Idaho Springs, Colorado — The vibes were high at Echo Mountain this past weekend, as it opened for the 2025-26 ski season. Unfortunately, it promptly closed its one top-to-bottom trail after only a few days of operations.
On Sunday, Echo Mountain announced that it is temporarily shutting down its skiing operations. This closure will go on from Monday through Thursday this week. The move is in order to protect its snowpack, which is likely minimal. However, snow tubing operations are scheduled to continue this week.
Sign Of The Times
Being the closest ski area to Denver has its benefits and drawbacks, one of which is warmer temperatures than at other ski resorts in the front range. Add in the well-below-average snowpack across Colorado, and it’s a recipe for disaster so far for the state’s ski industry (see the map with the bad colors below).
About Echo Mountain
Situated a fifty-minute drive from downtown Denver, Echo Mountain is a small ski area with a great purpose. There are 7 trails, 1 gladed area, three lifts, and a vertical drop of 600 feet. There’s also a snow tubing operation there. Echo’s main strengths are its night skiing and its proximity to Denver, which means many can get there after a workday.
Echo first opened in 1960 and was initially known as Squaw Pass Ski Area. It operated for fifteen years and was then closed for forty years. Then came a few iterations of niche ski operations, including a ski area focused on terrain parks and a private ski racing facility. Echo Mountain officially reopened as a public ski area in 2016. In 2023, it was sold to Jogan Inc., which continues to operate it to this day.
Image Credits: Colorado Ski Country USA, Echo Mountain, U.S. Department of Agriculture
