Powder Ghost Towns. Peter Bronski
time to ski the area.
Elevation Range
The highest and lowest elevations you’ll encounter during your outing.
Difficulty Rating
An overall measure of the effort required to ski the area, listed as easy, moderate, or strenuous. Keep in mind that this is an overall estimate. Routes that have significantly shorter mileage but are off-trail through deep snow may be listed as more difficult than routes that have much longer mileage, but are on packed trails. This is not a measure of the difficulty of the skiing.
Skiing Rating
How good is the quality of the skiing? Indicated by one, two, or three
SNOTEL Station
SNOTEL is a program of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and is an acronym for Snowpack Telemetry. The system is made up of a network of automated stations throughout the western United States that collect snowpack and climate data. The daily readings from those stations can be invaluable in deciding where to ski on a particular day. Each ski area lists the nearest SNOTEL station by both name and number. In order to view the data for a given station, select the SNOTEL site from the map or the drop-down menu on the following websites: www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/Colorado/colorado.html and www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/Wyoming/wyoming.html.
Forest Zone
Lists the jurisdiction in which the lost ski area is located. Full contact information, including street addresses and telephone numbers, are listed alphabetically for all forest zones in the Resources section. These are typically national forest ranger districts, although they may also be state parks, city or county open space programs, or other landowners.
CAIC Zone
Lists the zone in which the lost ski area is located. CAIC stands for the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. CAIC evaluates the stability of the snowpack regularly throughout the state, and posts daily updates on its website—http://avalanche.state.co.us—including an assessment of the avalanche hazard.
USGS Quad
The appropriate topographic map published by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Weather
Lists the code for the latest Zone Area Forecast, a mountain range-specific weather forecast provided by the National Weather Service. In order to review the forecast for your zone, visit the following website (in place of the “XXXXXX” at the end of the web address, type the six-digit letter and number code listed for the ski area): http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?zoneid=XXXXXX
The author digs a snow pit to assess avalanche hazard in Montezuma Basin, near Aspen.
Waypoints
Select GPS waypoints are given in the text for trailheads and topographic features of ski run approaches and descents. The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) system of map coordinates was used to establish the waypoints. The UTM system is based on lines of latitude and longitude, dividing the world into zones, and then subdividing those zones into a network of grids. UTM coordinates allow you to locate the correct grid, and then plot an “easting” and a “northing” to pinpoint a particular waypoint. For more information on the UTM grid, see the USGS website at http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs07701.html.
SNOWPACK AND HAZARDS
Colorado’s continental climate is notorious for creating an unstable snowpack. Please use safe travel techniques. Read a book about evaluating snowpack stability, avalanche hazard, and avalanche rescue (see the snow safety section in the Resources for some suggested reading). Better yet (much better yet), take a class. Practice your skills to keep them fresh. Always wear a beacon, and carry a shovel and probe. Always travel with partners, and make sure that they do the same (and know how to use the equipment). Since entire books have been written about this topic, I won’t say more here. But do take the hazard seriously. Your life depends on it.
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LAND
Finally, I wanted to say a brief word about public and private lands. If you ski every run in this book and use every approach, you’ll be on public land more than 90 percent of the time. But there will be times when you’ll cross private land (on legal easements and rights-of-way), or will be skiing above or next to private property. Please respect private property. Although it may be tempting to poach runs—particularly in instances when the landowner is absentee and out of state—I don’t recommend or condone such practices. If you make the decision to trespass on private property (and I hope you don’t), you do so of your own free will and motivation.
Also, although it is unlikely, it is entirely possible that land will change hands from public to private, and vice versa, or that easements or rights-of-way will change. It is also possible, in a rare number of cases, that a lost ski area will be revived and reopen its doors, or that an application for a new special use permit may result in unexpected restrictions on areas that are otherwise public. All of these scenarios could affect the approaches and descents listed in this book. Always respect the current state of affairs, and please notify me, the author, of any such changes so that I may incorporate them into future editions of the guide. You may contact me through Wilderness Press at [email protected].
TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS AND AERIAL PHOTOS
Every ski area in this book is accompanied by a corresponding topographic map that shows trailhead locations, approach routes, and descents. For a subset of ski areas—those that still have a complex network of runs in the trees—I’ve also included an annotated aerial photograph, in order to make the runs and the terrain clearer than could be described in the text or on the topographic maps. All aerial photos are courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Lost Ski Resorts in the
Northern Front Range
T he Northern Front Range describes the region stretching from the Medicine Bow Mountains and the Snowy Range in southern Wyoming south to Interstate 70, and extending west from Denver to Loveland Pass and the Eisenhower Tunnel. This section of the guide includes nine lost ski areas, though over the years many, many more have operated on the slopes of these mountains. Many of the lost ski areas closest to Denver and the Plains closed for a simple lack of snow—Magic Mountain in Golden, Genesee Mountain along I-70, Chautauqua Meadows in Boulder, and many more. Many others date back to the earliest days of lift-served skiing in Colorado—Fourth of July above Nederland, numerous sites around Granby, and Hot Sulphur Springs. Today, a scant few lift-served resorts remain: Winter Park, Sol Vista, Eldora, and Snowy Range. The lost areas are listed from north to south.