Vail Mayor Recounts Isolation During Historic Mountain Closure

Aspen —The snow on Vail Mountain was deep in mid-March 2020. Spring break crowds were still hitting the slopes, and the lift lines were long. Then, on a Saturday that would be etched into local history, the mountain closed for good. It was a decisive shutdown during a decent snow year, but for then-Mayor Dave Chapin, the immediate threat wasn’t just economic. It was physical. He had been diagnosed with COVID-19 that same week, and he was stuck in isolation while the town’s fate hung in the balance.

Chapin, who is now back on the Vail Town Council, recently sat down for an interview as part of the Vail Public Library’s “Vail Valley Voices” oral history collection. The project, conducted by Lynn Albers of the library along with Vail Daily’s Tony Mauro and David O. Williams, captures the voices of prominent local figures during a pivotal moment in our region’s history.

For Chapin, the diagnosis hit with a specific kind of dread that defined the early days of the pandemic. He wasn’t just worried about his own health; he was terrified of being a vector for the virus in a tight-knit community.

“My initial thought when I got it was, ‘Oh my, who have I been around? Who did I spread it to?’” Chapin recalled in the interview. “At that time, this was a very unknown thing. People were dying … We didn’t know a lot about it. It was scary.”

The timing was brutal. Chapin learned of his positive result on a Sunday, but the town council meeting was scheduled for Tuesday. He had to send out an email to his colleagues announcing he couldn’t attend because he was in isolation.

“I know I was in my house by myself for way too long, and I found that out,” he said.

While Chapin was managing his own recovery, the town was facing an economic cliff. The closure of Vail Mountain meant a sudden halt to revenue for the bars, restaurants, and hotels that make up the town’s economic engine. Chapin needed a communications strategy that could handle both the local panic and the national spotlight. He turned to Suzanne Silverthorn, a retired Vail spokesperson who served as his communications director at the time.

“I was just like, ‘OK, holy cow. What do we got to do here?’” Chapin said. “So, of course, the first thing I did was get hold of Suzanne … She was the best in her field, period, as a communications director for a municipality, in my opinion, in the whole state.”

Together, they crafted a press release that announced the mountain closure and Chapin’s status. The result was immediate national attention.

“Being the mayor of Vail, it went viral,” Chapin noted. “I had everybody from CNN, Fox News, you name it … they were calling, they were knocking.”

Chapin credited Silverthorn with guiding him through the media gauntlet, ensuring he delivered the right statements to keep the community calm without appearing to be in peril. He emphasized that his primary concern was the well-being of the community, not his own image.

“Suzanne really helped me … a guide through that … with the right statements and the right things to say. That’s what I remember most about it, and just being concerned for the community,” he said.

The convergence of a public health crisis and an economic shutdown created a unique pressure point for local leadership. Chapin’s experience highlights how the pandemic forced officials to make rapid, high-stakes decisions with limited information. For Vail, that meant balancing the need to protect public health against the economic lifeline of ski tourism.

In practice, this meant a mayor who was physically ill and isolated had to manage a town-wide crisis from his living room. The decision to close the mountain on Saturday, March 14, 2020, was agonizing. It wasn’t just about the snow; it was about the ripple effects on every business in the valley.

Chapin’s account offers a raw look at the human side of that decision-making process. It wasn’t just about policy; it was about fear, uncertainty, and the weight of representing a community that depended on tourism. As we look back at this period, it’s clear that the leadership during those early weeks set a precedent for how Vail handles crises.

The practical impact of that decision was profound. The closure saved lives, but it also triggered a financial shockwave through the local economy. For locals and businesses alike, that Saturday in March marked the beginning of a long, uncertain winter. Chapin’s story is a reminder that behind every policy decision was a person trying to do the right thing with incomplete information.