Tourists are hardly deflated by lack of snow in the hills
From tubing to hot tubbing, vacationers finding alternatives to skiing
VA I L» With the slow start to winter, resorts are aching. Resort operators and community groups are hosting free dinners for idle workers and blasting grassy slopes with man-made snow.
But while ski resorts bemoan Mother Nature’s dawdling, not all mountain businesses are dragging. Visitors still go looking for thrills when the dirt-flanked ribbon of artificial snow gets old.
“And we are ready to greet these folks with open arms and red carpets. We are staffing up and expecting a flood,” said Nancy Heard, who manages the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park and nearby Iron Mountain Hot Springs in Glenwood Springs.
Heard’s team has strung 500,000 lights across her tram-accessed, Westernthemed park atop Iron Mountain. Santa is set up next to the fire pits and s’more stations, and the 26-foot-tall Christmas tree has a choreographed light show. The park and hot springs don’t take reservations, but Heard is ready for a 10 to 15 percent surge in annual business due to the extra-
slow blanketing of the Roaring Fork Valley’s ski hills.
“We might benefit now, but in the long run, we’d rather see a couple of feet of snow up there right now,” Heard said. “It’s a shortterm gain and a shortsighted view, but we are ramping up staffing and begging every high school and college kid in the area to come help us through the next 14-day stretch.”
Over in Summit County, the tubing hill at the Frisco Adventure Park is packed. On Monday, the first lady of Mexico drove over from Vail with her family for a day of tubing.
“We are seeing more people coming over from Vail to tube than in the past years,” said Vanessa Agee, a spokeswoman for the Town of Frisco. (Vail’s tubing hill at Adventure Ridge has not yet opened.)
The exceptionally cold past few weeks have expanded skating, hockey and broomball opportunities on Frisco’s Meadow Creek Pond.
“We have been able to clear a larger surface and we are seeing 25 or more people there at any time,” said Agee, adding that the county’s Nordic tracks and fat-bike trails are crowded as both locals and visitors wait for more snow at the resorts. “People are finding ways to get outside. It’s really helped that we have other things to offer everyone, but, really, we are ready for our business to return to snow and skiing.”
Zach Brandiff’s Vail Valley Escape Room has been bustling in the past couple weeks. The three-scenario adventure — where visitors search a room for clues to solve a complex puzzle — has been drawing more visitors who “are complaining about the snow,” Brandiff said.
“But as far as our projections for a normal winter, we are a little behind because of the lack of people coming to the area,” said Brandiff, a co-owner of the Vail Valley Escape Room, which opened in the spring. “We may be seeing a higher percentage of people who are here, but if we have a typical winter crowd with good snow in December, I feel like we’d be busier.”
Bill Tomcich, whose Stay Aspen Snowmass books the largest collection of resort rooms in the Colorado high country, saw a number of cancellations last week. But he said those were related to Aspen Skiing Co.’s call to allow visitors who bought $6.50 lift tickets for Dec. 15 — as part of the 50th anniversary celebration at Snowmass — to use them in April. “Really, it was just a handful of people who wanted to reschedule,” he said, noting that holiday bookings were strong.
The Aspen-Pitkin County Airport was bracing for its busiest day ever on Saturday, with 40 flights on three airlines arriving from 10 cities, up from 38 flights on Thursday.
“This fresh snow (on Thursday) has really changed the attitude over here,” Tomcich said.
This week, Aspen Skiing Co. opened its new Breathtaker alpine coaster at Snowmass and added a flurry of nighttime events on the mountain, including rides, which sold out almost immediately.