WHY WE SKI ASPEN

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Photos: ASPEN SKIING COMPANY


Or why we can’t not ski Aspen

Aspen, Colorado: elevation 2,438 metres, 41 lifts, 2,298 skiable hectares. Put on the map by Jerome B. Wheeler, an 1870s industrialist intent on riding the silver mining boom. Blank canvas of Walter P. Paepcke, “maker of modern Aspen”, whose post-WWII community vision was to nourish “the whole man” through art, sport, music and thought. Home of hippie celebrities, notably: gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who once firebombed the sky to wish Jack Nicholson a happy birthday; and Stevie Nicks, who sang at commencement ceremonies at the local high. 

Aspen: Sixth on an online list of top names for golden retrievers—immediately preceded by Summer and Maui. Namesake of at least one car: a 1976 Dodge sedan. A town described alternatively as “candy-ass” and “the cocaine capital of America”, where an average Victorian house in the downtown doubled between 1986 and 1989, and where a three-bedroom condo on East Hopkins Ave. costs $45 million today. A community whose airport lands 3,500-plus private jets per winter, and where a bottle of Veuve Clicquot costs $125 at a Cloud Nine aprės party, not to sip but to spray. 

Aspen: A place where the ski slopes ripple and undulate, and where the coniferous trees are so fun to ski around you can lose yourself—in a good way—for an entire day. Whose elevation is so high in the Elks that the trails trap and cup some of the driest, freshest, most perfect blower powder you’ll ever ride. And where, from the peak of any one of its four ski areas, your gaze stretches out and out and out across the easy-rolling Rockies: cloud white faces tinted pink by the sun. 

Aspen: A ski resort you can no longer afford to ski, and one you can’t afford not to ski, both at the same time.

Aspen: As Comfy as Your Favourite Pair of Jeans

Skiers regard me strangely when I tell them I adore Aspen. “But don’t you know it’s over-priced, over-botoxed and over-stimulated?” they ask me. “Yes, yes and yes,” I reply. I’m aware Loro Piana and Prada have stores near Main St., that Kendall Jenner opened a pop-up last ski season, and that Kathy Hilton and her sister had a blow-out recently at the Caribou Club so big it nearly brought down Bravo TV’s Housewives franchise. I’m also aware that in all the decades I’ve been skiing Aspen I’ve never once spotted a celebrity more famous than Moxie, the ski patrol dog. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough. Or maybe I’m just so enthralled by the skiing I don’t have the energy or time.

I was introduced to Aspen by my father and mother back when slim-fitting stretch pants and zinc oxide were popular, and when my dad wore a tuque and Ray Bans. Each year we’d arrive with a huge group of Canadian skiers made up of every skiing friend my parents ever made. My mom and dad were Aspen’s unpaid pied pipers back in those days, a skiing couple convinced, as I am now, that Aspen was the bomb. And before I go too far down that road of nostalgia, let me just say getting to Aspen back in the day wasn’t as easy as it is now. Rocky Mountain Airways ran cheap, unpressurized planes at an altitude of 12,000 feet from Denver into Aspen Airport; by the time we landed, most of us had either barfed or passed out cold. But the next day all would be forgotten once the skiing began. And while the town of Aspen has changed since the ‘70s, the skiing has not. It’s just as good as it used to be, maybe even better heading into Winter 2025. 

FACT: Skiing Aspen is akin to slipping on a favourite pair of jeans: relaxed fit, worn denim, tight at the top and flared at the bottom, a pocket or two to tuck into when it’s blowy or cold. Ride a steep line here, dip into those trees there, zip across an open meadow to the grove of conifers no one wearing Fusalp appears to have found. With four mountains on Aspen’s roster—Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, Snowmass and Buttermilk—skiers spread wide. Runs never seem to be crowded, there’s always a place to ski alone, always a place to hide.

The Highlands is badass good

Each of Aspen’s mountains is distinct. Like four siblings in a single family, each kid has his or her thing. The oldest is Aspen Mountain, known locally as Ajax. It ascends sharply up from Aspen town and, with The Little Nell hotel at its base, is often regarded as the jewel in the crown. That might be because you can’t swing a ski pole without striking a Kennedy or a Russian oligarch; more likely because of its steep yet cruisy terrain. Turn ‘em left, turn ‘em right, stop to say hello to a yeti in a tree (because there are unexpected art installations all over Aspen, including a yeti in a tree.) Ski the new Hero’s Mountain, a 61-hectare addition last year that pays homage to the heroes of Aspen history. Then pop by a patrol hut to chat with the patrollers, because if Ajax is the crown, then veteran ski patrollers are the kings and queens. One such is patrol trainer Mike Britt, descendant of a longtime Aspen family, the kind you don’t see around much these days. At the Buck bar one night Britt tells us he’ll be guest patrolling in Chamonix next season. Some joker says, “Hey maybe you’ll run into Glen Plake while you’re there, have you seen that documentary they made about him?” Britt’s response: “No, has he seen mine?”

