This easy-going, affordable and family-minded resort has a little something for everyone, providing a good time without all the extra frills or fanfare. Tucked into the woods off a major Colorado highway, the Winter Park ski area maintains a distinctly rural feel with the added kick of a 12,060 foot mountain towering overhead. Several traditional mountain inns provide a pleasant family feel, with kids playing board games in the common rooms and distinctive family-style meals. But these inns, in addition to the local bar scene, are also great options for single skiers and boarders looking to meet other guests. Winter Park is home to the National Sports Center for the Disabled, the nation's largest and most respected disabled skier programs.
Winter Park has three interconnected mountain skiing areas, making it one of Colorado's largest resorts. For intermediate and expert skiers, the chutes, glades and steep mogul runs on Mary Jane Mountain and the extreme skiing on Vasquez Cirque are sure to please. Merging with the backside of Mary Jane and snaking out from the North Cone Summit is the Parsenn Bowl, which serves up more than 200 acres of open-bowl and gladded-tree skiing. Compared to its more advanced offerings, Winter Park is pretty light on beginning trails, but there are plenty of starter slopes on Winter Park Mountain and in Discovery Park, spanning more than 20 acres of novice terrain. Free-style snowboarders will find the three terrain parks have something for all skill levels. Rail Yard on Allan Phipps trail has a 450-foot superpipe, 25 rails (30-foot banked C rails and a 15-foot trapezoid) and 16 features such as kickers and spines. The terrain park on Jack Kendrick trail is designed for intermediate riders and is home to an undervert mini-pipe with less than 90 degree walls on the top. Winter Park's tails are served by 21 lifts.
24 lifts including 3 surface lifts and 21 chair lifts.
$$$$ (Very Expensive)134 runs - 9% beginner, 34% intermediate, 57% expert. Longest run is 26,930 feet.
Mountain Statistics: 2,610 feet vertical drop, 12,060 feet summit elevation, 2,770 acres, average annual accumulation 351 inches.