It's that time again. The white stuff is building into a thick blanket over Denver's backyard playground, and Westword is here to remind you how lucky you are to live in Colorado. In The Edge, area insiders offer advice on where to find the sickest powder stashes you never knew existed at your old favorites, as well as tips for places you've yet to sample. There's plenty to discover as resorts top themselves with gnarly new toys and access to higher, steeper and more remote extremes. So take a drive, catch the bus, hop on a snowcat, or book a heli drop. Your winter wonderland is waiting.
Aspen
Aspen Highlands
Already known as the locals' mountain because of its extreme skiing, Aspen Highlands gets even more extreme this winter with the opening of Canopy Cruiser, eighteen new acres between Deep Temerity and Highland Bowl. "It's going to be super-steep, double-black-diamond skiing, lots of trees," says pro skier Kate Olson.
Olson already spends most of her time on that part of the mountain anyway. The Highland Bowl, she says, is "humongous on the vertical. It's just open, airy skiing, nice and steep, with excellent views." It's about a 30- to 45-minute hike to get to the top of the bowl, but it goes by quickly with incredible vistas on both sides, she adds, and the hiking keeps the bowl from getting too crowded. "On a big powder day, there's going to be a line of people hiking up the bowl, but for the most part, because there's so much terrain, you can find your own tracks and your own line," she says.
The nearby 230-plus acre Deep Temerity area, which recently opened, has long, sustained, steep gladed runs that hold their snow all year long.
"It's the most extreme terrain of all four mountains. If you're a local, you end up seeing a lot of the same people day after day skiing the same favorite runs, and everybody out there, for the most part, are excellent, expert skiers," Olson says.
But there are also areas like Cloud Nine that cater more to intermediate skiers, and they are rarely crowded — probably because everybody's up in the bowl.
This year is the fiftieth anniversary of Aspen Highlands, and Buttermilk, too. If you want to come celebrate or try out any of the Aspen/Snowmass skiing, the company will be running a Gray Line luxury shuttle bus direct from Denver International Airport.
General Information: www.aspensnowmass.com/highlands; 1-800-525-6200.
Location: 219 miles west of Denver via I-70 and Colo. Hwy. 82.
Hours: 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-925-1221.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 1,010 skiable acres with 125 trails; 18 percent beginner, 30 percent intermediate, 16 percent advanced; 36 percent expert. The base is 8,040', with a 3,635' vertical rise; summit: 11,675.
Aspen Mountain
Aspen Mountain clearly resembles the paradox that is Aspen. That's why Aaron Berne, a snowboarder and sales guy at Aspen magazine, loves it so much. On the 1A side of the mountain, you'll find the ski area's original lift, Shadow Mountain, which was the longest in the world when it was built some fifty years ago. It's a super-steep two-seater over ungroomed terrain, and it's where you go when you don't want to wait in line on a powder day. But Ajax also reflects Aspen's "see and be seen" image with the Silver Queen Gondola, located right in the heart of downtown Aspen. This is where you'll find locals standing in line next to Aspen-chic visitors in one-piece Prada ski outfits.
"It's great entertainment with all the ridiculous people to look at," Berne says. "And it's fun to hassle the man, freak out the establishment." The best way to do that is to find one of the mountain's famous shacks hidden in the woods — or shrines, as the locals call them, erected in honor of heroes like the Beatles and Jimmy Buffet. "The Grateful Dead one is a classic," Berne says. "It's a fun spot to stop. Sometimes you can catch an old-timer up there with stories from the '70s he wants to talk about."
New, if you can find it, is a shrine to local skier John Nicoletta, who died last year at the Freeskiing World Championships in Alaska. "His close friends went up and built a shrine to him, which is going to be really special for the local community," Berne says.
Shrines and people-watching aside, the skiing is why people come to the mountain. "It's kind of a melting pot, and these people are all coming together for one reason: to get out there and get after it," Berne says. He likes to start the morning with an eye-watering, leg-burning, blood-flowing steep and fast run down the groomed Copper. His other favorites on the east side of the mountain are the Walsh's, an out-of-bounds access run, and Pandora's Box. He advises everyone to check out the Dumps, named for the mine tailings below it. "It's all open Aspen tree skiing," Berne says. "It's always got powder in it, and it's real steep and real fun, with nice cliff drops." On the opposite side is gladed skiing with a couple of nice pillow lines in the Trainors, which is "probably the gnarliest in-bound skiing," and it accesses Berne's all-time top place to find powder stashes: the out-of-bounds Shadow Mountain area.
During the day, you might find Berne and his friends taking a break over a cone of truffle fries at Ajax Tavern; this year, it has an expanded bar area inside and a bigger deck outside. And at night everyone heads to the same place: Sky Bar. "We usually end up wearing our ski gear out to the bars after that. Before you know it, it's 11 p.m. and I'm dancing in my snowboard boots... It's simply blissful."
General Information: www.aspensnowmass.com/aspenmountain; 1-800-525-6200.
Location: 219 miles west of Denver via I-70 and Colo. Hwy. 82.
Hours: 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-925-1221.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 673 skiable acres with 76 trails; 48 percent intermediate; 26 percent advanced; 26 percent expert. The base is 7,945', with a 3,267' vertical rise; summit: 11,212'.
Buttermilk Mountain
X Games gold medalist, snowboarder, lifetime Aspen local and owner of Radio Boardshop Travis McLain is a huge fan of the park at Buttermilk. "The X Games Superpipe is unreal," he says. "It's one of the best pipes in the country, for sure." He says that's because of the size and the pitch, which is steep enough to allow him to really build up his speed. And McLain hasn't even tried the new Olympic-sized, 22-foot half-pipe opening this season yet. It adds four feet to each wall of the pipe, sending skiers and riders higher than ever. There are only three pipes that size in the country.
McLain likes that the Upper Tiehack lift can access the whole mountain, with terrain from beginner to advanced, and the park. He likes Buttermilk's steep gladed terrain through aspens and pines. Over in west Buttermilk is an intermediate cruising zone where you can get away from everybody. But even at peak season, Buttermilk doesn't get that crowded — except when the X Games come to town. "It's awesome," he says. "It's like a huge party. Seventy thousand people come to watch, so it's pretty busy."
General Information: www.aspensnowmass.com/buttermilk; 1-800-525-6200.
Location: 218 miles west of Denver via I-70 and Colo. Hwy. 82.
Hours: 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-925-1221.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 470 skiable acres with 44 trails; 35 percent beginner, 39 percent intermediate, 26 percent advanced. The base is 7,870', with a 2,030' vertical rise; summit: 9,900'.
Snowmass
Snowmass has everything. "You can start on an average groomer, like three or four miles long, then go jump off an eighty-foot cliff if you feel like it," explains ex-bump skier Andrew Ingardia, who manages the Christy Sports in town and is about to enjoy his fourth season at Snowmass. He grew up on the East Coast and lived in Steamboat for years, but says nothing is as variable as the terrain at Snowmass.
