Aspen Skiing Company has published the season's dates, X Games has confirmed its weekend, and the restaurants that went dark for the off-season are already booking their reopenings. That is enough to plan a trip around. The rest — who is actually open on a Tuesday in January, which rooms are worth the money this year, where the locals eat during X Games week — needs the season to start before anyone can honestly write it.
So this page is the skeleton, kept honest. It fills in as things are confirmed rather than guessed.
- Thu 26 Nov 2026Aspen Mountain and Snowmass open.Thanksgiving Day. The town refills from this date.
- Sat 12 Dec 2026Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk open.All four mountains running.
- 29–31 Jan 2027X Games Aspen, at Buttermilk.The twenty-sixth consecutive year at the same mountain.
- Sun 4 Apr 2027Buttermilk closes.
- Sun 11 Apr 2027Snowmass and Aspen Highlands close.
- Sun 18 Apr 2027Aspen Mountain closes.The longest season of the four.
Every date above is as announced, and every one of them is subject to conditions. Snow decides.
What the winter guide will actually cover
Not a list of the same twenty restaurants every other site prints. These are the things we get asked and nobody answers properly:
- Which rooms take walk-ins in high season, and at what hour you have to be standing there.
- What a table costs this winter against what it cost last winter — the increases, named.
- Where to eat during X Games week without queueing behind twenty thousand people.
- The Christmas and New Year fortnight: what books out in October, and the week either side that nobody wants.
- On-mountain food that is worth it, and the three places that are not.
- Where the people who work in Aspen eat after their shift, which is not where you are being sent.
- Down-valley in winter — Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood, where you can still get a Friday table.
Before the lifts turn
Right now the town is in its quiet weeks and a good share of the kitchens are dark. If you are here in October or November, the page you want is what is open in the off-season — it has the closures and reopening dates as they are confirmed.
And if you are planning the Christmas fortnight, that is its own thing entirely, and it books earlier than you think.
If you run a room in the valley and you are opening, reopening or changing hands this season, tell us before it happens rather than after. New openings go in the guide first, and we would rather get them right than fast. The restaurant page has the way to reach us.