I bought ski passes for Keystone this year and it's safe to say that I'm a little nervous.

Keystone opened on Friday, Nov. 6, and just a few days later, Summit County implemented a 10 p.m. curfew and rose to Level Orange, previously called Level 2, restrictions.

Most Colorado ski resorts are not requiring reservations, but Vail resorts, which owns four Colorado ski resorts including Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Crested Butte, are requiring reservations.

Basically, this means that I already know the exact dates that I am scheduled to be at Keystone this season.

On one hand, I'm happy that we will be at Keystone, as they are taking intense measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, but the implications of the restrictions make me feel iffy.

While at Keystone, masks are required pretty much full-time and you can only ride the gondola or chairlift with members of your own party, according to the Denver Channel.

I already know that this is going to majorly slow down the chairlift, which normally seats about three people at a time.

If you are visiting other ski resorts such as Arapahoe Basin, you don't need a reservation, although they do have restrictions of their own.

At Arapahoe, you can expect to wear a mask and stay exclusively with the party you arrived with. Arapahoe Basin has also banned tailgating and you cannot bring your own brown bag lunch into the resort.

They also insist that you leave immediately if you show signs of illness.

Here's the issue I have with these rules: They will be nearly impossible to enforce.

When you are up in the mountains with the wind whipping, covered head-to-toe in gear, there is no chance that a staff member knows who arrived with whom or could keep track of fraternization.

Even more specifically, what happens when skiers gather, as they do, at the end of the night at the local pizza place for some beers around the fire? Getting to know other skiers and snowboarders is part of the experience, and will probably also be very difficult to monitor, social-distancing wise.

I am all for safety measures, but I just don't see how these guidelines are realistic unless people choose to respect them.

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