Pagosa Springs, Colorado — An El Niño winter could bode well for Southwestern Colorado ski resorts. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary is Wolf Creek Ski Area, and it’s preparing by cleaning up the glades.
This week, Wolf Creek detailed arguably its biggest 2026 offseason project. Over the past several months, Wolf Creek has spent over $2 million on logging operations. A K-Max helicopter flew laps around the mountain to remove 6,000 problematic trees. By doing this, it helped create better tree skiing. This improves spacing for turns and opens the woods under less snow. This will also help reduce wildfire risks, which has become a pertinent issue for the Western U.S. ski industry.
Other improvements for this season include building a new unloading area for the Alberta lift, rebuilding the gearbox for the Elma lift, adding a new 28,000-gallon tank for potable water at the base, installing 6,000 feet of new snowmaking pipe on the Lower Powder Puff Valley and Charisma trails, and moving to reloadable lift tickets.
Wolf Creek hasn’t announced an opening date yet. However, in prior years, they were the first to open not only in Colorado, but in the country. Deep snowstorms have allowed the ski area to open earlier than others, so we’ll see if that’s the case this ski season.
Image/Video Credits: Wolf Creek Ski Area
