Listed below is Colorado's most comprehensive ski resort guide with 29 ski resorts.
Colorado has approximately 550 mountain peaks that exceed 13,123 feet elevation. The highest point in Colorado is Mount Elbert 14,440 ft and the lowest point is Arikaree River 3,315 ft.
The climate of Colorado is best described as being cool and dry.
Arapahoe Basin is located on the western side of the Continental Divide and it is one of the highest lift-served ski areas in North America, with a peak lift-served elevation of over 12,000'.
Majestic mountains surround a natural bowl at the Basin, providing a dramatic setting for skiing and snowboarding above the treeline. The resort is a favorite among skiers and riders who enjoy the warm, sunny days of spring and sometimes even summer skiing.
While best known as the locals' favorite among the four Aspen ski areas for advanced and expert skiers and riders, Aspen Highlands actually has more green and blue terrain than black and double black diamonds.
Aspen Highlands is actually a long ridgeline, ascending between the Castle Creek and Maroon Creek valleys. Its steeps drop off the sides of the ridge toward the valleys below. Beginners and intermediates can enjoy the long, rolling trails that run along the ridge itself.
Beaver Creek is the "youngest" of the world's great ski areas. The resort offers a well designed lift system and skiing for all abilities, with 146 named trails largely consisting of excellent cruising terrain. Beginners have their own special learning areas at Beaver Creek and the resort's 400 instructors are available for every level and nationality, with an incredible 30 different languages represented. The steepest terrain at the resort is on Grouse Mountain where the double black diamond runs are steep and demanding while other notable expert terrain includes the long thresher, Gladed, and the short chutes in Larkspur Bowl.
A plus for guests is that the Beaver Creek lift ticket is also valid at the other resorts owned by Vail - Vail itself, Breckenridge and Keystone, as well as independent Arapahoe Basin.
One of Colorado's most popular resorts, Breckenridge has expert skiing up to 12,998 feet. With the addition of the 307 acres of 'expert only' terrain on Peak 7 a few years ago, Breckenridge now has four mountains, named Peaks 7, 8, 9 and 10. Peak 8, with half of the resort's 2000+ skiable acres, is largely classified as expert terrain. Peak 10 is also mainly for experts, with 63% of its terrain classified most difficult. Most of the gentler slopes are on user-friendly Peak 9 which has almost half of the resort's lifts and snowmaking covering a quarter of its terrain.
Breckenridge is not purpose-built, rather it is an original mining town with 171 listed buildings. The town was founded in 1859 and is the oldest continually inhabited community in the Colorado mountains. As you'd expect, there's a huge choice of things to do off the slope and a vast range of lodging options, with an accommodation capacity of 23,000. The variety of meals served up by the 50 or so restaurants in town is possibly unequaled at a North American ski resort.
Walter Paepcke, who helped finance the first lift on Aspen Mountain, urged the Forest Service to approve skiing at Buttermilk, writing that "although I am not a skier, and perhaps because I am not a skier, I have always been extremely interested in providing a large and easy skiing slope for beginners. A great number of my personal friends, and many visitors to Aspen have mentioned this as a real lack in the otherwise excellent setup." Buttermilk Ski Area opened in December 1958 with a $3 lift ticket, a 4,000 foot-long t-bar and a base area restaurant that was replaced in 1993.
Copper Mountain is an excellent resort for intermediate skiers and snowboarders. The mountian is segregated into beginner, intermediate and expert areas. The happy result is that fast-moving experts don’t intimidate beginners, advanced skiers aren't held up by slower beginners and intermediates are left to frolic among themselves.
The village at Copper Mountain offers over 40 shops and restaurants, all within walking distance from the base. There's a variety of modern condo lodging, with many units having true ski-in/ski-out access. In the summer, Copper has North America's highest golf course.
Mt. Crested Butte is a modern ski village complete with lodging, dining, shopping, and conference facilities. A free shuttle bus connects the resort and town.
Crested Butte offers some of the steepest lift-served ski terrain in the USA. Extreme Limits is 550 acres of steep and deep, backcountry-style, expert-only skiing and riding. Author/extreme skier Lito Tejada-Flores calls Extreme Limits "the best adventure skiing in the Rockies." The area is avalanche controlled but ungroomed.
Cuchara Mountain Resort is a good choice for an all-around day of skiing and snowboarding. The resort's terrain is evenly divided among beginner, intermediate and expert terrain so every member of the family has plenty of choices and snowboarders have the run of the mountain, as well as the Hit or Miss Snowboard Park. Eight kilometers of cross country and snowshoeing trails are also available.
Durango Mountain Resort features more than 2,500 acres of terrain and the resort boasts that there are only 2 people per acre on their uncrowded slopes. The "front side" features runs named after Dante's Divine Comedy - Pandemonium, Paradise, Catharsis, Demon, and Divinity just to name a few. The front also offers some of Durango's premier mogul runs - such as Lower Hades and Styx - as well as the gentle, forested beginner terrain surrounding the Twilight chairlift.
