The Top 5 Reasons Keystone Should Be on Your Early Season Bucket List

Posted October 18, 2021
Keystone, CO

We love Keystone all year round, but there is magic in the air during the early season. Hitting the slopes for those first few runs of the winter is something special, and at Keystone, it can happen earlier than practically anywhere else!

1. October Turns

Keystone is one of the earliest resorts to open, not just Colorado, but in all of North America! Mild temps + great conditions = endless fun. Plus, celebrating Halloween on the slopes is all treats and no tricks!

2. Great Conditions Thanks to Snowmaking

With a recent investment in new snowmaking technology, we make winter happen in fall! Of course, we still need a little hand from Mother Nature, too, to get the right evening temps, but with a fully automated system on our early season terrain, the system can detect ideal conditions and turn itself on and off just like magic!

In the summer of 2019, we installed:

  • 53 automated fan guns
    • 22 mobile fan guns
    • 29 tower-mounted fan guns
    • 2 arm-mounted fan guns
    • 10 air/water tower guns
  • 11,000 feet of pipe – more than 2 miles
  • 78,000 feet of electrical cable, that’s almost 15 miles of wire!

3. Meet the New Peru

This summer, we have been hard at work bringing the new, 6-passenger Peru Express Lift to life at the resort, in preparation for the 2021-22 winter season. This exciting new project will greatly enhance the on-mountain guest experience, improving skier and rider circulation and providing quicker and more efficient access to Keystone’s mountain playground.

4. Keystone Pass Holder First Tracks

If you weren’t a morning person before, you are now! This season we're introducing the Keystone Pass Holder First Tracks, which means Epic Pass holders get EXCLUSIVE access to that fresh corduroy an hour before the general public on Nov. 12, Nov. 19 and Dec. 3. Bonus! The first 400 pass holders will get a free breakfast burrito and Rockstar Energy Drink!

5. Keystone Kickoff

With Keystone being one of the first resorts to open for the season, it definitely calls for a celebration! We’ll have fun activities for the whole family throughout the early season, like a Halloween scavenger hunt, and it will all cap off with the opening of, not one, but TWO Snow Forts in mid-December and the debut of our upgraded Peru Express lift.