Eldora, CO 2024-2025 Season

Not going to post tons of daily TRs but will throw some stuff up as warranted this year.

I do have more ski days since the Opening day TR I put up nearly a month ago. Lots of snow for this time of year, though not enough to really open anything yet. Lots of ski packing in places, wind removed all snow in some areas as usual, etc... Focus for the mtn has been mostly getting the beginner zone, terrain park, and now race trail ready (FIS races mid-Dec this year). And the past couple of days it finally warmed up too much to get much done snowmaking wise. Good thing snow and colder weather is only a couple days out at this point.

Crowds have been very manageable as central Colo has far more open terrain available for the moment.

Pre-Thanksgiving pics:


Jolly Jug


IP Liftline


Thanksgiving morning pic


Post Turkey pics:


Note the ski packing on the pitches


Ahhhh.... the Eldora Breeze...


Mogul line on Jolly Jug's right side now...

Eldora is in a somewhat weird spot for the moment where it was cold enough to get snowmaking completed on the trails to and from the backside, but no trails on the backside since it warmed back up to upper 30's daytime, mid 20's overnight for several days. So they opened the Corona chair to spread people out, but its a lot of flats going back and forth.

Heading to the backside (hard left at bottom of pitch, the chair you see is IP lift)


Only a small amount of breeze in recent days (also known as 60mph+)


Waiting game...

Figured a couple of these pics are good enough for their own post.

Racing season is here (yay). 7am lift loads are a thing. FIS level races with fast racers but tiny field sizes. 4 race runs for two complete races and still done before 1p.

6:30a arrival in the moonlight


Courses mostly set pre-sunrise....


Very gusty winds to start the day, but slowly getting better as the day went along.
View from the SL start.

No visit to Birds of Prey World Cup races this year?

Tony Crocker said:

No visit to Birds of Prey World Cup races this year?

Click to expand...

Not this year. I almost worked the races (and know several locals who did), but still a bit too much stuff going on to make it happen. Maybe next year...

After a week of new snow and cold, Eldora is finally looking a lot more like a western resort. 28" of new snow this week has finally opened some blue and black natural snow trails. Snowmaking has a ways to go on the backside (where wind is a huge factor on several trails). But at least temps are cooperating with highs recently at about 20F with winds 'only' at about 15-20mph.

I've finally switched to skis for Eldora, in part due to terrain now available and also to have ski legs (vs boarder legs) for Mustang coming up shortly.

Today was only 3" new and quite dense but very soft under foot. Moderate crowd on the frontside today vs yesterday's big crowds. Plenty of attention needed skiing natural snow trails but less rocks than I would expect (so far).

Soft bumps upper Corona


Stay skiers left on most trails at Eldora... Both sunny and flurries at the same time all day today. Upper Ambush trail...


Hard to believe they actually opened this super sketchy entrance to several trails (normally a snowmade entry). Better entry to the terrain is on opposite side of the 6pack.

Weather impacting skiing in Colo this holiday weekend. From the Eldora morning report:

[snip]temperatures today will be downright frigid, and with west winds of 8–17 gusting to 28, wind chill values will be as low as -32F today. As we write, it's -4F in the base area, with a wind chill of -41F. If you dare to venture up today, bring a buddy who can watch you for cold injuries like frostbite and hypothermia, and make sure you are properly bundled up with no exposed skin. Please note that lift operations and other services may be affected by the extreme cold, so check this page early and often for the latest updates.[snip]

Click to expand...

From what I read, at least the Continental Divide region will be getting some snow while the rest of the West is parked under widespread high pressure for at least the next week and possibly longer.

Yes, Eldora has had 9" in 48hrs. Other front range is a bit less. Snowing a few more inches tonight, etc... Though with the bitter cold and some breeze the snow was very weird off groomers today. Super funky grippy, slow and grabby (yank your ski tips around kida stuff). Ironically not the best snow in spite of being new.

Forgot to mention in the earlier post this am that Eldora decided to shut 4 lifts today. Less than fully crowded, lifts with long rides and no lodge nearby, allows shorter turns of the staff standing outside etc...

Supposed to be colder tomorrow by another 5-10F before coming back up partway to reasonable temps.

Another home race weekend for me. Not a lot, but several inches of new snow keeping things skiing quite nice (5" total spread over both days). Today even warmed up into the 20's for the first time in a while. Small field for 4 race runs today meant I was able to get a bit over 10K vertical on the backside steeps after the race was over.

Also a very busy weekend. Surprising how there were lines on the 6pack and Corona lifts but nothing crazy long in spite of truly crazy amounts of cars. Even showing up as early as I did I was stuck in traffic through Ned and up shelf road. They had to close the access road a couple of times due to being parked out.

I should have taken a few more pics on a scenic nice snow day but didn't.

Pano of the SL start in between race runs


Full pen on Corona lift lines (double the pen for singles line, but it moved quite fast)

What a weird weekend at Eldora.

Power went out to the entire resort on both days. at ~11:30a on Saturday for 3+ hours (the 6 pack is the only lift they can run 'normally' when power goes out. so everyone headed into get lunch... or mostly stood in lines to try to get lunch. Racing team pulled the plug on programs for the day after about 1.5hrs of no power.

Then Sunday had the weird fun of driving up in the rain(!) all the way to ~8700 foot elevation. Fortunately snow at Eldora but a very tahoe esq dense cream cheese. With snow ending just as the resort opened. Skied very nicely though and 'felt' deeper due to the density. With the sun out it was way too warm. At least upper 30's which of course everyone commented on since it was so different than the past 3 weeks. Eventually at just after 2p the entire resort lost power again. This time 'only' for 25 minutes. But given the time of day, patrol roped off the entirety of the backside forcing everyone to the frontside. By the time things had recovered it was just prior to 3p anyway ending my day.

Not exactly deep, but it was a nice surprise (no snow had been forecast to make it over the divide).


I did manage first tracks as it were in both Salto Glade and on run #3 on the backside for me also Moose Glade. This is in Salto:


"untouched" start of Moose glade at 9:37am




A lot of bored guests waiting for the Sunday power outage to be over. Lots of them started hiking uphill from here (Indian Peaks lift), but I held my ground and had a 'deadline' of about another 5-10min before I was going to start. It's a fairly long slog to get to the frontside (not too bad to go to Corona if it is just the one lift that is down).