From the Front Range
A-Basin is on US-6 over Loveland Pass, or through the Eisenhower tunnel and back up from Keystone. The resort's own pages do not state a distance from Denver; Colorado Ski Country USA calls it only an hour west, which is optimistic on a Saturday.
The mountain
The steepest of the close resorts by its own numbers: 73 percent advanced and expert terrain across seven areas (the Front Side, Pallavicini, the Beavers, Montezuma Bowl, the Steep Gullies, the East Wall, and Molly Hogan), 1,428 acres, and a 13,050-foot summit with 2,530 feet of vertical. Montezuma Bowl alone is 400 acres; the Beavers add 300 more and 36 runs. The lift list runs to six chairlifts and two carpets. A-Basin does not publish its base elevation on the pages we read; Colorado Ski Country USA gives 10,800 feet and 350 inches of average snowfall.
Parks
Three terrain parks, by the trail-map page; the resort does not name them there.
Season and hours
A-Basin calls its season Colorado's longest, October to June, and its field guide records an earliest opening of October 9 and a latest closing of August 10. Weekday lifts start at 9:00, weekends and holidays at 8:30, and most close between 3:30 and 4:00. The 2026-27 opening was listed as TBD when we checked.
Rules worth knowing
- Retention devices are required on all equipment to ride the lifts.
- Uphill season passes are $119 (or a $39 add-on to a full A-Basin pass), an armband must be visible, uphill access runs to the summit, and closed terrain is closed at every hour of the day. Terrain parks are closed to uphill users outside operating hours.
- A-Basin's safety page notes that the Ski Safety Act was amended in 2004 to name cliffs, extreme terrain, jumps, and freestyle terrain as inherent risks.
Everywhere in Colorado, the Ski Safety Act and the Responsibility Code apply, including the rule that every board carries a leash or other retention device.