Trip Report: Sampling Some of Aspen Snowmass's Best Skiing
Back in December I flew out to Colorado for the opening of the brand new 5* Limelight Hotel Snowmass (read about my experience here). Obviously, while I was there it would have been rude not to re-familiarise myself with some of my favourite ski areas too!
We only had time for two of the four mountains which make up Aspen Snowmass on this occasion, but we enjoyed two wonderfully sunny days, no wind, -2°C and perfect piste conditions.
We had a few hours to ski Aspen Mountain (still known locally as Ajax) from Aspen Town and enjoyed the views across to Highland Bowl in the distance. It's not a huge mountain, but it has a great pitch and an amazing amount of varied terrain in a seemingly small area. The Spar Gulch blue groomers feel like you're skiing down a barrel and are perfect to let loose with some fast turns.
The next morning we skied Snowmass, which I've done a number of times but not fully appreciated what an amazing mountain it is until now! It’s way bigger than it looks on the trail map, with really long high-speed lifts allowing for seemingly endless runs. We started at the Elk Camp Gondola in Snowmass for first lift, then onto the Elk Camp chair, the top of which offers a glorious view across to the Maroon Bell peaks, which must be one of the prettiest mountain views in Colorado.
You could ski this area all day, as the trails are just gorgeous! Amazingly wide with lots of rollers, dotted with fir trees and very few skiers. We lapped the chair many times, carving turns down Bear Bottom and Bull Run. Lots of fun, and I can only imagine how amazing this would be on a powder day!
From the Elk Camp chair, you can see across to the some of the more advanced terrain of Hanging Valley which looked really exciting. Again, the trail map does not do it justice. I had to leave that for another time as I think my Dad would have had kittens if I'd tried to take him there!
We worked our way across the resort to a final ascent of the Sheer Bliss chair and looked across Dallas Freeway which, at the top, is probably one of the widest groomed runs I have seen in North America, before into it splits into four runs halfway down - so long it’s a proper thigh burner by alpine standards!
