Fresh powder at Colorado resorts

Steamboat leads wave of expansion

By Johanna Jainchill and Robert Silk

Skiers and snowboarders this year had access to thousands of acres of fresh ski terrain, along with shiny new gondolas, lifts and more ways to apres, thanks to major investments at some of Colorado’s best-known winter resorts.

Each resort project was significant and cumulatively cost hundreds of millions of dollars. But none was as massive as the three-year, $220 million Full Steam Ahead project at Steamboat. 

The resort’s expansion, an additional 655 acres of terrain, moved Steamboat from fifth to second on the list of largest Colorado resorts, behind only Vail.

And that is not even the most transformational aspect of Full Steam Ahead.

Hanna Albertson, a Steamboat spokesperson, said the ski resort had long wanted to make major changes and “was overdue for some enhancements.”

Opened in 1963 in Steamboat Springs, also known as Ski Town USA, the resort’s reputation for “Champagne powder” snow and its glade trails, its addition to the Ikon pass in 2017 and a growing number of flights to nearby Hayden all helped its popularity surge over the past few decades. As visitor numbers grew, Albertson said, the resort wanted to improve the guest experience. 

Steamboat’s acquisition by Alterra Mountain Co. in 2017 was the catalyst to enable that to happen.

The Denver-based company, which operates 16 North American ski areas, has made major capital improvements to many of its resorts, including a $65 million base-to-base gondola at Palisades Tahoe. But nothing so far has had the scale or impact of the Steamboat project. 

“It’s changed the guest experience,” Albertson said. “It’s been truly incredible to see how it’s all come to fruition.”

Base improvements

Full Steam Ahead targets every kind of skier and snowboarder as well as enhancing the entire on- and off-mountain experience.

Improving Steamboat’s base area was a major impetus of the endeavor. According to the manager of a hotel located on the base, congestion and long lines to get on ski lifts had been a significant drawback for visitors.

With a vision to both ease congestion and make the area more appealing with new dining, entertainment and retail options, Steamboat relocated what had been its main lift, the Steamboat Gondola, from the base onto the snow at the mountain’s edge. It then added a second gondola, Wild Blue, which fully opened this season as the longest and fastest 10-person gondola in North America, taking riders on a 13-minute, 3.1-mile ride to the top of Steamboat’s most popular area, Sunshine Peak, with one stop at a learning center (which had previously been located on the resort’s base). 

By increasing the out-of-base capacity from 6,000 to 10,000 people per hour, and by opening additional spaces, the resort was able to completely transform its mixed-use base area, now renamed Steamboat Square.

The building that once housed the Steamboat Gondola is now called the Range and features an indoor-outdoor food hall with ramen, tacos and pies among the choices. New entertainment offerings include an ice skating rink and the Steamboat Stage live music platform. 

During a mostly sunny spring break week in early March, families enjoyed the ice skating rink; the rocking chairs around the Cowboy Cauldron fire pit were full (Steamboat has long embraced the town’s Western heritage). Revelers at Timber & Torch, the base area bar in the Steamboat Sheraton, spilled out onto its terrace.

“It really has turned into this place where people come and hang out,” Albertson said. “They’re not just moving through the base area and getting out of there as fast as they can.”

And moving the learning center, now called Greenhorn Ranch, from the base to the first stop on Wild Blue gives learners a superior experience. 

“A lot of times when you’re learning it can be intimidating to be around all the other guests who are more advanced,” Albertson said. “Now these beginners have their own dedicated area where there’s no other skier traffic interrupting their learning experience.”

At the other end of the spectrum, the additional 655 acres, in an area called Mahogany Ridge, is all expert terrain. Once accessible only through backcountry gates or by hiking, the new Mahogany Ridge Express lift now services the area’s black and double black diamond trails, chutes and glades. 

“Steamboat has always been known as a beginner and intermediate paradise,” Albertson said. “This 655 acres of expert and extreme terrain has always been something we’ve had our eye on. It just diversifies the terrain that is accessible at Steamboat.”

Keystone, Aspen add high-speed lifts

Steamboat’s was the most extensive, but it wasn’t the only Colorado destination ski resort with new lift-serviced terrain.

Keystone Resort and Aspen Mountain each opened high-speed lifts during the 2023-24 season that also offer easier access to areas that previously could only be reached by foot, or in the case of Keystone, by snowcat, as well.

At Vail Resorts’ Keystone, the six-seat Bergman Express lift opened on Dec. 30, providing access to 16 runs and 555 acres of high-altitude terrain that descends
approximately 1,000 vertical feet. The centerpiece of that terrain is Bergman Bowl, named after Keystone co-founder Bill Bergman, where intermediate skiers can make use of several moderately pitched, above-tree-line slopes from the lift’s apex altitude of 12,200 feet.

Trees re-emerge midway down the Bergman lift line, offering runs such as Ute Trail, which Keystone communications manager Max Winter describes as an introductory tree-skiing experience in which skiers and riders can traverse in and out of tree islands.

The Bergman Express also accesses a high alpine beginner run called Ten Mile.

“A green trail at over 12,200 feet is extremely unique,” Winter said. “It’s really cool to see skiers of all ability levels kind of flock to this area. You could spend a whole day there lapping it.”

The lift also opened up new access for advanced skiers. Off the skier’s right edge of Bergman Bowl is a black run called Uneva. And a short traverse to the skier’s left of Bergman Bowl is Erickson Bowl, which has three black runs that begin in open snow fields before descending into tree runs.