The "back side" has its own signature runs, including Dead Spike, Peace, and Sally's Run plus a mix of great cruisers (Durango's grooming is considered by some to be the best in Colorado) and longer, challenging steeps. When you're ready for a real challenge, try the big bumps on Elliott's, Wapiti, or Bull Run, or the glades of Paul's Park.
Beginners should head to the separate Columbine learning area, which is served by its own lifts yet is easily accessible from the rest of the resort. Columbine has its own ticket office and restaurant, and gives first timers a fun and friendly area for learning the ins and outs of skiing or snowboarding.
Eldora Mountain Resort opened in 1962 and is skiing, snowboarding, cross country and snowshoe friendly. Eldora is located only 21 miles from Boulder and 47 miles from Denver and receives 300 inches of snow per year.
Hespreus Ski area is known as Colorado's affordable lift ticket. Hesperus Ski area is the farthest southwest in Colorado. Located in the Four Corners at Hesperus Colorado, between Cortez and Durango on the Beautiful San Jaun Skyway. You've got to Ski it to Believe it.
Howelson Ski Area was founded by Norwegian Carl Howelson in 1914, making it Colorado's first ski area. The area features one of the finest ski jumping facilities in the USA, and is an Olympic training site.
Howelson has sent more skiers to international competition than any other area in North America. Howelsen Hill boasts a remarkable heritage. It is the oldest ski area in continuous use in Colorado, and has the largest and most complete natural ski jumping complex in North America. Howelsen has been the training ground for over 47 Olympians, 15 members of the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame & six members of the National Ski Hall of fame.
Keystone is usually one of the first resorts in Colorado to open each autumn and one of the last to close. Only Arapahoe Basin stays open later in the year, thanks mainly to its higher elevation. Keystone has the largest night-skiing operation in Colorado, running daily until 8:00 p.m. It is also home to North America's biggest ice skating rink (5 acres).
The three mountains at Keystone are stacked up one behind the other moving away from the base. The terrain gets more challenging the further back you go. The first mountain, Keystone, is largely intermediate terrain. From the peak, the Outpost gondola goes to the middle mountain, North Peak. Outback Mountain, the farthest back of the three features three superb bowls with above treeline skiing.
The resort sprawls around the base of the ski area with slopeside condos the best place to be for ski in/ski out access. Non-ski activities include ice skating and hockey on the mega rink, night skiing and snowboarding, snowmobiling, snowshoeing and indoor tennis.
Loveland is two areas in one; beginners enjoy the feel of a separate base area with milder slopes at Loveland Valley. Skiers and boarders looking for more aggressive terrain head for Loveland Basin, to find steeps, bumps, glades and wide open bowls.
Loveland receives an average of 33 feet of snow each season, and the resort guarantees a good time. If you are unsatisfied with conditions, simply return your ticket by 10:00 a.m. for a full refund.
Monarch Mountain is an intimate, family-oriented ski area located in south central Colorado near Salida. Monarch boasts an annual average of 350` of snowfall to cover its 800 acres of terrain, with trails ranging in difficulty from beginner to expert. Services include a ski and snowboarding school offering group and private lessons, a children’s center, and a base lodge with an extensive menu of food and drinks.
Situated in a river valley at 7,700 ft. in the heart of the Rocky Mountains lies the spectacular mountain town of Ouray, eloquently nicknamed the Switzerland of America.
Powderhorn Resort is located in the Rocky Mountains of western Colorado. Powderhorn's skiing tradition goes back to 1937, when a few adventurous locals built a rope tow on the slopes of a Grand Mesa -- a broad alpine plateau covered with pine and aspen forests and literally hundreds of sparkling lakes.
Today, Powderhorn has one quad chair, two doubles, one surface lift and a good balance of ski terrain: 20% beginner, 50% intermediate and 30% advanced. Snowboarders can play in the resort's snowboard park and quarter pipe.
Silverton Mountain is a new expert and advanced only ski/snowboard facility. You will need to bring your avalanche beacon, probe pole, and shovel to play here! One double chairlift will access the steepest; most powder filled skiing this side of Valdez, Alaska. Silverton Mountain located in Silverton, Colorado.
Ski Cooper is one of the friendliest mountains around. Ski Cooper committed to good service and a friendly atmosphere. You'll enjoy our less crowded slopes and classes. There's more than just Alpine Skiing. Telemarkers, Cross-country Skiers, Snowboarders and Snowmobilers enjoy this great terrain in the San Isabel National Forest.
Located 12 miles from Aspen and sharing its lift pass, Snowmass offers 90% ski-in lodging and free postcards and stamps to anyone wanting to write home about their experiences on North America's longest half-pipe. In 1997, the installation of a high altitude surface lift to access the powder filled bowls of The Cirque, previously only available with the aid of a snowcat or a hike, gave it the biggest lift-served vertical drop in the country.