His favorite spots are some of the areas Snowmass is best known for, like the Burn Side Cliffs — which are featured in this year's Matchstick Productions movie Claim and are home to the annual Colorado Freeride Championships. "That's definitely some very extreme terrain," Ingardia says. "It's stuff that you'd see on the back side of Alta, but it's right here in our back yard."
This year, with the new $7 million detachable quad chairlift Sheer Bliss that will serve 700 acres in the Big Burn area, it'll only take nine minutes to access the black-diamond glades and blue cruisers of the area.
The Cirque is one of Ingardia's favorite extreme spots. Nearby is AMF — a steep chute with a lot of cliff bends that opens up to a wide bowl. "It's a great spot for the extreme skier or someone trying to get more adventurous with their skiing," he says. "You're not going to tumble down 500 feet. If you take a tumble, you're going to end up 50 feet down and all good. I've taken many a tumble there."
More extreme is the Headwall itself, which locals just call the Wall. "Unfortunately, we've lost a couple of people there and had avalanches over there," Ingardia says. "You can make it as extreme as you want."
Snowmass is also known for its groomers. Ingardia calls Naked Lady the standard introduction to Snowmass, the run he hits when friends or family come out who haven't been there before, because in addition to the rollers, it has the best views. Ingardia also thinks Snowmass is one of the most kid- and family-friendly resorts around. He loves that the park has its own lift and a bridge that separates park skiers and the average recreational skier. "It's almost impossible for a family to get stuck in the park," he says.
Snowmass is just a fun place to be, he says, especially with events like Big Air Fridays, where a ton of local skiers and snowboarders come out every Friday night to compete before the weekly fireworks show. This season, he hopes things will become even more festive with the opening of the new $1 billion Base Village development, which includes 100 new ski-in/ski-out residences, four restaurants, shopping and a conference space. New on the mountain is the $9 million Sam's Smokehouse — a 7,800-square-foot restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Garret's Peak and Mount Daly with fast, sit-down service so you don't have to wait in the cafeteria line with your boots on.
General Information: www.aspensnowmass.com/snowmass; 1-800-525-6200.
Location: 209 miles west of Denver via I-70 and Colo. Hwy. 82.
Hours: 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-925-1221.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 3,132 acres with 90 trails; 6 percent beginner, 50 percent intermediate, 12 percent advanced, 32 percent expert. Base is 8,104', with a 4,406' vertical rise; summit: 12,510'.
Vail/Beaver Creek
Vail
Celebrity extreme skier Chris Anthony has been living outside of Vail even longer than the nineteen years he's been appearing in Warren Miller movies. Though his home is actually by the base of Beaver Creek, he can't deny that Vail is, well, Vail. Its name is big for a reason: It's one of the best ski resorts in the world. "It's such a tremendously large mountain that there are areas that no one knows about," he says. But that can also make it overwhelming and hard to navigate. "If you're doing it wrong, you're going to be trapped in a lift line," he says. "If you're doing it right, it's huge."
So how do you make sure you're doing it right?
You could hire a guide or find a local to ski with, Anthony says. But if you're determined to go it alone, here's some advice: Swim against the current. "People who come to Vail literally travel around in a pack," he says. "They're like herds of cattle that move around the mountain. You need to not think like the mainstream and approach the mountain differently." The first mistake people make is to head straight for the back bowls, because they're passing by some great steep pitches on the expert side of the mountain. "A lot of chutes get ignored," he says. "Like Prima Cornice, Mudslide. Those offer some amazing challenging terrain, in the trees and north-facing."
So instead of taking the Vista Bahn Express to Chair 4 to the bowls, take the chair up from Lionshead and drop into Game Creek Bowl on the other side. Or take Chair 6 all the way to the top and get back to Blue Sky Basin for a couple of runs, then move into China Bowl and move back toward the main back bowls. You'll go to the same place, but via a different route that's going to get you there faster.
Then, at the end of the day, go to Vendettas, which is the patrol hangout, or the Tap Room, and buy somebody a beer. "Be humble," Anthony says. "You might end up in the right place at the right time." Because if that somebody is a local who offers to take you up the next morning, you'll definitely be humbled by the terrain you never knew existed.
But with big spaces comes big development. Last season, the Lions-head base area was transformed by the opening of the luxury Arrabelle at Vail Square, a European-style hotel with fine dining and shopping. Work on the upcoming Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton continues. The new SKImmersion program, meanwhile, is targeted not at beginners, but at training skiers of all levels to perform like athletes.
General Information: www.vail.snow.com; 1-970-476-5601.
Location: 120 miles west of Denver via I-70, exit 173, 176 or 180.
Hours: 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-476-4888.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 5,289 acres with 193 trails; 18 percent beginner, 29 percent intermediate, 53 percent expert/advanced. Base is 8,120', with a 3,450' vertical rise; summit: 11,570'.
Beaver Creek Resort
As much as Chris Anthony appreciates Vail, he knows it already gets a lot of credit. It's Beaver Creek, right in his back yard, that goes unnoticed, and nobody takes more advantage of that fact than he does. "People want to ski Vail because it's Vail," he says. "So while Vail is pummeled with more traffic, Beaver Creek sits to the side with a reputation for being gated, beginner, intermediate, with some advanced. The beauty of that is it has incredibly challenging terrain and longer, steeper pitches than Vail and doesn't get as much traffic. It has amazing stashes...I definitely had a couple of my top-ten best on-resort powder days ever last year in Beaver Creek while my friends were standing in line at another ski area."
The biggest secret — "and one you need to find out" — is Grouse Mountain, Anthony says. It's completely powder. Two and a half hours and you're exhausted. From there, you can go through an access gate into glades. "A lot of the population that comes to Beaver Creek doesn't really go after that stuff," he says. "They stick to the incredible groomers on the front side." Opposite from Grouse Mountain is the Rose Bowl lift, with its Stone Creek Chutes and backcountry access. "There are a lot of secret stashes that get ignored there as well, very difficult mushroom drop and obstacle-ridden terrain that you would never know was Beaver Creek if you saw a picture of it."
Beaver Creek also has the Birds of Prey trail, which is one of the most difficult downhills on the World Cup circuit. In fact, Anthony says the week of the Birds of Prey World Cup is the most fun time to come to Beaver Creek. "It's an incredible party," he says. "Beaver Creek definitely puts on a new face for that. It becomes party central."
Bottom line on Beaver Creek is that you can still find powder several days after a storm. And if it hasn't stormed, you can find some of the best-groomed terrain around.
For those into luxury, Beaver Creek still has its high-end vibe. This season, The Ranch — a 4,000-square-foot home for the children's ski school — opens complete with picture windows, a yogurt bar and wireless touch screens at each table. The adjacent Osprey at Beaver Creek — the closest hotel to a chairlift in North America — just underwent a $7 million transformation, and the new Westin Riverfront Resort and Spa is part of a $500 million development that has its own Riverfront Express Gondola.
As always, every ski day at Beaver Creek ends with free, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies.
General Information: www.beavercreek.snow.com; 1-970-845-9090.
Location: 110 miles west of Denver via I-70, exit 167.