Through the end of the 2022-23 ski season, Keystone offered snowcat access to Bergman Bowl for a fee. Backcountry-equipped skiers also could reach the area via an approximately 45-minute hike instead of the 4.5-minute lift ride. (Keystone sill offers more than 1,300 acres of hike-to terrain.)

In conjunction with the lift construction, Keystone built new infrastructure to make Bergman Bowl safer and to improve snow conditions. A ski patrol station was built at the top of the lift, and several wind fences were erected on the upper portion of the bowl. The fences collect snow that would otherwise be scraped away in the windblown, treeless landscape.

Aspen Mountain, despite its fame, is surprisingly small, at least in comparison to the vicinity’s much larger Snowmass ski area and several other top Colorado destination mountains. But the expert-favoring resort, which locals affectionately refer to as Ajax, grew by more than 20% this season with the opening of the Hero’s quad lift, which made an additional 153 acres of terrain accessible.

Hero’s services four primary runs, all expert, which eventually hook up with intermediate tree-skiing areas partway down the mountain. In addition, the area has 19 double black diamond chutes for more adventurous and highly skilled skiers and riders. The lift ascends 1,220 vertical feet and is the biggest addition to Aspen’s uphill capacity since the top-to-bottom Silver Queen Gondola opened on the edge of the famed mountain town in 1985.

Like the Bergman Bowl, the Hero’s area had long been used by backcountry skiers prior to the lift opening this season.

Aspen Snowmass vice president of communications Jeff Hanle said the new lift has been extremely popular overall.

“It adds a big chunk of new terrain on Aspen Mountain, and it opens up some lower-angle gladed terrain,” he said. “People who are working their way up the ladder skillwise can get in there and get experience skiing gladed terrain and eventually work their way onto the steeper terrain.”

Hero’s northeast-facing location will also enable the resort to open more terrain early in the ski season. And the area provides more choices from the top of the relatively small mountain that don’t require going all the way down to the base.

The big draw of the state’s smaller mountains

By Robert Silk

Colorado is famous for its many destination ski resorts.

But the Centennial State also features a collection of smaller mountains that appeal to a variety of skier types interested in a more low-key experience.

This winter, I skied at two of those mountains for the first time: Powderhorn in western Colorado and Granby Ranch, not far from Winter Park, in the north-central portion of the state. Both are among the 11 small- and medium-size mountains on Colorado Ski Country USA’s Gems Pass group of products, which offer deep bargains for children and accompanying adults.

Powderhorn, about 50 minutes east of Grand Junction, is the more remote of the two locations. From the mountain, skiers have spectacular views of the high desert below and beyond that to the Grand Mesa, which the local tourism board says is the largest flat-topped mountain in the world.

Powderhorn’s management embraces its relative isolation, spokesperson Ryan Robinson said. Ninety percent of visitors, he said, come from the surrounding markets in western Colorado and eastern Utah. The resort’s other primary source markets are the Denver vicinity and the Dallas area.

“It’s certainly a strength that we cater to a regional crowd. That informs a lot of what we do,” Robinson said. “Our focus is not on big hotel, land and golf course development. Our focus is on doing smart, incremental improvements to the mountain.”

Nevertheless, Powderhorn did dip its toes into the lodging business in 2019 with the opening of six tiny homes just below the base lodge. A condo complex that is part of the RCI timeshare exchange is also located nearby.

I stayed in one of the tiny homes for my one-night visit in March, enjoying time around the communal campfire and the solitude of the mountain evening. At one point, a fox approached the tiny-home village, much to the delight of the children staying there. For dinner, my companion and I took advantage of our home’s cozy kitchen area.

The unit’s two beds were located separately above the bathroom and the couch area and were reached via a ladder, though other Powderhorn tiny homes have more accessible sleeping.

The largest of the existing units can sleep up to eight people. Powderhorn expects to eventually add six more tiny homes, Robinson said.

In the morning it was a short walk up the hill to the lift. The mountain favors experienced skiers, with 52% of its runs being black diamond or double diamond, though it also offers lesson programs and terrain for beginners.

The day I was there, one of the two lifts that goes to the top of the mountain was closed. But the second lift provided access to a few blue slopes and a wide variety of advanced terrain, much of it cutting between, and sometimes through, the trees.

With 1,650 feet of vertical drop, Powderhorn’s longest run is 1.5 miles, plenty of length, even for a skier who is used to the larger Colorado resorts.

We lapped the mountain’s West End lift, rarely repeating the same run. Blue sky, no lift lines and the mountain’s overall low-key atmosphere made for a great day.

My day at Granby Ranch came during a similarly clear afternoon on Presidents Day weekend. The terrain there favors less-advanced skiers, with 72% of its runs being either green or blue and a total vertical drop of 1,000 feet.

Granby Ranch’s location less than two hours from Denver, and within a larger resort and real estate development, makes it more geared to the destination market than Powderhorn. Around 60% of the ski area’s visitors are from out of state, spokesman Brad Moss said, with Plains states, including Nebraska, Kansas, Texas and Iowa, being primary feeder markets.

The mountain is a particular draw for young families, he said, in part because of its small scale. Every run returns to the same base area, which means parents need not worry about losing track of their kids, as can happen at large ski areas.

To augment its lessons program, Granby Ranch added an enclosed carpet called Stagecoach this ski season.

“Visitors come here to be able to capture that true Colorado destination trip without the price tag that comes with Summit County or the Vail Valley or other areas,” Moss said.

Looking out from near the top of the ski area’s Conquest lift that day, where the slopes beckoned against surrounding snowcapped peaks and deep-blue sky, it was easy to understand what he meant. Granby Ranch isn’t Vail. It’s not trying to be. But it still offers up a full taste of Colorado.