See also: Best of Denver 2014 -- Sports & Recreation
Get lei'd! The extended season at Breckenridge comes to a close this weekend. First up, festivity-wise, is Saturday's Epic Pro Team Showdown, a spectator-friendly affair at the Peak 8 halfpipe venue starring Sochi 2014 Olympians Bobby Brown, Keri Herman, Faye Gulini and Possum Torr, and Breck's Epic Pro Team members Eric Willett, Zack Black and Brett Esser -- among others -- from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., followed by an autograph session. On Sunday get your last laps in before the closing day luau on the One Ski Hill Grill patio at the Peak 8 base area, from noon to 4:30 p.m.
Attention, cheaters! Copper Mountain's extended season also winds down for real this weekend, with the mountain re-opening today through Sunday. Discounted lift tickets are available for $59 to anyone with a season pass from another resort; Copper calls it the "Swinger's Pass."
Oh, what the heck! Crested Butte Mountain Resort has never re-opened for a similar extended season before, but never say never, right? "We had an incredible season this year," writes vice president and general manager Ethan Mueller. "Looking at the amount of snow we still have on the mountain and in the valley, we thought of all years to re-open this would be a good one to give it a try. One more weekend of skiing will be a fun way to bring people to the mountain and to get excited for next season." Mmmm... corn! In spring skiing parlance, "corn" is snow that has been through a cycle of melting over the course of bluebird days and re-freezing during crisp, cold nights. It's not champagne powder, but at this point in the season we'll take what we can get. At Loveland's thirteenth annual Corn Harvest spring-skiing bash on Saturday, the spring snow is the star of the show. The $60 ticket ($30 for season pass/lift ticket holders) benefits the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, and includes mountain ski tours with CAIC staff members and volunteers from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. -- the sweet spot, time-wise, before that corn starts turning to slush -- as well as lunch at the base area and a New Belgium keg party. Developed a taste for corn? Loveland has one more week left before its closing-day bash on May 4.Keep it coming! And if you have another month or so left in those ski legs, Arapahoe Basin's closing day is still TBA and the mountain has events on the calendar through May 31. Believe it or not, there's snow in the forecast for Sunday and Monday. "In the words of our patrol director, 'It'll be your normal spring forecast of a trace to 20 inches,'" writes A-Basin CEO Alan Henceroth. Either way, go get it.
