TCR | April 20, 2026 — Happy 4/20, Here's Your Summer Ski Area

April 20, 2026

The Forecast

Happy 4/20, Here's Your Summer Ski Area

Monday morning, April 20th, and let's just acknowledge the date before we get into it — yes, it's 4/20, and if you know, you know. But here's something worth getting excited about that doesn't require a lighter: Beartooth Basin in Wyoming is prepping lifts for a summer opening next month, which means the season isn't ending, it's just moving uphill. The Sierra has 31 centimeters in the three-day forecast, which is Mammoth's cue to keep doing its thing. Out East, Killington's Superstar is grinding moguls into May with the single-minded focus of a dog that won't drop the ball, and Jay Peak is delivering spring corn so good it makes you wonder why anyone bothers with January. The Northern Rockies have 15 centimeters coming this week. Meanwhile, Powder just dropped nine hot takes from Natural Selection that are guaranteed to start arguments in every group chat from Bozeman to Breckenridge. The snow is thin in a lot of places. The skiing is not.

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Fresh Tracks

◆ Unofficial Networks

Beartooth Basin Is Prepping Lifts — Summer Skiing Lives

While everyone else is waxing nostalgic about closing day, Wyoming's summer ski area is greasing chairlift bullwheels and eyeing a May opening. Below-average winter be damned — Beartooth doesn't care about your season recap.

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◆ Powder Magazine

9 Hot Takes From Natural Selection That Will Start a Fight

The venue change, the terrain pivot, the results — Powder's rundown of NST Ski Alaska reactions covers everything from the scrambled game plan to the performances that mattered. If you watched and have opinions, this validates all of them.

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★ TGR

John Collinson Powers Through a Line That Shouldn't Work

Collinson doing what Collinson does — committing to a line where most people would pump the brakes and finding a way to make brute-force elegance look easy. From the TGR vault, and it still hits.

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◆ SnowBrains

Snow Storage Is Quietly Becoming the Future of Early Season

Sun Peaks became the first Canadian resort to use Snow Secure technology to bank winter snow over the summer — and as natural snowfall gets less reliable, this unglamorous fix might matter more than any terrain expansion announcement you'll read this year.

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The Edit

Lor Sabourin takes on two of Northern Arizona's hardest desert big-wall free climbs — Dickel's Delight (5.13c) and Daedalus (5.13d) — in Sedona's sandstone towers, and Patagonia's filmmakers capture the mental warfare of projecting routes where the rock is soft, the runouts are real, and the exposure is relentless. It's not skiing, but the commitment calculus is the same: read the terrain, manage the fear, execute. A gorgeous piece of adjacent-sport filmmaking that earns every second of your attention.

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@Patagonia Films

Off-Piste

🔹 The origin of 4/20 is dumber than you think. In honor of today's unofficial holiday, SnowBrains dug up the story of the Waldos — a group of California high schoolers who accidentally gave the world its favorite counterculture number. It involves a treasure map, a statue, and absolutely zero skiing. Read it →

🔹 The outdoor recreation lobby heads to D.C. The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable is hosting a first-of-its-kind forum in Washington May 6-7, pushing to make outdoor recreation a cornerstone of federal health policy. If you think the industry needs a louder voice in government, this is the machinery behind it. More from Outside →

🔹 Off-season training isn't optional anymore. TGR's latest piece makes the case that technical movement training — not just gym work — is what separates the people who come back stronger from the people who spend December re-learning how to ski. The snow melted a week ago and the homework is already assigned. Read it →

🔹 Sea Otter is revealing the MTB future. Blister's day-two coverage from the Sea Otter Classic has the randomized gear scouting that makes shoulder season worth paying attention to — new bikes, components, and concepts from brands you'll care about come fall. (https://blisterreview.com/industry-news/2026-sea-otter-randoms-pt-2)

Dropping

Fischer "The Curv Noize DTX" — Fischer's Noise Control Technology was the quiet revelation of the 2025-26 season, dampening chatter without killing feel in the RC4 race line. Now they've poured it into The Curv series for 2026-27, and the DTX is the one to watch: a carving ski that's supposed to feel like someone turned the volume knob down on hardpack vibration while keeping the edge engagement cranked. If you're a front-side skier who actually cares about what's happening underfoot, this is Fischer making a real argument for your quiver.

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Conditions Check

Pacific Northwest closed

Zero snow on the ground at reporting stations with temps pushing 15°C — the PNW season is done unless you're counting memories. →

Rockies thin

Colorado picked up 7cm over the past week with 3cm in the forecast and temps from -2°C to 12°C; Utah saw 6cm with 5cm more expected — A-Basin and the holdouts are hanging on but terrain is extremely limited. →

Northern Rockies / Interior BC mixed

Jackson and Big Sky saw 17cm over the past week with 15cm in the three-day forecast and temps from 1°C to 8°C; BC got 15cm recently but nothing incoming — there's skiing to be had if you know where to look. →

Northeast spring

Temps are frigid at -11°C to -3°C with 7cm over the past week and 2cm coming — Killington's Superstar is grinding into May and Jay Peak is delivering some of its best spring corn of the year. →

Europe thin

Minimal coverage across the Alps with temps hovering around freezing and no meaningful snowfall in the forecast — glacier terrain at Zermatt and high-altitude zones are the only game in town. →

Japan closed

Zero snow on the ground across Hokkaido and Honshu with temps from 5°C to 17°C and nothing in the forecast — the Japanese season is wrapped. →

The lifts stop spinning, but the mountains don't care. Go find your turns.

The Conditions Report

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