Recommend me an Ikon resort in CO - 3rd week of January

[Toadman]

Wife will be in Denver for work the week of the 22nd. Looking to tag along and head out a few days earlier. What say the Mags on where to spend a long weekend (4-5 days) skiing at an Ikon resort. I skied Aspen/Snowmass last year and had a great time but damn has lodging only gotten worse! Not been to Steamboat in about 7-8 years, and mainly skied the Fail Resorts in the past. Winter Park? Copper? Thanks for any suggestions.

[raisingarizona13]

Steamboat is rolling out their new expansion this year over into Fish Creek Canyon. Just a thought, nothing else.

[Master of Energy]

Stay relatively cheaply in frisco / Dillon.

3-4 days at abasin, maybe a day at copper and a day at WP?

[Buster Highmen]

Taos

[I've seen black diamonds!]

Stay relatively cheaply in frisco / Dillon.

3-4 days at abasin, maybe a day at copper and a day at WP?

This.

Sending you a PM with some more details.

[Toadman]

Steamboat is rolling out their new expansion this year over into Fish Creek Canyon. Just a thought, nothing else.

I was thinking Winter Park with maybe a day at Steamboat. Just checked out that new terrain at Steamboat. Looks interesting.

https://www.steamboat.com/the-mountain/mahogany-ridge

[Toadman]

Taos

LOL. That's a bit more off the map than I'm looking to take on. At least for this short trip.

[Danno]

The week of the 22nd as in what month?

[Danno]

If everything is open, ABasin is a cool mountain with some steep ass high alpine terrain.

Copper has a lot of fun terrain, some good alpine, much bigger than the basin but much more corporate mountain.

WP has very little high alpine, but will have the best trees if that's your thing (it's mine). Less corporate than Copper, much bigger than the Basin.

Steamboat is fun, more destination-y than the others, excellent trees, nothing super steep, and it's a 90 minute drive from either WP or Summit County, good day trip option.

But when you're coming matters a lot.

[Toadman]

The week of the 22nd as in what month?

January.

[adrenalated]

Will you be skiing weekdays or weekends?

If weekends, strong preference for Assssssssspen to avoid the tunnel trash.
If weekdays, Aspen still has the most varied terrain, less crowds, and likely best snow. From there my preference would probably go Sleigh Basin -> Wanker Pancake -> Copper -> Steamer -> Eldora. This is based mostly on quality of steep terrain. I could have fun at any of them though, because skiing is fun.

[byates1]

Get a Carhartt insulated one piece, an 87 suburban, a 30 block of Hamm's per day, a pair of bitchin atomic arcs and fkin have at it man! Report back. Also, Taos.

[Toadman]

Will you be skiing weekdays or weekends?

If weekends, strong preference for Assssssssspen to avoid the tunnel trash.
If weekdays, Aspen still has the most varied terrain, less crowds, and likely best snow. From there my preference would probably go Sleigh Basin -> Wanker Pancake -> Copper -> Steamer -> Eldora. This is based mostly on quality of steep terrain. I could have fun at any of them though, because skiing is fun.

Yes. Would love to hit Aspen Extreme. But the only thing extreme about Aspen these days is the cost of lodging and the ski wear.

[jhyatt]

New terrain aside, steamboat skiing is just trees. Town is fun
A basin fun
Aspen the best. Stay in Glenwood springs or Carbondale. Highlands!

[skaredshtles]

Taos

...

[SirVicSmasher]

Taos

What a fucking shame

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[Toadman]

New terrain aside, steamboat skiing is just trees. Town is fun
A basin fun
Aspen the best. Stay in Glenwood springs or Carbondale. Highlands!

Indeed!

[Danno]

Since you said you didn't want to do Aspen, I offered opinions on the other places, but Aspen is the best choice. ESPECIALLY if you're skiing a weekend.

[Toadman]

Since you said you didn't want to do Aspen, I offered opinions on the other places, but Aspen is the best choice. ESPECIALLY if you're skiing a weekend.

Well, the only reason I was leaning against Aspen was the lodging cost, but jhyatt got me thinking that staying in Glenwood Springs wouldn't be so bad. Wife is on board with that, so looks like Aspen is on the docket. Should be good timing right after MLK and before X-Games.

[Shredhead]

Check out lodging options in Snowmass, Basalt and Willits as well. Traffic can back up significantly in Glenwood.

[Leshphilling77]

I used to stay in basalt but even the place I used to stay there has gotten quite a bit more expensive, might get pushed out to carbondale. I do look forward to skiing there again this season though, been a few years since I had ikon.

But if aspen doesn't work out for you a basin on a weekend that time of year shouldn't be too bad. At least the past couple years weekends have been relatively chill up until late feb or march. that said the weekend front range crowd has become increasingly less predictable to me in post covid times.

[Name Redacted]

As others mentioned, Stay in Dillon/SIlverthorne and ski A-Basin or Frisco-Copper are your budget options. If you ski the Basin hit me up, I might join ya. It is usually the least crowded of the Summit resorts on the weekends. If you stay in Frisco, take the free bus to Copper.

Steamboat has gotten crazy expensive too because of AirBNB regs, and the skiing really isn't anything to write home about unless it dumps. The town is pretty great though. Probably one of my favorite ski towns in CO.

Winter Park is decent skiing and probably cheaper lodging because you can stay down valley for cheaper. But that limits you to pretty much one resort. DO NOT plan on road tripping between resorts on I70 Friday-Sunday unless you like the interior of your rental car a lot.

If you stay in Summit, at least you have the option to ski Copper and Abasin with shorter commutes instead of being stuck at WP or Steamboat.

[Cruiser]

Check out lodging options in Snowmass, Basalt and Willits as well. Traffic can back up significantly in Glenwood.

Can confirm. I was in Glenwood a couple days last month and was pretty surprised by the traffic backups.

Took this great pic while I was waiting

[whipski]

If you stay in Leadville it's 20" to Copper. Lived in the Roaring Fork 20 years between Glenwood and Carbondale. The Rafta bus is a nice option esp from the motels on the south end. if you find a vrbo or airbnb in El Jebel or Basalt the bus works great.

[hutash]

I was going to say stay in Glenwood Springs. The drive is not bad and there are buses as well. We stayed at Cedar Lodge and it was a reasonably priced reasonable motel with breakfast.