, gives the nights that follow:

Copper Mountain's forecast is one to four degrees cooler by day. The nights of 6 and 7 November are cold enough for the guns; the days are not, and the sunny afternoons eat into what the guns make. A date in the week of 9 November is possible on these numbers, but neither resort has named one as of 6 November.

Opening day at Copper, Breckenridge, A-Basin or Keystone means one groomed run on machine-made snow, shared with everyone who waited since spring. That surface is firm and the run is crowded, so the right ski is a frontside carver of 76–84 mm with a tight radius: the Rossignol Arcade 80, the Salomon Stance 80 and the Dynastar M-Cross 80 are built for that day; a first-season skier on a $9 Brian Head-style ticket is better off on a softer ski such as the Atomic Redster Q5. Our top-5 carving skis and top-5 beginner skis lists compare more, and the Pick-a-Ski tool sets the length.