Why Singletree's Trails Stay Open Six Weeks After the Last Tee Time

How many Saturdays are left to play the back nine at Sonnenalp before the clubhouse locks up for the season? If you golf in Singletree, that's the question running through your head right about now, in late September, while the cottonwoods along the fairways start going gold and the tee sheet still fills up most weekends. The course that gave this neighborhood its original name, Singletree Golf Course before the Faessler family bought it in 1987 and renamed it Sonnenalp, typically plays from April into late October. So this round, or the next one, might be among the last dozen of the year.

Here's the part that surprises people who've lived here a while: the trails don't follow the same calendar. Not close.

Two Different Clocks

Singletree runs on two separate schedules for outdoor access, and they don't move together the way the neighborhood's "Sunbelt of the Valley" reputation would suggest. The golf season ends in late October, driven by turf conditions, frost, and club operations. The hiking network, Knob Hill, June Creek, and Mesquite, the three routes that climb straight off the plateau above the neighborhood, stays open roughly six weeks longer, until posted closures typically begin in mid-December. Then it shuts down entirely until April.

That second closure isn't about snow depth or temperature. It's tied to a wildlife protection window on the Berry Creek Metropolitan District's trail signage, and it holds regardless of how mild a given November turns out to be. Singletree's extra sun buys the neighborhood a genuinely longer golf season than shadier stretches of the valley get. It does not buy extra weeks on the singletrack in December. Those are two different systems, one set by a groundskeeper watching frost lines, the other set by a fixed date on a wildlife calendar, and conflating them is the easiest mistake to make if you've only ever heard the neighborhood described by its nickname.

Here's the rough shape of the year, side by side:

What Keeps the Golf Season Long

The course itself has been there since 1980, designed by Bob Cupp and Jay Morrish as a 7,100-yard, par-71 layout that still hosts club events today. It ran under the Singletree Golf Course name for its first seven years before the Faessler family bought it in 1987 and folded it into the Sonnenalp brand. Its own operators describe it as one of the longest golf seasons in the Vail Valley, a claim that tracks with what regulars already notice: rounds still going on days when higher, shadier courses closer to Vail have already put the flags away for the year.

Part of that comes down to where Singletree sits. The neighborhood is lower and more exposed to direct sun than the villages tucked against the north-facing slopes near Vail Mountain, which is also why locals call it the Sunbelt of the Valley in the first place, flowers here bloom earlier in spring and hang on longer into fall than they do just a few miles up the interstate. That same exposure is what keeps the fairways playable into late October.

Harvest, the restaurant inside the clubhouse, rides the same seasonal rhythm. It's open daily for lunch and dinner with a patio that looks out toward Vail's Game Creek Bowl on one side and Arrowhead Ski Area on the other, and on a clear October evening it's still one of the better dinner views in the mid-valley, right up until the course itself closes for the year.

The One Amenity That Ignores Both Clocks

While golf and the trail network are each governed by their own calendar, the neighborhood's disc golf course answers to neither. The nine-hole layout sits on a raised plateau above town, free to play, no tee times, no posted closure. It was designed with input from the Flying Eagle Disc Society for the Singletree Metro District, and unlike the golf course or the hiking trails, it doesn't shut down for winter or for wildlife. If you're looking for something that stays open through the exact stretch when the fairways have closed and the trailheads haven't posted their winter signs yet, or through the months after that when the trails are closed outright, that gap is where the disc golf course sits.

The same logic applies to the neighborhood's indoor gathering spaces once the outdoor options thin out. Chip Ramsey Park and the adjacent Community Center, with its workout room and rentable event space, are managed by the Berry Creek Metropolitan District, the same body responsible for the trails and their winter closures. The Singletree Property Owners Association runs a separate track, covenants, design review, and the informal side of neighborhood life, including the kind of dog-and-kids gathering that closes out the warm months at Chip Ramsey Park each year, organized with the neighborhood group Stroll Singletree. Between the two organizations, there's a clear answer for who to call depending on whether the question is about a covenant or a chained-off trailhead, which matters more once the golf course is dark and the trail closures are the only outdoor system still in effect.

The Gap Worth Knowing About

None of this makes Singletree's climate reputation inaccurate. The extended golf season is real and well documented, and the neighborhood's exposure genuinely does stretch the calendar compared to shadier parts of the valley. But that stretch applies to one system, not all of them. The six weeks between the last organized tee time and the first trail closure sign are a real seasonal window here, worth knowing if you're planning a final round or a final unguided hike up Knob Hill before the posted dates lock in for the winter. One of those dates moves with the weather. The other one doesn't.

If you're curious about how Singletree's seasonal rhythms compare to other pockets of the valley, or you'd like a closer look at what living on the sunny side of Edwards actually involves month to month, A.K. Schleusner tracks these local details as closely as we track the market itself.