Hours: 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. through Dec. 19; 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-800-427-8308.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 1,815 skiable acres with 149 trails; 19 percent beginner, 43 percent intermediate, 38 percent advanced and expert. The base is 8,100', with a 3,340' vertical rise; summit: 11,440'.
Summit County
Mainstays
Arapahoe Basin Ski Area
The Basin was one of the first places Jeremy Dobish skied when he moved to Colorado three years ago. Ever since, it's been the place he goes to most often. Coming from Vermont, there was something familiar about the ski area. "It feels like it's a very small family," he says. "It's always the same locals and people you recognize on the A-frame and on the lift. Everybody there is super-friendly. That, and the skiing. There's just a really good balance of technical skiing and good groomers and wide-open stuff."
Dobish felt that way even before last season, when the Montezuma Bowl debuted, making A-Basin 80 percent bigger. "It really opened up the mountain and got people off the front side and back there. You could find fresh powder stashes even three or four days after the storm," he says. "You can always find somewhere fun to ski, whether it's a nice, gorgeous spring day or a mid-winter day with only a few people out and good snow."
Some of those fun places are the famous steeps off Pallavicini on the front side. Dobish likes to start there, head down Turbo, Pali Main Street or Pali Face, then over to West Wall; after that, he scoots back to Montezuma, into the trees or chutes and then back to North Pole for more chutes.
And like everybody else, he loves to end his day on the beach, hanging out in the parking lot with friends while they let their dogs run around. He also makes a stop into the bar for a Bloody Mary, since A-Basin has the best ones around. It's actually his Christmas day tradition, and this season he'll have another place to sip his spicy drink in the sun should he choose: the new, 1,754-square-foot south-facing sundeck, made of recycled materials, that can seat 100 people outside the Black Mountain Lodge.
But even if Dobish and his friends can't score one of the coveted spots in the main parking lot next to the beach, parking should be more convenient now that A-Basin has built a new lot, with 300 spaces, that's connected to the resort via a pedestrian tunnel under Highway 6; parking shuttles will also be added for the upper lots.
General Information: www.arapahoebasin.com; 1-888-ARAPAHOE.
Location: 68 miles west of Denver via I-70, exit 205, then 12 miles east on U.S. Hwy. 6.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays, 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. weekends.
Snow Report: 1-888-ARAPAHOE.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: early season $49, regular season TBA.
Terrain: 900 acres with 105 trails; 10 percent beginner, 30 percent intermediate, 37 percent advanced, 23 percent expert. Base is 10,780', with a vertical rise of 2,270'; summit: 13,050'.
Keystone Resort
A few things always annoyed me about Keystone, especially when I was totally green. First was lugging my skis through River Run, over two bridges and up the hill to get to the gondola (yes, I'm lazy). Then, once on the gondola, I waited while it crawled ever so slowly up the mountain and the adjacent lift whizzed by. And finally, I always dreaded the end of the day, when everyone on the mountain had to come down the same narrow, icy patch of run, trying desperately not to hit or be hit.
This season, all that is changing. A faster, eight-passenger River Run Gondola has replaced the old six-man one, and the loading terminal is now right in the heart of River Run Village. That means less walking, shorter lines and more skiing. Since people can choose to download at day's end, it could also mean less of a cluster at the bottom.
So with more time to burn, I'm hoping to see more of Keystone this year, and there's no better person to give me the lowdown than assistant ski patrol director Craig Simson, who's worked for the resort since 1991.
"The thing I like about Keystone is that it's spread front to back, not side to side," he explains. Keystone is made of three mountains, and the farther back you go, the more remote and extreme the terrain. Everybody starts at Dercum Mountain, or the front side, which is all beginner and intermediate skiing, including some of Simson's favorite groomers. "The Wild Irishman has all kinds of really cool pitch changes in it and different fall lines through it, and as you go down, at both skiers' left and right are really cool shots through the trees," he says. Spring Dipper is a great early-morning warm-up trail because it's nice and wide, with one steeper pitch. "You could carve that one edge to edge and get your wheels in before you start hammering your legs," he says.
Then it's on back to North Peak, or the back side, which is mostly bump runs and three groomed blues. Star Fire, the run the U.S. Ski Team trained on the last two seasons, has a relentless fall line straight down the mountain. "It doesn't give up," Simson says. His favorite bump run is Powder Cap. Because it's a little bit hidden off of Star Fire, its bumps stay a nice shape and don't get huge and squared off like the more popular runs. The best tree skiing on North Peak is the Bullet Glades, off the Bullet trail. Five years ago, the resort went in and removed all the dead trees, so that now the spacing is perfect and holds snow well. He likes the tree skiing in Cat South Glades, skiers' left off Cat Dancer, too. "It's not quite as steep and the tree spacing is a little wider, but it's really fun, and you can always find powder there," Simson says.
The third mountain is Outback, with acres and acres of tree skiing. "It's absolutely gorgeous," Simson says. "No highways, roads, nothing. I love the stillness." The best bump run back there is Bushwhacker. It's north-facing, so it holds its snow, and it generally only has three or four people on it. Outback is the end of the lift-accessible terrain, but there's still a lot more powder to be had in Keystone's bowls. North and South Bowl are a twenty-minute hike or a $5 snowcat ride. "When you get up there, in my opinion, it's one of the greatest views in Colorado," he says. "From that point, if I were to go north, I would be skiing what we call the Victory Chutes. They're north-facing, great snow, very steep, and it's not much work for a whole lot of fun. If I were to go south, I would follow the southern boundary of South Bowl and drop into what we call the Tele Trees, which is beautiful, old-growth pine forest."
But watch out for the boundary signs, he says.
Keystone's three other bowls — Bergman, Erickson and Independence — are hike-to only (about thirty minutes from the Outpost Lodge on North Peak) unless you want to pay for the all-day guided tour of Independence Bowl that comes with a catered lunch. "All three of those are very challenging — big, open-wide, with chutes, drops.... It's a great way to experience backcountry skiing and still be inside the ski-area boundary," Simson says. "We're doing avalanche control and making sure it's ready for the public. And yet it's a place where you can go and hear absolutely nothing. It's my favorite corner of the office."
But just because Simson likes his solitude doesn't mean he's not excited about the fancy new gondola, too. He also had his gripes with the old one, like the fact that it was so high that it would blow in a storm and they'd have to shut it down — even though it was during storms that people wanted the cover of a gondola. "This will be a huge improvement for Keystone," he says.
General Information: www.keystone.snow.com; 1-800-468-5004.
Location: 90 miles west of Denver via I-70 to exit 205 at Dillon, 6 miles east on U.S. Hwy. 6 to Keystone.
Hours: 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; 9 a.m.-9 p.m. on night-skiing days.
Snow Report: 1-800-468-5004.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 3,148 acres with 121 trails; 19 percent beginner, 32 percent intermediate; 49 percent advanced/expert. The base is 9,280', with a 3,128' vertical rise; summit: 12,408'.
