2024 Wellness Guide

Vail Resorts

Sports

Mountain Ski Report

A comprehensive focus on safety and an acknowledgment that this season is different.

IRENE RAWLINGS

MOUNTAIN SKI REPORT

Ski resorts opened with a comprehensive focus on safety and an acknowledgment that this season is different: more face coverings, less bar hopping. All 34 Vail Resorts (vailresorts.com) properties in North America launched with a mountain-access reservation system that limits lift tickets (prioritizing Epic Pass holders) and enforces face coverings for all parts of resort operations—except when you’re actually downhill skiing. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (jacksonhole.com) also limits the number of on-mountain skiers. Top hotels, like Hotel Jackson, offer guests coveted lift tickets and a sanitized-between-each-trip shuttle to the slopes. Sugarbush (sugarbush.com) in Vermont requires a pass or advance-purchase, date-specific tickets. Dining is al fresco or grab-and-go. All Swiss (myswitzerland.com) ski resorts, including big-money Davos Klosters, glam St. Moritz, and classic Zermatt, have opened maskless for outdoor activities and masked for mountain railways, cable cars, and any communal activities. France’s Auvergne Rhone-Alpes Region (auvergnerhonealpes-tourisme.com)—Courchevel, Megève, and Val d’Isère—had a full and snowy opening. Masks are compulsory in all communal and enclosed spaces.