Steamboat, CO
The middle of winter, the best time to go to the snow. For one week in February 2017, suddenly, it wasn’t the best time to be in Colorado, unless you wanted to work on your tan. With the highs up into the 20s C (70s F), the snow is going to suffer. While my timing was unlucky, Steamboat was still a fun mountain to ride, especially with my experience riding the east coast ice pack. Steamboat has some elevation to help keep the snow closer to the optimal temperatures near the summit of 2,050 m (6,732 ft).
Steamboat Ski Resort is easily accessible from Denver airport, I took a shuttle bus with Go Alpine, which took about 4 hours, and has a rest stop at Silverthorne. Given the altitude of Colorado, I’d recommend having enough water, and grab some bananas as apparently the potassium helps with the altitude headaches. My accommodation was booked through Wyndham and didn’t have any issues, other than the communal hot tub being closed for cleaning for most of my stay, which I had no plans on using anyway. The resort had their own shuttle bus that was on call till late into the night, trips to the town of Steamboat Springs, or just to the mountain were possible. Just a call away and they’ll let you know when to expect the driver to pick you up, even at the busy times I never waited more than 30 minutes. The resort shuttle bus was one of the best features in the end.
As outlined earlier I got unlucky with the weather, but I can see how this resort would be great fun with a foot or two of fresh powder. The resort map was a bit funky and didn’t really outline the best way to get from the summit to the base. As a snowboarder, unbinding and walking is never high on the fun things to do list. Thunderhead Lodge forms a nexus on this mountain. If you are coming down from Storm Peak you’ll need to keep your speed up, but watch out for all the kids and walking snowboarders. This area really needs to be modernized for snowboarders to better utilise the mountain. I guess it’s always possible to ride to the bottom and come back on the beginner run, BC Ski Way or Right-O-Way, but as it was so warm this was usually slush or an ice rink depending on time of day.
My favourite runs I kept coming back to were Quickdraw, Flintlock, basically most of the runs on Rendezvous Basin. The trees over the back in Morningside Park underneath the Morningside Lift were great fun, the trees are spaced well enough apart to keep the flow going, and shallow enough to not pick up too much pace.
What I would do differently is to not book for the middle of February. Talking to some of the locals they told me it’s been the new normal there for a mid-February temperature spike lately.
Wild Plum was the closest place to buy alcohol, but was on the pricey side, so I ended up catching the resort shuttle to Central Park Liquor to resupply. Groceries were bought in the same trips at City Market. Caught a game at the Tap House Sports Bar and Grill, and I was pretty happy with the atmosphere and service. Went to a friendly café by the name of Ciao Gelato, pretty nice place with some banter with the proprietor from New York. However after a long (or short) day a stop at Slopeside Grill was always a great stop, it’s bar, it has fried food and a huge range of beers, would recommend.
Be sure to check out the Steamboat video.