Breckenridge Ski Area
Once an isolated area of intermediate cruisers that took some work, via cat trails, to get to, Peak 7 is all grown up. Its base development — the first new base area since Peak 9 in 1971 — is opening this season with its own ski school, ticket and rental office. By Christmas, it will also have the high-end Crystal Peak Lodge and Sevens Restaurant, with a wood-fired pizza oven and tapas bar. The new base area will now be the first stop that the BreckConnect gondola makes on its way to the resort, giving visitors easier access to the intermediate runs and the T-bar at Peak 7 that takes experts above tree line.
Steve Lapinsohn, an owner of the Main Street Outlet and North Face store in town, has excitedly watched the progress and is particularly happy about how the BreckConnect gondola ties the resort to town. What always set Breckenridge apart from its neighboring resorts is the fact that it is a real working town that predates the resort. In fact, it celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. Lapinsohn himself was wooed away from his life as a Dallas investment banker by the town's charms seventeen years ago. "It's a great place to live," he says. "There's so much that's offered here. Not only the events and the fact that it's a real town, but it's warm and welcoming."
People who come to live here stay, he says — like many of his employees who have been with him all seventeen years. Even some who left are coming back.
Of course, the skiing deserves a lot of the credit. The resort itself has expansive terrain for everyone from beginner to expert, as well as one of the best terrain parks in the country. The snow, because of Breck's high elevation, seems to come earlier and last longer, too. And this season, snowmaking has been added to the Angels' Rest and Pioneer trails on Peak 7 so they can be opened earlier.
Personally, Lapinsohn is partial to Peak 10. When he can get away from his stores, which isn't often during the busy tourist season, he laps the three runs — two blue-blacks and a black — at the center of Peak 10 until his break is over.
General Information: www.breckenridge.snow.com; 1-970-453-5000.
Location: 104 miles west of Denver on I-70 (exit 203), then Colo. Hwy. 9 to Breckenridge.
Hours: 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-453-6118.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 2,358 skiable acres with 155 trails; 14 percent beginner, 31 percent intermediate, 19 percent advanced, 36 percent expert. The base is 9,600', with a 3,398 vertical rise; summit: 12,998'.
Copper Mountain Resort
Pro rider Erich Dummer says Copper has one of the best parks he's ridden, and it's where he spends most of his time. He likes that it's long, that it starts out with easier features and progressively gets more advanced, giving him a chance to warm up. The Catalyst run actually holds four parks, but — if you hit them back-to-back, like Dummer — it feels like one.
"And now they just hired Snow Park Technologies last year to help them build and maintain their park, and those guys have done an awesome job," he says. The half-pipe was perfected, and now it's "huge," he says.
James Frederick, another pro rider, agrees that the terrain park at Copper has always been top-notch, but the changes to the half-pipe will make it the best around. "It's perfect," he says. "It's just built perfectly."
When he's not at the park, Frederick hits Tucker Mountain, where Copper offers free in-bound cat skiing with the price of a lift ticket. "It gives you a taste of being in the backcountry, but safe," he says. "You can get back there and find good snow."
Overall, he feels like the terrain is more varied at Copper than at other Summit County resorts. You can always find a forgotten stash of snow — especially in areas like Tucker, where not everyone wants to venture — and it's a laid-back place.
"Everyone at Copper is always in a really good mood, which blows me away," he adds. "I feel like they have a good thing going on."
General Information: www.coppercolorado.com; 1-800-458-8386.
Location: 75 miles west of Denver via I-70, exit 195.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays; 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. weekends.
Snow Report: 1-800-789-7609.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 2,450 skiable acres with 126 trails; 21 percent beginner, 25 percent intermediate; 36 percent advanced and 18 percent expert. The base is 9,712', with a 2,601' vertical rise; summit: 12,313'.
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Crested Butte Mountain Resort
Warren Miller's latest film, Children of Winter, features pro skier Wendy Fisher proudly showing off her hometown resort. "It was the most epic time I can remember living here," she says. "It was perfect. Epic snow conditions. I was really psyched to be a part of it, being that I live here. It's hit or miss with Warren Miller. They give you two weeks, and if the snow is bad, that's what you're stuck with. Everything was perfect."
That's partly because Crested Butte had a pretty epic 2007-2008 season, with the most snow on record: 421 inches and an unprecedented 100-inch base on closing day. Locals like Fisher are hoping for another record season.
Fisher has been in Crested Butte for eleven years. She was a ski racer, ready to retire, in 1995 when she decided to take one last ski trip — a road trip, actually, to all the resorts where she knew people. "I was planning on never skiing again," she says. But in Crested Butte she entered in a big mountain contest and had the time of her life — and then she met a guy, and the rest is history. Now they're teaching their two boys, ages two and one, to ski.
"It's just a really fun, technical mountain," she says. "Really consistent steep pitches. Lots of nooks and crannies on every run. Things to work and play on, and obstacles to try to conquer. Other ski areas might have a hit and then you go to another location and do that hit or find a technical something-or-other. Here it's really condensed: one fun challenging line next to the next challenging line. I feel like it helped my skiing even after my long background of ski racing and that being my life focus. You can still learn and grow even when you're not trying to."
The snow, like most places, can vary. But when it's good, it's great: light and fluffy and easy to ski through. More than that, however, Fisher says it's the community that's kept her in Crested Butte. "Having two small kids, I definitely can't imagine raising them anywhere else," she says.
The resort has a new ski school, Camp CB, with a remodeled building that includes new play areas and kid-friendly bathrooms. For the grownups, there's more expert terrain in the Teocalli Bowl, as well as added features in the DC Terrain Park, and a new intermediate terrain park. At the base, the ski-rental shop will be moved to a new, updated retail store in the Treasury Center building, and the old ski shop will become Spellbound Pizza. For convenience, the resort is opening a ski, snowboard and boot valet service, as well as overnight storage. And if you're looking for a nice place to stay, Elevation Hotel & Spa has undergone a $25 million remodel.
General Information: www.skicb.com; 1-800-810-SNOW.
Location: 231 miles southwest of Denver via U.S. Hwy. 285, U.S. Hwy. 50 and Colo. Hwy. 135.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-888-442-8883.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: $59 through Dec. 17; $82 Dec. 18-Apr. 5.
Terrain: 1,167 skiable acres with 121 trails; 23 percent beginner, 57 percent intermediate, 20 percent advanced. Base is 9,375', with a 2,775' vertical rise; summit: 12,162'.
Durango Mountain Resort
Kris Oyler was born in Boulder, raised in Greeley and educated at Metropolitan State College in Denver. In all that time on the Front Range, he was always looking west and hoping to live there someday. Durango drew him in because it had all the lifestyle amenities: the skiing, hiking, fishing and camping. Unlike some of the ski resorts, however, it felt like a real town, one with college students, ranchers, and families who had lived there for generations. It was grounded.
