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marjoram_sage

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Question for the Heavenly experts. How much terrain is open at Heavenly in mid-April? I skied there for an April weekend in 2018 and only the trails above Gondola were open. The afternoon temperatures were in the 60s, so it was fun to go to the beach or get in the pool or stroll in the shops near the Gondola. It was a fun trip.

I'm curious what portion of the terrain is open in an average, above average, or a below-average year.
 

raytseng

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There are 2 aspects, business closure and closure due to snow.

Snow closure, you need to look as historical reports because Heavenly really feast or famine..

From business perspective, Easter is the main date that drives the operations.
You can expect Heavenly to begin moving to reduced operations 1 week after easter, and 2weeks after easter it maybe close to over.
In 2018, Easter was very early on April1, so by mid April it is already 2 weeks past; so if you went mid April you were late and close to ops shutdown.
If you are skiing on a year where Easter is later, you can expect HV lifts will be scheduled to try to be 100% open through Easter.

Additionally with Squaw/Alpine pushing long seasons, HV operations may be adjusting their approaches to try to keep their passholders from defecting.
 

BC.

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Easter is early next year (April 4th)....first weekend in April...that’s good timing....I am already planning to be somewhere Easter 2021....
 
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marjoram_sage

newly addicted to skiing
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San Jose California
There are 2 aspects, business closure and closure due to snow.

Snow closure, you need to look as historical reports because Heavenly really feast or famine..

From business perspective, Easter is the main date that drives the operations.
You can expect Heavenly to begin moving to reduced operations 1 week after easter, and 2weeks after easter it maybe close to over.
In 2018, Easter was very early on April1, so by mid April it is already 2 weeks past; so if you went mid April you were late and close to ops shutdown.
If you are skiing on a year where Easter is later, you can expect HV lifts will be scheduled to try to be 100% open through Easter.

Additionally with Squaw/Alpine pushing long seasons, HV operations may be adjusting their approaches to try to keep their passholders from defecting.

Great info. I don't understand how the easter holiday works but this calendar says April 2, 2021.
The wikipedia page is pretty confusing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_for_Easter


My daughter's spring holiday next year is from April 10 to 18, so it seems like we would probably not have too many lifts open.
 

raytseng

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The date you have from the first webpage is listing GoodFriday; which is the possible holiday from the normal workweek.
Easter is the Sunday after that Friday.

Looking ahead, there are many unknowns that throw the historical playbook out the window.
Even assuming things return back to normal from a health and regulation standpoint; from a business perspective Vail may need to compete with Squaw/Alpine for tahoe passholders more and promote a longer season now (or at least not cut it so short in early Easter years). They may also want to spread goodwill and make up for 2020.
Nobody can tell, even Vail wouldn't project that far in the future; they may make their closing decisions based on the numbers (aka $) and how many people show up to the slopes as it goes deeper into the season.

Of course the pandemic uncertainty looms even larger over all this analysis; so throw that replacement playbook out the window too until the pandemic clears up.
 
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Tony

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Heavenly ran Stagecoach lift until 4/28/2019, a week after Easter. AFAIK CA lifts had already closed. Last year they ran gondola and a few lifts (Tamarack and Dipper, and I think crowds or mechanical failure added Comet) at top of gondola on weekends (plus Fridays) until Memorial Day. Some details of this and previous year's closures at https://www.tahoedailytribune.com/sports/heavenly-mountain-resort-extends-season-by-3-weekends/

One problems for me at Heavenly is I don't want to pay to park so access becomes more difficult once it becomes gondola only, as it's too far from our cabin to easily walk and any free parking closer has ended. And besides that gondola could be problematic next season, Heavenly does not have the variety of exposure required for a longer day of spring skiing. Most of the mountain faces N and NW so it can stay firm in the morning if there is a hard freeze. Very little faces East which would soften faster. They sometimes add Gunbarrel chair in afternoons in Spring, but I don't think that is what OP is looking for.
 
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marjoram_sage

newly addicted to skiing
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Location
San Jose California
Heavenly ran Stagecoach lift until 4/28/2019, a week after Easter. AFAIK CA lifts had already closed. Last year they ran gondola and a few lifts (Tamarack and Dipper, and I think crowds or mechanical failure added Comet) at top of gondola on weekends (plus Fridays) until Memorial Day. Some details of this and previous year's closures at https://www.tahoedailytribune.com/sports/heavenly-mountain-resort-extends-season-by-3-weekends/

One problems for me at Heavenly is I don't want to pay to park so access becomes more difficult once it becomes gondola only, as it's too far from our cabin to easily walk free parking closer has ended. And besides that gondola could be problematic next season, Heavenly does not have the variety of exposure required for a longer day of spring skiing. Most of the mountain faces N and NW so it can stay firm in the morning if there is a hard freeze. Very little faces East which would soften faster. They sometimes add Gunbarrel chair in afternoons in Spring, but I don't think that is what OP is looking for.

This is the kind of info I was looking for. I won't be going on Gunbarrel but I like the lifts you mentioned. I was trying to evaluate if we should tentatively plan to ski Heavenly or think about another place like Breckenridge or Beaver Creek (if it stays open that late).

Heavenly got some snowfall around 10th April this year so good conditions are possible. One attraction of skiing in April is the lodging is really affordable. I think lodging can be booked pretty cheap right now so I don't see any harm in booking refundable rates.
 

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