How to Find the Best Snow Conditions at Colorado Ski Resorts [PHOTOS, VIDEO]

People fly from all over the world to enjoy the two things that make Colorado Resorts among the best in the world--snow and terrain. We have a lot of snow and massive amounts of diverse terrain. It's the perfect combo that has made Colorado skiing and snowboarding the stuff of legend.

However, you may have run into days where the skiing and riding didn't feel that fantastic. It may have been a little bumpy. There could have been patches of ice (keep in mind, ice is a relative term when it comes to skiing. For a Pennsylvania boy like myself, what Colorado people consider icy and what I grew up on are two different worlds, but I'm digressing).

When a lot of people make a lot of turns at a ski resort, and because every skier and snowboarder literally has a little snow plow on their feet, they are taking the pristine groomed conditions of the mornings and making it not so pristine. Still great, but not perfect. High traffic spots will be completely scraped to a bare patch of snowy ice. Other areas will become a field of bumps. These conditions can make navigating the mountains more difficult and, with people who are tired or less experienced, can even cause injury.

The good news is that the conditions are reset almost every single day on thousands of acres of terrain across the state, and with the large amount of average snowfall we see, good soft snow is the norm instead of exception in Colorado.

Early Bird Skis the Powder....or Cord

Freshly groomed slopes result in 'corduroy'. Every resort in Colorado will groom thousands of their acres every night, so in the morning, it will be easy for you to find some of the best skiing conditions planet Earth has to offer. Most provide a solid grooming report to let you know which trails are fresh. While most 'best case ski and snowboard scenarios' involve fresh powder, skiing on fresh corduroy is also amazing. It's like a blank canvas and your turns are the brushstrokes. Making big, arcing turns on a wide open freshly groomed slope in the early morning is one of the greatest things about skiing and snowboarding in Colorado. You can be sure the surface is going to react consistently so if you're the type of skier or rider that is concentrating on not falling, this freshness really  helps to increase the feeling of safety.

Some resorts, like Beaver Creek, run groomers all day on different areas of the mountain so people enjoying their resort can have fresh turns all day long.