He settled in and, twelve years ago, co-founded the Steamworks Brewery in town. In addition to running his business, he's still managed to rack up more than 250 days on Purgatory Mountain. With the resort just 28 miles from town, he can get up, have a cup of coffee, be on a chairlift at 9 and back at his desk by noon. Oyler spends most of his time on the back side of the mountain, where it's a little colder, the snow's a little deeper and he can find some solitude. Getting back there takes a little bit of work, he says, but it's worth the effort. Chair 3 has some great groomed runs if you're into carving turns. Chair A has some of the best gladed skiing anywhere, and Paul's Park and Poet's Glade are perfect if you like tree skiing.
Resort-goers are going to see some major change this season as the result of an ongoing $100 million revitalization. A new base area is opening with new restaurants and retail. There's also four-star lodging on the way, with such toys as an outdoor pool and giant hot tub that will put Durango on par with the larger resorts, says resort manager Hank Thiess. And he's not worried about the resort losing its remote, small-town feel. After all, it's still three and a half hours from an interstate. "We're all about the San Juans, and we've got a very strong local population that have been especially faithful to us through some ups and downs over Durango's 42-year history," he says.
General Information: www.durangomountainresort.com; 1-800-982-6103.
Location: 340 miles southwest of Denver via I-70 and Colo. Hwy. 550 south.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-247-9000, ext 1.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: $62-$67.
Terrain: 1,200 acres with 85 trails; 23 percent beginner, 51 percent intermediate, 26 percent advanced/expert. The base is 8,793', with a vertical rise of 2,029'; summit: 10,822'.
Echo Mountain
Capitalizing on being "Denver's closest, cheapest and freshest" ski resort, Echo Mountain is out to prove that it's more than a terrain park. In addition to hard-core snowboard enthusiasts, an increasing number of beginners and families have been attracted to Echo Mountain in its first two seasons. Revenue at the ski school alone went up 78 percent in that time, just through local parents' word of mouth. This season, marketing director Molly Mueller says a new magic carpet will help the mountain grow its ski-school programs and lend it more legitimacy.
But don't think Echo's going to neglect its core audience of freestyle skiers and riders. Tree skiing's been expanded in the West Side Glades and more features added in the middle of the woods. Park designer and creative director Marc Moline explains that Echo has Colorado's only resort-maintained wood-jib area, which basically means features made of wood in the woods. "They pose more of a challenge than regular steel or plastic features, and the wood allows you to do different things you wouldn't be able to with steel or plastic," Moline says. "And it keeps it in tune with the environment. Bringing steel and plastic into the woods doesn't make much sense."
There is also a wood wave this year — a wedge that's twenty feet tall and thirty feet long — and a tree bridge made of logs with handrails that can be functional for people wanting a clean exit from the woods; freestyle riders can also do tricks on it.
The biggest unveiling of the season will be the Burton Echo Stair Set, a 24-foot stair set with three styles of boxes and rails in the Junkyard, dubbed that because the features are made of things like concrete barriers and picnic tables. New to the Junkyard is a seventeen-by-thirty-foot propane tank painted to look like a gel cap pill.
Jeff Cormack, a pro rider who lives in Boulder, likes Echo for its unique features, but also because it has an old-school vibe despite being the newest park around. "Echo is fun because it's just really low-key and kind of the experience you had at every resort ten or fifteen years ago," he says. "No parking fees. Don't have to wait thirty minutes for a bus. Don't have long lift lines. Don't really deal with traffic. It's nice. It's really easy. As someone who's been snowboarding my whole life and snowboarding for a living, I like the convenience of Echo a lot.... If I have other pro friends come in from out of town and they don't want to spend a ton of money on lift tickets, we go shred there for a day or two before we go film."
General Information: www.echomt.com; 303-325-7347.
Location: 19285 Hwy. 103; 35 miles west of Denver via I-70 and Colo. Hwy. 103.
Hours: 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Wed.-Sat.; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. and Mon.; closed Tuesdays.
Snow Report: 303-325-7347.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: early season $29, regular season $43.
Terrain: 85 acres; 4 terrain parks, groomers and tree skiing. Base is 10,050', with a 600' vertical rise; summit: 10,650'.
Eldora Mountain Resort
For people who live or work in Boulder, there's no need to use up a whole sick day after a good storm. Eldora is so close that it's easy to play hooky for just a few hours. "A lot of people will take advantage, getting a half day in before going into the office, or cut out of the office early," says Boulder skier Melissa Delp.
Eldora, a resort that has in recent years been using the traffic on I-70 as a marketing tool to attract more Denver business, is small, but Delp says that's not a bad thing. "You don't feel like you get lost in the crowd," she says. "The people are friendly. You can get on a chairlift and talk to an employee or person there riding for the day, and they're happy to give you the dish on where the good powder is or what's a good trail."
There's also a chair that's fifty feet from the parking lot, and the ski area is not so small that Delp's ever found herself bored there. "I've been skiing forever, and the terrain there still challenges me every time I go," she says.
She's challenged in places like the Jolly Jug Glades, where she likes to start her day, and on her favorite black run, Lower Diamond Back. "It's an easier black," she says. "I like West Ridge, but West Ridge is something I will only ski with somebody else."
And recently, Delp learned to appreciate the beginner area, when she hung up her skis to learn to snowboard in the Little Hawk Family Zone. "It's far east, and it's nice because the beginners are pulled away, so I didn't have expert skiers blow by when I was trying to learn." As a skier, it's also great because she doesn't have to dodge any beginners who inadvertently made their way onto an intermediate or advanced trail.
At lunchtime, Delp likes to stick a sandwich in her pocket and head to the Lookout at the top of the Corona lift. "It has gorgeous views of the divide," she says. "It's a great place to warm up."
Eldora has better snowmaking this season, with twenty more guns and a Nordic groomer for the cross-country area; it also has renovated women's restrooms in Timbers Lodge, three more play areas in Kids' Adventure Land, and a new demo ski and snowboard fleet.
General Information: www.eldora.com; 303-440-8700.
Location: 45 miles northwest of Denver via I-25, U.S. Hwy 36 west and Colo. Hwy 119; 21 miles west of Boulder.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 303-440-8700.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 680 skiable acres. Base is 9,200'; summit: 10,800'.
Loveland Ski Area
Doug Evans claims to ski 200 days a year, which may sound impossible, but when you consider that he skis the backcountry during the summer after the resorts have closed, his claim is actually feasible. During what the rest of us think of as the actual ski season, Evans — a ski tech who lives just eight miles away, in Silver Plume — will be at Loveland's Chair 4 or 8 as soon as they open most days.
There's not a lot he doesn't love about Loveland. "There's the variety of terrain," he says. "It has pretty much everything. You've got big, wide-open powder bowls. Then you've got really good tree skiing, and also good beginner skiing, with two whole lifts dedicated just to groomers. And the amount of snowfall: It snows like 400 inches a year, more than any resort in Summit County.
"And also value," he continues. "You get a lot for your money there. You can get a meal and a drink for under $10, which is pretty hard to find anywhere else." Not to mention the lack of crowds: "It's such a large ski area and fairly unknown. You can still get away from everyone and have a whole chair to yourself on a weekday."