Next in the siblings’ hierarchy is Aspen Highlands, which, thanks to its Highlands Bowl, goes head-to-head every year with Ajax as the locals’ top choice to ski. “Hogwash,” writes Lorenzo Semple one morning in the Aspen Daily News. “Highlands Bowl is the undisputed Mike Tyson, ear-biting, reigning heavyweight champion.” Reader takeaway: Aspen Highlands is badass good. There’s no lift to it, but every skier ought to climb the Highlands Bowl at least once in a lifetime, if only to stand on its moonscape peak with snow swirling, flags slapping and wind whipping in your face. (Truth: the terrain can’t touch Spanky’s at Blackcomb or even Sunshine’s Delirium Dive, but shhhh don’t spoil the American Dream.) Anyway, on a powder day you don’t need to hike the bowl to find good terrain. Highlands’ Deep Temerity Lift leads to secret glades, frothy trees and open meadows. Stick around the Cloud Nine chair mid-afternoon to watch the jet set douse one another with champagne at the Cloud Nine hut. If it’s sunny they’ll be dancing on the deck to thumpy Euro beats. 

Third in the siblings’ lineup is little Buttermilk, established in 1958 by 10th Mountain Division’s Friedl Pfeifer and Art Pfister because Aspen Mountain and the Highlands were just too damn steep. It has morphed over the years into an ideal place for parents to put their young kids in ski school while mom and dad skin up the mountain. Buttermilk used to be a good place—or the only place—to watch ESPN’s X-Games. Recently sold by ESPN to private equity, 2025 plans for the event had yet to be announced by press time.

Snowmass: The Best for Last

As the youngest child in a family of four, I’m partial to saving the best for last. In Aspen’s case, the last is Snowmass, which was born (like me) in 1967, and which can be safely described as a dream to ski. Over the past 10 years a proliferation of condos has sprouted at a reconfigured Snowmass base, altering the homey vibe of the place. Still, on a snowy day there’s no better spot to ski than Snowmass—none. A day starts with a lift ride over Fanny Hill, where beginner-watching is better than screening an old Warren Miller movie or scrolling Jerry of the Day. Skiers in-the-know grab fresh lines down Sam’s Knob while waiting for the Burn chair to open, then beeline it to the top of the Big Burn once the patrol gives the all-clear. Next, they slide skier’s left to Sneaky’s trees, popping out later to snake a fresh path through Powerline Glades. Zipping across the wide-open Big Burn like Star Wars starfighters is a gas. Garrett Gulch is a natural halfpipe few seem to know about even though it’s right there. And the Freefalls leading to the Trestle Bridge hide an ass-kicking trove of bumps. Lunch is always a pre-packed picnic, and it’s always eaten at Ullrhof. Afternoons, if sunny, need to include a mogul run down Powderhorn to Campground—they don’t make bumps any bigger than this—or a long lap on Hanging Valley, which goes on and on and on, tying a bow on a blissful afternoon.

There’s always a place to hide.

So yeah, Aspen is expensive, there’s a sea of botoxed faces, art galleries show Banksy, and $45 million for a condo is insane. But it’s the town where pro skier Spider Sabich was shot by French actress Claudine Longet in 1974, and serial killer Ted Bundy escaped from a second-floor window of the local courthouse, only to turn himself in shortly after because he couldn’t stand the cold. For a skier, Aspen is the home of lore… as well as bumps and gullies and pretty groves of aspen trees, and a dry powdery snow you can float in without need of an A-Star helicopter. How can you afford to ski Aspen? How can you afford not to, that is the question I ask.



Lori Knowles
Lori Knowles is co-editor of Ski Canada magazine. As a longtime ski writer and author, Lori is a former ski and travel columnist for the Toronto Sun. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Skiing History and SNOW magazine. Her first novel was published in May 2024: Summers with Miss Elizabeth.
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