SAM Magazine—Natick, Mass., May 28, 2025—As June approaches, all but four North American ski areas have sent up last chair for the 2024-25 winter season. Some lasted well into May, and a handful recorded their longest seasons ever.
Credit Boyne Mountain
Still open for skiing and riding are Arapahoe Basin, Colo.; Arizona Snowbowl, Ariz.; Mammoth Mountain, Calif.; and Timberline, Ore.
A-Basin posted to social media on May 22 that it will close midweek after June 1 and then reopen for the weekend of June 6–8 for one final weekend. However, the homepage of its website says, “We are open for the 2024-25 winter season for as long as possible!” A-Basin got a foot of fresh snow less than two weeks ago and another inch in the past 48 hours, according to its snow report.
Arizona Snowbowl will end the longest season in the resort’s history (185 days) on June 1. The resort added this weekend as a bonus and will offer advanced terrain served by the gondola, with lift tickets starting at $29.
Mammoth Mountain will stay open for as long as it can, operating daily from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Four lifts are serving 54 trails as of today, sustained by more than eight feet of snow since the beginning of March.
Timberline Lodge will remain open into the summer on the Palmer Snowfield. The resort is reporting a base depth of 102 inches at the lodge and has gotten a total of 529 inches of snow this season.
The winter went long for a handful of other ski areas that recently closed lifts. The Canadian lift-served ski season ended May 19 when Whistler Blackcomb, B.C.; Banff Sunshine Village, Alberta; and Sommet Saint-Sauveur in Quebec all celebrated their final day of the season.
Sommet Saint-Sauveur marketing director Christian Dufour reported that the resort saw about 1,000 skiers and riders on its final weekend despite rainy weather, and another 1,000 people came out for the May Madness party on Saturday night, May 18. Saint-Sauveur was the last resort in Eastern North America open for skiing and riding.
Perennial last-to-close-in-the-East, Killington Resort, Vt., ended its season May 10. Killington typically keeps the “Superstar Glacier” open to Memorial Day weekend, but it moved spring operations to another area of the mountain to allow crews to start dismantling the Superstar Express quad, which is being replaced this summer by a new six-pack chairlift.
The longest season in the Eastern U.S. belonged to Jay Peak, Vt., which got nearly 500 inches of snow over the winter. Jay originally planned to close May 11 but added a bonus day on May 12 to officially bid adieu to winter 2024-25.
The last ski area open in the Midwest was Boyne Mountain, Mich., which took advantage of a cold winter to create “Victor Glacier” on the resort’s Victor trail. At its height, the trail had a base depth of about 280 inches (23+ feet). It allowed Boyne Mountain to offer skiing and riding on weekends until May 18, marking the resort’s longest ski season ever. It built a small hike park on the remaining snow for a day of park laps on May 24.
Boyne Mountain and Mount Bohemia on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula had a friendly competition over which ski area could stay open longer. Boyne prevailed after Bohemia closed April 27—a long season itself thanks to 314 inches of snow in 2024-25 (Bohemia has no snowmaking). To celebrate, Boyne Mountain threw a party for Mount Bohemia season passholders on May 17, offering free skiing and riding, a free pizza and pool party, discounted lodging, and free admission to Boyne’s Avalanche water park for the first 100 Boho passholders to arrive.
As the North American ski season comes to an end, the Southern Hemisphere is about to get going. More on that soon.