The NEW eight-person Elk Camp Gondola makes quick work of the distance from the new base village to the Elk Camp lift in a mere 8.5 minutes. Combined with the Village Express six-pack and Sky Cab gondola, the lift network at Snowmass promises to whisk you up the mountain almost as fast as you can come down!
SolVista Golf and Ski Ranch is the smallest destination resort in Colorado. It has ski-in/ski-out condominiums, and a resort hotel and convention center. SolVista's primary guests are beginners, intermediates and families. SolVista is a ski area for those fueled by hot cocoa, not by adrenaline.
SolVista has two separate but interconnected mountains. The East Mountain is for beginners and intermediates, and the West Mountain is for intermediate and advanced skiers. There is a separate Learn To Ski Park called Bear Bahn Park, with a surface lift for beginners.
Steamboat a true old west cowboy town with several ranches is an excellent all-around mountain with a huge variety of terrain and plenty of off-the-slope activities. The mountain offers great tree skiing, wide open meadows, long bump runs and groomed cruisers so skiers and riders of all ability levels have plenty of options. The resort is spread out over five mountains of great snow; Storm Peak, Thunderhead Peak, Christie, Sunshine and Mount Werner.
More than 40 skiers from Steamboat have joined US Olympic teams, including Olympic medalist and world champion Billy Kidd, who runs the Center for Performance Skiing at the resort.
Sunlight serves up authentic western hospitality, named after a once-thriving coal mining town in the area that disappeared in the early 1900's. With its summit situated on Compass Mountain, Sunlight offers beautiful vistas of majestic Mount Sopris and the surrounding Elk Mountain Range, as well as hundreds of acres of mild greens, intermediate slopes and black diamond extremes to satisfy all levels of abilities.
The symbol of Telluride is a miner's pick a reminder of it's mining town history. Telluride is a place of beautiful scenery. Telluride's southwestern Colorado location places it far from any major city giving short lift lines. The resort's network of a dozen lifts includes two high speed quads and one high-speed, three-stage gondola transportation system with two legs for mountain access. Free, guided mountain tours are available for intermediates and experts.
Off the slopes, Telluride boasts over 40 restaurants and bars, with everything from burger joints and Mexican food to top-of-the line bistros and classic American, Italian, and French cuisine.
The largest single ski area in the USA with over 4000 acres of skiable terrain, and the most high-speed detachable quads on one mountain in the world, Vail markets itself as 'America's favorite resort.' It is certainly regarded by many as one of the world's top five all-around ski resorts.
Vail's ski area is legendary. Stretching for 7 miles (11km) and served by 25 lifts, eight of them express quads; it has over 120 named trails. Expert skiers and powder fanatics have plenty of challenging terrain on Vail's frontside as well as the seven legendary 'Back Bowls.' For intermediates there's a huge variety of groomed cruising runs. There are numerous beginners slow skiing areas around the mountains and special family skiing areas. The longest run is from Flap Jack to Riva Ridge, a total of 4.5 miles (7.3km). The frontside terrain is unusually well balanced with almost a third of the skiing for each category of skier. The resort receives an average of 27 feet of light powder snow each year.
The Vail Valley has some 32,000 guest beds in all categories, putting it among the biggest resorts in the world off-slope as well as on. With over 120 restaurants to choose from and more than 225 shops, visitors may be forgiven for not making time to try out the 884 metre long bobsleigh run, where recreational users can record speeds of up to 90 kph. Also to be found around Vail are several art galleries, museums and the opportunity to try ballooning, dog sledding, ice skating and hockey, parascending, snowmobiling, snowcat tours, snowshoeing and telemark skiing.
Winter Park first opened in 1940, making it one of the oldest ski areas in Colorado, featuring over 3,000 acres of award-winning terrain including groomers, terrain parks, bumps, steeps, trees, and most definitely steep and deeps. It really is a "park," owned by the City of Denver. Winter Park is the closest major ski resort to Denver and boasts a combination of great terrain and reliable snowfall.
At Winter Park you can wear your jeans and enjoy the small-town atmosphere surrounded by the open spaces and lofty peaks of the Continental Divide. Off the slopes try snow-shoeing or cross country skiing, take a dinner sleigh ride or snowmobile tour, or do a tube ride down the famous Fraser Tubing Hill.
Wolf Creek Ski Area is one of Colorado's oldest and finest ski resorts that receives an average annual snowfall of 465 natural inches, the most snow in Colorado! Wolf CReek SKi Area is located on Wolf Creek Pass between Pagosa Springs and South Fork, CO. Their trademark is friendly employees and abundant light powder. Wolf Creek has 7 lifts servicing 77 trails and 1,600 skiable acres of bowls glades, steeps, chutes and groomed runs. Wolf Creek is a high alpine resort with a base elevation of 10,300 ft and the summit elevation of 11,904 ft.
