Snow fell, shovels hit the ground, and Keystone’s crew got to work planting trees instead of carving turns, almost 800 of them.

Just days after an early storm coated the slopes in white, Keystone Resort’s team hiked into Bergman Bowl with the Forest Service to tuck hundreds of tiny lodgepole pines and Engelmann spruces into the frozen ground. It wasn’t your typical day on the mountain, but it’s all part of a bigger effort to give back to the land that gives us winter.

This annual tree planting effort is part of Keystone’s ongoing partnership with the Forest Service.

Image: Summit Daily

Each year, the two teams walk the mountain to figure out which spots need the most love. This time, they focused on Bergman Bowl, Jane’s Journey trail, and the old Argentine lift line. These areas had been impacted by construction and erosion, and adding new trees helps hold the soil, reduce runoff, and bring the forest back to full strength.

Kate Schifani, Keystone’s senior director of mountain operations, summed it up simply in an email: the trees make the mountain healthier, they stabilize the slopes, create habitats, and make the forest more resilient overall.

Keystone isn’t alone in putting trees back into the ground.

Image: The Ismaili

Across the ski world, more resorts are treating reforestation as an off-season mission. Alta in Utah recently planted more than 800 spruce saplings with volunteers. Sierra-at-Tahoe, still recovering from the Caldor Fire, added 16,000 seedlings to its West Bowl this summer.

At Keystone, these new trees won’t be shading runs anytime soon, but they’re a start. And as the mountain preps to open for the 2025/26 season, which aims for another early start like last year’s November 2 debut, skiers might spot some tiny evergreens poking through the snow.

They’re the next generation of Keystone’s forest, quietly growing while the rest of us chase the first turns.

Image: Keystone Resort