Resort skiing is back in Colorado. Arapahoe Basin, Keystone, and Winter Park have spun lifts. Snow guns are firing on Loveland Basin. Racer kids are hammering gates down at Loveland Valley. And even though it may only be one run at each place… it’s still skiing.
People love to call that early season ribbon the “White Strip of Death.” I get it. It’s funny. It’s cynical. It’s internet ski culture. But standing up there this week, riding that lift, watching first tracks carve through manmade snow surrounded by brown earth, it didn’t feel like death at all.
It felt like the exact opposite.
There’s still joy on that single strip. There’s happiness in the familiar weight of ski boots. There’s wonder in that first glide of the year. And honestly, in a world where cynicism is the default reaction to everything, joy has become a rebellious act.
Driving over Loveland Pass, watching all three zones light up with early season motion — the lifts at A-Basin, the snowmaking at Loveland Basin, kids training at Loveland Valley — I realized something: Loveland Pass might be the beating heart of early winter in the lower 48. It’s high enough to start winter early every year, reliable enough to feel like a seasonal landmark, and humble enough to remind us where we come from.
And then there’s the Mountain Gazette cover sitting on my coffee table: autumn leaves, thin snow, a skier fully committed, fully stoked, making the best possible turn down a narrow ribbon of hope. East Coast skiers have always understood this deeply: if there’s even two inches of snow, that’s enough to celebrate. That’s enough.
Colorado could use some of that unapologetic stoke again.
So here’s 6 quick tips for surviving the One-Run Season… and actually thriving in it:
1. Relax your expectations. Don’t go to ski everything. Go to ski something.
2. Keep your speed reasonable. Traffic is dense. There’s no shame in skiing mellow in November.
3. Edge control > force. Don’t over-ski manmade early snow. It rewards precision, not power.
4. Give people space. Everyone’s excited. Everyone’s rusty. Keep heads up and give room
5. Laugh at the weirdness. You’re skiing on a manmade ribbon of white through a brown world. That’s kind of amazing.
6. Remember why you started skiing. The joy isn’t in the mileage, it’s in the being there.
It's not a lot. But right now, it enough.
See you on the strip.