Quote Originally Posted by Gizmo42 View Post
Steve, it mostly depends on how much snow we get during the winter. Sometimes some of the smaller trails closer to denver that dont get over 12k ft will be open. Most of them are up and back trails that take a few hours. This year nothing was open until into august because the mountains got pounded with snow last winter. All the watershed basins were 250-400% above normal snow pack. Normally its mid to late June before enough snow is melted off to get through anything.
I'm sure it is quite variable, to a point. But from everything I have read Black Bear is never going to be open by late May. We'll have to see how the snow season is this winter.