The best spot for powder and high alpine skiing, Evans says, is off of Chair 9, which accesses every aspect, so whether you want to face the sun or be sheltered from the sun and the wind, you can find the spot. Because Chair 9 doesn't open immediately with the rest of the ski area, Evans starts at Chair 4 or 8, where he can usually find fresh snow. If he has friends in town who are more beginner or intermediate, he takes them over to Loveland Valley, where they can get away from the faster skiers and not feel intimidated.
General Information: www.skiloveland.com; 1-800-736-3754.
Location: 56 miles west of Denver via I-70, exit 216.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays; 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. weekends.
Snow Report: 303-571-5554.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: early season $44, regular season $56, late-season TBA.
Terrain: 1,365 skiable acres with 70 trails; 13 percent beginner, 41 percent intermediate, 46 percent advanced. Base is 10,600', with a 2,410' vertical rise; summit: 13,010'.
Monarch Mountain
Annie Ruiter has been going to Monarch for ten years, and it's still one of her favorite ski areas in Colorado. "The snow is always good; great tree skiing and hike-to terrain; the people are fantastic; the staff is more than helpful," she says. "It truly is like your hometown mountain."
It's small enough that you never get lost or lose your friends, because everything dumps out into the same base, but it's got the terrain of a bigger resort. Ruiter loves the trees off Panorama, and she could ski off the Garfield lift all day, hopping from groomers to powder in places like the Gun Barrel trees. The Mirkwood Basin, which opened a few years ago, is about a fifteen-minute hike off the Breezeway lift, and then she's up in wide-open terrain with steep chutes that never get crowded.
And Sidewinder Saloon — the one and only bar at the base — always has great food and people, she says.
New this year are 200 acres that have been added to the snowcat area, while Monarch continues to work with the U.S. Forest Service on its plan to add a lift to the No-Name Bowl. The ski school and rental center has been remodeled, with additional kiosks, a new boot-drying system and an expanded rental and demo fleet. At the bottom of the Panorama Chair is a new kids' terrain park, Tilt, as well as new features on the Aftershock and K2 Organic terrain parks. In fact, logs being used for features on K2 have been cut down from Sleepy Hollow, which is being widened.
In honor of Monarch's 69th anniversary this season, the ski area is letting seniors 69 and older ski free.
General Information: www.skimonarch.com; 1-888-996-7669.
Location: 157 miles southwest of Denver via U.S. Hwy. 285 south and U.S. Hwy. 50 west.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-888-996-SNOW.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: $54.
Terrain: 800 skiable acres with 63 trails; 14 percent beginner, 28 percent intermediate, 27 percent advanced, 31 percent expert. Base is 10,790', with a 1,162' vertical rise; summit: 11,952'.
Powderhorn Resort
Worth checking out for the views alone, Powderhorn is a laid-back, family-friendly ski resort that sits on the edge of the Grand Mesa — the world's largest flat-topped mountain. There are no lines or crowds, the powder is abundant, and there are two new runs, Hooligan and Bear Claw on the West End, to find stashes on.
For beginners, there's also a Magic Carpet opening, and everyone will enjoy having one more place to warm up over coffee or a snack at the new Alpine Trader Cafe.
General Information: www.powderhorn.com; 1-970-268-5700.
Location: 250 miles west of Denver via I-70, exit 49 to Colo. Hwy. 65.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-268-5300.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: $53.
Terrain: 1,600 skiable acres with 40 trails; 20 percent beginner, 50 percent intermediate, 15 percent advanced, 15 percent expert. Base is 8,200', with 1,650' vertical rise; summit: 9,850'.
Silverton Mountain
Drew Chandler had been contemplating moving to Colorado from Alta, Utah, but he kept putting it off because he didn't think the skiing would compare. He liked Durango for the kayaking and mountain biking, but Purgatory wasn't advanced enough for him. So he waited, and then he heard about Silverton. "It was pretty much the reason I moved to Durango," he says. "Silverton is 100 percent advanced. It's very similar to skiing Alta or Jackson or Whistler, except without the crowds.
"At times — I'm not exaggerating — I've been in bowls and myself and my skiing partner are the only ones out there. Two people on top of the ridgeline, and that's it. You really are in the backcountry except everything's controlled. It's amazing."
With one lift, mandatory hiking and conditions so extreme that all skiing is guided-only from January 15 to March 29, Silverton only attracts the most serious skiers, like Chandler. "I've taken several friends who are advanced/intermediate, and they're intimidated the first day," he says. "You have to show you have a probe and beacon and shovel before you even buy your ticket. That's intimidating for a person who's not doing the backcountry that much. But you get up there, and they have gates to tell you what's open and what's not. In that way, it's no different than skiing in the advanced areas of most major resorts, except there's not many people there and there's fresh snow to be found."
Owners Jen and Aaron Brill manage those fresh tracks by delaying openings so that four days after a storm, they're still opening an area that hasn't been touched. "Some of the best days are two or three days after a storm, when they finally get the bigger terrain open," Chandler says. "One thing that bums people out is when they see guided groups during unguided season going into closed areas. Some people get confused or mad about that, but those people are paying money to ski guided areas. There's never enough people there that it's a big deal, anyway. You're guaranteed fresh lines."
Depending on what's open, some of Chandler's favorite spots are Pope Face or the Billboard, a huge area with 2,000 feet of vertical and fresh lines to be had, and Ropedee Dope on the back side. "On days right after they've gotten a bunch of snow, they only open the lower north aspect, and there's some good runs there, like Delores or Spitski."
Just like anywhere else, Chandler says you want to get there first thing in the morning, when areas are opening up for the first time. This is especially true at Silverton, where time is of the essence. "You only get in between four or five runs a day," he says. "Some people, depending on what's open, can do six or eight runs, but eight runs at Silverton is a big day."
This season, Silverton will offer $150 helicopter drops to offset the cost of using an Astar B3 for avalanche control twice a week throughout the season. The drop terrain has 3,100 feet of vertical and several thousand acres of "nasty" chutes and open bowls.
General Information: www.silvertonmountain.com; 1-970-387-5706.
Location: 300 miles southwest of Denver via I-70, Colo. Hwy. 550 south, and Colo. Hwy. 110. Base is six miles from Silverton.
Hours: 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. weekends only, or Thursday-Sunday depending on time of year.
Snow Report: www.silvertonmountain.com.
Lift Rates: Day pass: $49; day pass with guide: $99; guided-only skiing Jan. 17-April 1.
Terrain: 1,819 acres; expert and advanced only. The base is 10,400'; summit: 12,300'; hike-to summit: 13,487'; vertical drop of 3,087' possible with hiking or helicopter.
Ski Cooper
Franci Peterson was inducted into the Ski Hall of Fame in 2001 for her work running the ski school at Ski Cooper since 1986. "It was a huge honor," Peterson says. "You never imagine, coming from a small area and never having done anything spectacular. I was never a fabulous racer. I never discovered a cure for anything. To be inducted into the Hall of Fame, it was one of the biggest honors of my life."
