Beaver Creek & Vail 2025 Holiday Season trip...

[Tonyr]

Resort or Ski Area

Beaver Creek & Vail

Date

Dec 21, 2025

Snow Conditions

1. Packed Powder
2. Slush or Spring Snow
3. Cord
4. Dust on Crust
5. Moguls

Well, we've had lots of good luck over the years on our Colorado Christmas/New Years ski trips so we were bound to finally get a stinker weather wise and 2025 is the year!


While Colorado is having one of its worst Decembers of all time, as you can see from above, Vermont is having one of it's best ever. If I could have stayed in the Northeast instead over the holidays we would have but unfortunately I got locked into our hotels so we'll make the best of it.

We skied Beaver Creek the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd and it was pretty much the same each day. 50 degrees, sunny, and crowded. They said 13 trails were open but it was really only 2. You'd take the Centennial lift up, ski Red Tail, ride the Birds of Prey Lift back up, then ski down Gold Dust to the base, rinse and repeat. I did that loop about 10 times over the last three days spending about 3.5 hours total out on the mountain. I'll say that those groomers were pretty good considering all the traffic on them....




Gold Dust did have a nice ungroomed mogul set-up so we got to brush up on some nice ice coast style moguls each day...


Very little snow is supposed to arrive between now and the end of the year so we will see how this goes!

 

[Tonyr]

Merry Christmas everyone. We moved over to Vail yesterday and got out for the first time today on Christmas. Vail had 51 trails open most of which are in the Mid-Vail area. As we got on the lift it started raining which turned conditions soft but that later converted into snow as we gained elevation.

In any event, while today's skiing was substantially better then Beaver Creek's the previous few days, Colorado in general badly needs snow. We went down Look Ma for the heck of it on our first run, the top of the run was super bare...

We decided to go in from the side, it wasn't much better then the top entrance...

After Look Ma we hit a handful of runs, delicately, in some unmarked trees in Mid-Vail which were pretty fun all things considered. I have to say, Vail did a great job on the condition of it's groomers. What snow they had on them skied great. Also today's crowds weren't horrible, the longest we waited in the singles line was about 10 minutes.

About 8 inches of snow is supposed to arrive on Saturday and Sunday so we'll take that. Here are some of my better photos from the day, it was more fun then it looks!...

 

[Tonyr]

December 26th was a 47 degree bluebird bird day but once you got off the groomers, which were great, it was more of the same. The steep terrain in Mid-Vail is bare at the tops and the tree skiing is very thin. The run of the day, like yesterday was the Buckskin glade. It's supposed to snow on Saturday & Sunday so we'll see how that goes. Here are a few photos from the day...

 

[Tonyr]

The 27th has been the worst day of the three so far at Vail, the conditions were icy hard pack with lots of branches, dirt patches, and rocks sticking out.


We were supposed to get 2 or 3 inches of snow overnight which would have went a long way to soften things up but the snow never arrived. Tomorrow is supposed to bring 6 inches of snow overnight, then nothing for the rest of the week...

 

[Tonyr]

Had what felt like the first normal ski day of the season so far on the 28th. It snowed 4 inches overnight which doesn't sound like alot but it made a huge difference today. I didn't get out until 11.30 this morning. We skied about 3 hours, the lines were all 20 minute waits or more but all of the unmarked trees in Mid-Vail skied well.

We should get another good day or two out of this snow in the unmarked trees. Here are some of my better photos from the day...

 

[Tonyr]

Well, our hotel was gracious enough to allow us out of our reservation early without penalty so we are calling it a trip. The 28th was our 8th and last day of skiing for 2025. We have a trip planned at Breckenridge in February but I think I'm going to cancel that and go somewhere in the east coast or western Canada instead. We shall see, I hope you enjoyed the trip report.

 

[Edd]

Well, our hotel was gracious enough to allow us out of our reservation early without penalty so we are calling it a trip. The 28th was our 8th and last day of skiing for 2025. We have a trip planned at Breckenridge in February but I think I'm going to cancel that and go somewhere in the east coast or western Canada instead. We shall see, I hope you enjoyed the trip report.

You’re concerned Breck won’t be 100% by Feb? Better times seem ahead.

 

[Tonyr]

This is the 15 day forecast plus I have another cancelation window to deal with. I don't want to risk getting stuck in bad conditions again, the mountains out here are bare...