Here's an example of how a less well known resort can pull itself up by the bootstraps by improving infrastructure:

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=aa204abe-0abe-421a-014f-eac61cd745cd&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

That's still not their longest season. The basin used to be open until July 4th.

I think a lot of the reason they have so many more skier visits is the locals are really flocking their. It's always been kind of a locals mountain and with all the development and higher prices of the other resorts, it just makes more sense to go to the basin. Plus, a season ticket is only $199.

As kids in Colorado, we routinely spent the first few weeks of summer vacation in June up at A-Basin getting in some final turns. The environment at A-Basin in late spring was truly magical: hard fast snow in the early am, soft corn in the late am and basically a big beach party at the base in the pm.

Glad to see their skier numbers tracking up. This is very encouraging for all the smaller "locals" areas trying to make a go of it. A-Basin is in some sense geographically disfavored: the only ways to get there are either over a very high pass that is often closed after storms, or via the more commonly used route through the Eisenhower Tunnel. Via that latter route, all of the Summit County areas are closer than A-Basin -- in fact, skiers drive by Keystone on the way to A-Basin (and go very close to Breckenridge). If skier numbers are tracking up, then skiers are choosing to skip the bigger areas on their way to the Basin. Good news for people who love old school areas.