And she gives the credit to the resort itself. Ski Cooper, a county-owned facility with all-natural snow, where fresh tracks are still waiting to be had a week after a storm, is a small place where everybody knows one another, especially at the ski school. The instructors know the kids they're teaching — not just by name, but whether they're shy or energetic and have a background in gymnastics or dance. Some of the instructors have been with Peterson twenty years, including whole families that teach with her.
"It's just a fabulous place to ski," she says. "I determined it was where I was supposed to be, and I've stayed there."
General Information: www.skicooper.com; 1-800-707-6114.
Location: 120 miles west of Denver via I-70 and U.S. Hwy. 24 west.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-719-486-2277.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: $42.
Terrain: 2,400 snowcat acres; 400 lift-served acres with 26 trails; 30 percent beginner, 40 percent intermediate, 30 percent expert. Base is 10,500', with a 1,200' vertical rise; summit: 11,700'.
SolVista Basin at Granby Ranch
Steve Conrad used to be a Summit County snob. But after a while, the drive from Denver, the traffic and the lift lines got to him. Then he had kids, and shlepping them and their equipment through big parking lots and onto shuttles and gondolas became even less appealing. So, like a lot of Denver families, he came to SolVista. "We knew it was a terrific place for kids," he says. "Everybody we had ever talked to said the same thing. If you're looking for steep and deep, it's not your place. But if you like to go and be together as a family and let the kids go and know they're going to be safe and end up in the same place.... It's a terrific place for kids to learn to ski."
Everything leads to one base area, so it's really hard to lose a kid. Plus, the employees know his children's names by now, he says. "This winter, my daughter and a couple of her friends, I anticipate them skiing on their own at age five, and I'm not concerned about it."
The ski area is rarely crowded, and crowded means waiting five minutes in a lift line. Parking is close enough to put your skis on by the car and go. It's just easy. And if the kids don't get tired enough skiing, there's always the tubing hill.
"If I was going to ski by myself with buddies for six hours, it wouldn't be good," Conrad says. "But I ski with my family most of the day and then get an hour or two by myself, and it's good." There are plenty of bumps and trees and intermediate cruisers to keep him busy for two hours. And because he's not waiting in lines, he gets much more skiing in at SolVista than he has in recent years at the resorts that have more advanced terrain to offer.
General Information: www.granbyranch.com/ski/solvistabasin.asp; 1-888-850-4615.
Location: 78 miles west of Denver via I-70 (exit 232), then U.S. Hwy. 40 west over Berthoud Pass, through Winter Park, two miles south of Granby.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-800-754-7458.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: $49-$54.
Terrain: 287 skiable acres with 33 trails; 30 percent beginner, 50 percent intermediate, 20 percent advanced. The base is 8,202', with a 1,000' vertical rise; summit: 9,202'.
Steamboat
Last year, a record 489 inches of Steamboat's trademarked Champagne Powder fell from the clouds, and during a series of back-to-back storms and subsequent powder days, Barkley Robinson kept heading to the Closets for tree skiing. "It's an amazing place to be up there after a storm," he says. Even without a storm, though, Robinson, a local, is partial to the Closets. Like a lot of Steamboat, its snow conditions are always pleasant. "It's either nice and soft because it's fresh, or nice and soft because it's a relatively warm day out," he says. "Rarely do we get hard-packed conditions, which is a little different than the rest of the state."
Robinson was a ski racer growing up in Summit County, but he always loved coming to Steamboat. "I thought this place was special," he recalls. "There was a real sense of community. I liked the town, and the locals I met here seemed really genuine." After college, he was hoping to land a job in a resort town and was thrilled when he found one in Steamboat. Now a real-estate broker who also races bicycles and owns a barber shop in town, Robinson's been in Steamboat ten years. He still loves it, both for its community and the climate that brings amazing snow coupled with mild, temperate conditions. It's nice, too, the broker says, that locals can still afford to live in town. "In other places, a lot of locals have been driven down the valley because of housing costs," he says. "Granted, prices have gone up, but there is still attainable real estate for locals."
One of Robinson's other favorite places to hit after a storm is the nicely spaced trees of Shadows. He also recommends the bump runs off the Storm Peak Express, which has great tree skiing as well. Higher up are the steeps of Chutes 1, 2 and 3.
"It's just a fun mountain," he says. "It's got nice, long runs and a good amount of vertical. It's just a real fun mountain to ski."
General Information: www.steamboat.com; 1-970-879-6111.
Location: 160 miles northwest of Denver via I-70, exit 205; north on Colo. Hwy. 9 to Kremmling, west on U.S. Hwy. 40 over Rabbit Ears Pass.
Hours: 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-879-7300.
Lift Rates: TBA.
Terrain: 2,965 acres with 165 trails; 14 percent beginner, 42 percent intermediate, 44 percent advanced. Base is 6,900', with a 3,668' vertical rise; summit: 10,568'.
Sunlight Mountain Resort
Karl Walker was three years old when he first went to Sunlight, and he's been hooked ever since. "It's a great little mountain," he says. "It's a throwback to what I think skiing used to be thirty or forty years ago. It has a lot of character. It's small, but it has all the terrain that you would expect a larger mountain to have, just on a smaller scale."
The tree skiing is great all over the mountain, he says, with fresh powder stashes that last for days. His favorite area is East Ridge, which opened over a decade ago. "It's an extreme section, with steeper faces," Walker says. In fact, in the days before it was opened by the resort, he remembers someone being killed in an avalanche there. Now it's well-monitored, but still much more challenging than anything else on the mountain.
This season, skiers will have access to another extreme spot that Walker has already known about for years. Sunlight will offer backcountry guided ski tours for alpine, telemark, cross-country and snowboarding on its next-door mountain, Williams Peak, which gets 300 inches of dry powder snow each winter and has everything from steep mountain ridges to Aspen glades and broad powder bowls.
"That way, we can show off a little bit more of what we've got up at Sunlight outside our normal ski boundaries," says Sunlight spokesman Dylan Lewis. "People who wouldn't normally ski over there are paired with one of our experienced instructors who knows the mountain really well."
One of those instructors may be Walker. He's a land surveyor but works at the ski school part-time in the winter when he's needed, and he knows Williams Peak. In the summer, he does the 45-minute hike to the top regularly with his dog, often multiple times in one day. When he comes to Sunlight, it's as much for the atmosphere as the skiing. Even the older, slower lifts are a bonus in his book. It keeps the terrain from getting tracked up too quickly, he says, and allows for plenty of time to talk to the friends he knows he's going to run into. "It's what gives it its character," he says. "It feels like a mom-and-pop, real-deal ski area. It's all part of the experience."
General Information: www.sunlightmtn.com; 1-800-445-7931.
Location: 160 miles west of Denver via I-70, Colo. Hwy. 82 and Four Mile Road (County Road 117).
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-945-7491 or www.sunlightmtn.com/the-mountain/snowreport/.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: $50.
Terrain: 470 skiable acres with 67 trails; 20 percent beginner, 55 percent intermediate, 20 percent advanced, 5 percent expert. Base is 7,885', with a 2,010' vertical rise; summit: 9,895'.
