Vail is reporting 11 inches in 24 hours. Not a bad little Friday to play hooky…

All the recent snow means Vail has opened up some of Sun Up Bowl and China Bowl today. Portions of Blue Sky Basin open tomorrow. It’s going to be a good weekend!

Lots of new snow since yesterday! Double digit highlights: Vail, Aspen, Buttermilk, Crested Butte, Steamboat, Wolf Creek.

I hear that Vail Mountain will open some of Game Creek Bowl today. Go get some!

Ah Snow Daze, a time of free concerts, lodging deals, and all around excitement for the new season. This year’s festivities have been going on all week but the real fun (free concerts!) kick-off tonight. Here’s the low-down:

• Thursday, Dec 8: Guster (Solaris, 6:30pm)
• Friday, Dec 9: Jakob Dylan and Band (Solaris, 6:30pm)
• Saturday, Dec 10: Yukon Kornelius (Ford Park, 6:30pm)
• Sunday, Dec 11: Polish Ambassador (Checkpoint Charlie, 3:30pm)

Learn more over at buzz and visit the Snow Daze site for more on the other goings on around town this weekend including pub crawls, après parties and more.

Posted from Vail, Colorado, United States.

Denver International Airport (DIA)

This central hub is the easiest to fly into from across the country (even the world) and within a two hour drive you can arrive at:

• Echo Mountain
• Eldora Mountain Resort
• Loveland Ski Area
• Winter Park Resort
• Arapahoe Basin
• Copper Mountain
• SolVista Basin

Regional Airports

From DIA it’s actually possible to connect to regional airports serving the following locales on the western slope:

• Gunnison (Crested Butte)
• Aspen
• Telluride
• Durango (Durango, Wolf Creek, Silverton)
• Steamboat
• Montrose
• Grand Junction (Powderhorn)

In addition to Aspen and Eagle…

Aspen/Snowmass

American Airlines has announced new daily non-stop flights from both Dallas/Fort Worth and Los Angeles for the winter season beginning December 15, 2011.

Frontier will continue to offer four daily flights to Aspen/Snowmass from their Denver hub for a total of up to 30 daily flights in and out of Aspen/Snowmass on three airlines.

More details can be found at flyaspensnowmass.com.

Vail/Eagle County Airport

The Vail/Eagle County Airport serves the following:

• Vail
• Beaver Creek
• Ski Cooper

More details can be found at snow.com.

Once you get to Colorado you need to get to the resort. While there are plenty of shuttle services at DIA and Eagle, I’ve learned that Colorado Mountain Express (CME) is one of the more prominent services in the area. Learn more at coloradomountainexpress.com.

Destinations

The University Ski bus will travel to to Breckenridge, Keystone, Vail, Beaver Creek or Arapahoe Basin.

Weekly destinations will be chosen based on customer demand.

Pick-up and Pricing

As the name implies, the service departs the University of Denver campus with tickets ranging from $19-$29.

A secondary pick up location of Regis University is being considered and might be added at a later date.

More Information

Founded and operated by DU students, you can learn more and purchase tickets at www.UniversitySkiBus.com. For more information, contact Tyler Perlmutter at (847) 830-8797 or tyler@perlmutter.net.

Another quick post over at buzz on how to connect your social media profiles like Facebook and Twitter to Vail Resorts’EpicMix social network.

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Forbes has put together a great photo gallery describing some of the best resorts for families. Of course, Colorado dominates the list with five well known spots:

• Beaver Creek: escalators, kids teaching area, and most importantly warm cookies
• Crested Butte: single base area means less lost kids, reasonably priced
• Aspen/Snowmass: no greens but Buttermilk is good for learning, four mountains on one ticket
• Steamboat: invented the kids ski free program, great family dining options
• Vail: excellent ski school, Adventure Ridge, ice skating and “Kids Fly Free” into Eagle

Be sure to check out the full gallery.

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Found on Vail Mountain’s Facebook Wall.

THIS WEEKEND’S OPENINGS: Eldora and Vail open today with Aspen/Snowmass starting the season on Saturday. See you up there?

With some slick design changes and updates for the new photo sharing, you’ll want to make sure you have this in hand if you’re heading up to Keystone this opening weekend.

If you didn’t get last weekend’s Sunday Post then you’re in luck: the Denver Post has published it’s 2011 ski guide. It’s a nice overview of most of the CSCUSA spots across the state with pass pricing, location, lifts, and other vitals. If you’re looking to bone up and learn more about Colorado’s gems, check out the guide.

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Any changes (early opens! fingers crossed) will be posted here and on the events calendar.

Updates

If you aren’t already, be sure to get on the mailing list and follow cosnow on Twitter and Facebook to get the latest updates this season:

Follow @cosnow

Openings by Resort (Alphabetical)

Openings by Date

Sources:

• Vail resorts
• Colorado Ski Country

Posted from Denver, Colorado, United States.

Amongst the top resorts ranked by SKI Magazine are most of our Colorado favorites: Vail (#2), Snowmass (#4), Beaver Creek (#7), Steamboat (#8), Breckenridge (#9), Telluride (#10), Aspen (#11), Winter Park (#14), Crested Butte (#15), and Copper Mountain (#18). Photo credit: Jeff Cricco

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