Colorado Ski Resorts Formalize Uphill Skinning Rules
By Steve Casimiro on November 15th, 2012
They aren’t charging admission…yet. But several Colorado resorts, including Keystone, Vail, Loveland, A-Basin, Copper, all of Aspen Ski Co.’s hills, and Winter Park are setting down formal guidelines for the skiers who show up every morning for pre-dawn skins to the tops of their resorts. It’s happening in part because workers on these mountains need to know who’s out there, which is why there are guidelines being issued that aren’t part of typical lift-ticket protocol. For instance, the need to wear reflective clothing so the headlights of a snowmobile or cat can highlight skinners, a headlamp requirement, whether or not you can bring your pooch, and other rules, including specifying uphill approaches to cordon off skin lines. The future may include required passes, too: Loveland, Sunlight, and Crested Butte already require them. Via Denver Post.
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Tags: Skiing
Don’t get the logic behind skinning up a ski resort run, I’m a splitboarder and the last place i would want to skin is inside a ski resort, why not go where it’s untracked?
Ski resorts are a plague. I’m glad backcountry skiing is becoming so popular, as every skier that leaves the lift lines chokes the resorts a little bit more.
My friends and I take an at least weekly night time pilgrimage to Loveland. Skinning up at night is a great way to avoid boring gym workouts in the winter. I would consider it unsafe to ski true back country at night unless you know the terrain very, very well. Ski area’s eliminate this safety. Loveland currently requires a “night pass”. All it does is have some rules associated with it (certain groomer’s lights are a different color if they are the cable groomers (for steeps)). It is advisable to know what’s going on because downhill skiing in the dark with a taught cable across the open lane is an invitation for disaster…
I would find it hard to believe that they would charge for this as it is national forest. You can even skin up during the open hours as long as you stick to the sides of the runs. Just as long as you don’t ride an unmonitored (no scanners) lift higher on the mountain. This is considered theft of service and might get you a trip in the back of a Sheriff’s car…