Telluride Ski Resort
After expanding nearly 350 acres last season, Telluride is at it again. Revelation Bowl, with its new, locally manufactured Leitner-Poma quad lift, will add 52 acres and 800 vertical feet of above-treeline, jaw-dropping scenic, wide-open skiing. Located off the back side of Gold Hill and Chair 14, the bowl has four advanced/expert runs. Skiers and riders can choose ridgelines in either direction, with steeper pitches and rock features on the far sides of the bowl. The center is rolling advanced terrain, with a groomed cruising path.
And because last year's new terrain opened mid-season and post-map production, Telluride technically boasts an additional 23 runs this season between Revelation and the Black Iron Bowl, Palmyra Peak, and Gold Hill Chutes 6-10. The resort's vertical drop is now one of the largest in North America, at 4,425 feet.
Needless to say, Ryan O'Hara — a ski bum turned business owner who fled Boulder for the Western Slope thirteen years ago — can't wait for the season to start. Though even without the Revelation Bowl, he'd be content. "We have it all," he says. From Prospect Bowl — which has terrain for all abilities — he can see all the way to Utah. Off of Chair 9 are great steep bump runs and trees, as well as open skiing. Off of Chair 10 are long beginner and intermediate trails with views just as breathtaking as some of the advanced areas.
"We have the best skiing in the state, for real," O'Hara says, "with wonderful weather. It's always warm here. And we don't have crowds. We're totally disconnected from the Denver day skier. We have people on vacation that come here for a destination resort and then they leave. It keeps our mountain quiet, no lines. We're just people on vacation here. We don't have to deal with driving. We walk out our door and ski."
And that makes it a much happier place than the "madness," for example, at Copper, where his parents live.
They take their vacation at Telluride, and O'Hara thinks people in Denver should do the same.
Without the worry of the drive home, there's plenty of time for après-ski at the new Hop Garden, with ten specialty beers on tap to wash down a panini or pasta dish.
General Information: www.tellurideskiresort.com; 1-970-728-6900.
Location: 335 miles southwest of Denver via I-70 to Grand Junction, Colo. Hwy. 50 south, Colo. Hwy. 550 to Ridgway, Colo. Hwy. 62 and Colo. Hwy. 145 to Telluride.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-970-728-7425.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: early season $69, regular season $92.
Terrain: 2,000 acres, with 115 trails; 21 percent beginner, 32 percent intermediate, 47 percent advanced/expert. Base is 8,750', with a 3,845' vertical rise; summit: 12,570'.
Winter Park Resort
Before Paul Fenerty gave Winter Park what he recommends as the best margaritas in town at his Mirasol Cantina (he's biased), the New Orleans native followed some friends to "the great American melting pot" he calls Colorado a dozen years ago. He settled in Winter Park for its down-to-earth feel, proximity to Denver, and — of course — the snowboarding.
"There are so many good stash spots on this mountain," he says, which is why you can usually find him somewhere on the Mary Jane side, in the woods, looking for powder. "Mary Jane is known for its bumps, but if you like riding trees, it's fabulous," Fenerty says. "As many days as I've had on the Jane... and I don't like bumps. They're skier tracks, not snowboard tracks." But he's learned to ride them well in order to get to the phenomenal tree riding, and — just as she's done for countless skiers — Mary Jane has made him an all-around better and more technical snowboarder.
Some of Fenerty's favorite spots are the Mushroom Patch and the Bella Fouche area on the back side of Parsenn Bowl. "It's not that steep, really wide open, great intermediate higher trees, above the tree line or right at tree line," he says of Bella Fouche. Usually, he heads out of bounds to the 40 Trees, an area outside of Gate 8. He says it's easy to find, but it's not a place he'd suggest to just anyone. "It's unmarked, unpatrolled, and if you don't know where you're going, the trees can get really super tight."
Winter Park this season will complete five years and $40 million worth of enhancements. So far, Fenerty likes what he's seen. The new lifts that have opened in recent seasons, like the Eaglewind and Panoramic Express, have made a huge impact on the Derailer side of the mountain, he says. "The Derailer side would get beat up immediately, but I've seen less impact over there since the other lifts opened up. They've taken the average skier and spread them around the mountain more, which makes the whole day better."
This season, a 30,000-square-foot base-area development will be completed, with much of the retail, restaurant and living space occupied by the New Year, says Winter Park spokeswoman Darcy Morse. Two of the restaurants will be familiar to Denver residents: Lime and the Cheeky Monk. Look for all-new rental equipment in the ski shop this season, too, and the Village Cabriolet will take people from the free parking area near the Vintage Hotel to the main village. On the mountain, the Lodge at Sunspot is expanding its fine dining beyond holiday meals, offering dinner every Friday and Saturday night.
As a business owner who is nervous over the current economic climate, Fenerty is glad to see development happening at Winter Park — as long as it doesn't become overbuilt. "It's a love/hate thing," he says. "I hate to see the single track trails I used to ride my bike on disappear. On the other hand, that's the direction this is going. Trying to fight it is not going to work."
General Information: www.skiwinterpark.com; 1-970-726-5514.
Location: 67 miles northwest of Denver via I-70 west, (exit 232), to U.S. Hwy. 40.
Hours: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays; 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. weekends and holidays.
Snow Report: 303-572-SNOW.
Lift Rates:
TBA.
Terrain: 3,060 acres with 143 trails; 8 percent beginner, 17 percent intermediate, 19 percent advanced, 53 percent most difficult, 3 percent expert. Base is 9,000', with a 3,060' vertical rise; summit: 12,060'.
Wolf Creek Ski Area
If you've always been curious about the little ski area in the San Juan Mountains that proudly claims to have the most snow in Colorado but never managed to make it out that far, you might want to check out the Wolf Creek website this season. A free carpool service, called "Share the Ride, Share the Fun," is being tried out to connect skiers and boarders anywhere in the U.S., including Denver.
Rosanne Pitcher, vice president of marketing and sales at Wolf Creek, says it's part of the area's green effort. (They also purchase wind credits.) Other than that, the only change at Wolf Creek is a new building under construction at the top of the Raven lift. Eventually, it will serve as a warming hut and cafeteria.
Ann Bubb, who owns a mountain gear and apparel store in Pagosa Springs called Switchback, says people like her love Wolf Creek for its snow and its people — and the food in the food court, which is standard pub/cafeteria food, but done really well.
Her run of choice is Tranquility, off the Treasure Chair. "It's not super-steep," she says. "It's nice, short vertical, beautifully wide, a classic warm-up first run, but when conditions are right, it's something I could stay on all day and just hit areas off of it."
General Information: www.wolfcreekski.com; 1-970-264-5639.
Location: 300 miles southwest of Denver in the Rio Grande National Forest, U. S. Hwy. 160, between Pagosa Springs and South Fork.
Hours: 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
Snow Report: 1-800-SKI-WOLF.
Lift Rates: Adult day pass: $52.
Terrain: 1,600 acres; 20 percent beginner, 35 percent intermediate, 25 percent advanced, 20 percent expert. Base is 10,300', with a 1,604' vertical rise; summit: 11,904'.
