Arapahoe Basin will begin charging for all parking heaps for the primary time. Each lot on the Colorado resort will now be $20 (at the least) per car on weekends and holidays, and reservations shall be required.
Final 12 months, the ski space was bought by Alterra Mountain Firm, proprietor of the Ikon Move and Aspen Mountain, and the first competitor to the Vail Resorts’ Epic Move. It assured the media and its clients that regardless of the acquisition, it deliberate to retain the native ski space’s “soul.”
Counterintuitively, Arapahoe Basin hopes to ship on that promise with this new paid parking coverage. The ski space says it’s doing this to enhance its visitor expertise.
“The primary motive we’re doing that is to maintain the visitor expertise actually particular. And that features the arrival expertise,” Arapahoe Basin’s Chief Working Officer Alan Henceroth advised GearJunkie. “No person enjoys getting turned away. No person enjoys having to attend in line for an hour out on the freeway. So we’re actually attempting to remove these issues and actually concentrate on the standard of the ski expertise.”
$20 Per Automobile, Reservations Required
There are 4 most important heaps at Arapahoe Basin, with roughly 1,750 parking spots, which may accommodate roughly 18,000 guests. Earlier than the Alterra acquisition, the resort had plans so as to add one other 350 spots for this coming season. However nonetheless, it anticipated parking issues.
As Henceroth defined in his weblog, parking has at all times been a “pinch level” for this resort. It was a part of why Arapahoe Basin left Vail Resorts in February 2019. Getting a parking spot was turning into more and more difficult with Vail’s crowds, irrespective of how early skiers arrived.
“This has nothing to do with Alterra or the Ikon Move,” Henceroth clarified. “We’re doing this to handle the visitor expertise at Arapahoe Basin.”
He advised GearJunkie that, actually, the ski space had been considering implementing p[aid parking for several seasons before this.
“We just reached a point this year where we decided it was time,” he said.
Going forward, it will now cost $20 per day to park in any of the lots on weekends and holidays until 1 p.m. from early December to mid-May. The ski area is also implementing a parking reservation system for weekends and holidays.
“There is no doubt that requiring reservations will take away some of the spontaneity of skiing,” Henceroth wrote. “That spontaneity, however, can be a major contributor to parking problems, especially on powder days.”
Henceroth said the reservation system is meant to take away a lot of the anxiety and concern people feel about getting a spot when they want to go ski. Reservations will be required for everyone.
However, Arapahoe Basin will also offer a limited number of season parking passes. Those will be available for $150.
Arapahoe Basin said it is still working to figure out exactly how the parking system will be implemented and through which parking vendor. However, it said it will post updates on its website to answer questions like how to make a reservation, how many reservations one can make for a day, and how this change will affect uphill access.
The resort notes no camping or overnight parking is allowed on its parking page. Gates for the parking lots open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 6:00 p.m. And no glass, charcoal grills, open fires, live bands, DJs, hot tubs, “or pet dragons” are allowed. However, dogs are still welcome if leashed.
