As an East Coast boy, Steamboat always seemed to me to be the epitome of a Warren Miller segment from the early 90’s. Picture it- an opening shot with a pair of cowboys riding horses with skis on their back, a bunch of little kids getting towed down Main Street by some other cowboy into a kicker. Then there’s the four minute montage with lots of bump skiing closeups and Billy Kid destroying tree sections while somehow managing to keep a cowboy hat with a silver and turquoise broach on the front secured to his head.  Countless ads from old SKI magazines that I read in the dentist’s office showed Steamboat’s front side stocked with thousands of moguls glowing in the pinkish dawn sun. It always somehow suggesting that a) people go on vacation to ski moguls, and b) no one on the East Coast knew what powder was or wanted to ski it.  Needless to say, I wasn’t really sure what I’d be getting when I visited the ‘Boat this December, days away from 2010 and at least ten years since I’d seen a Warren Miller movie (by the way, middle fingers in the air to the Bonnier Corporation!).

In my four days at Steamboat, it was obvious that skiing as the 90’s knew it is still very well supported here. Steamboat is to the Olympic disciplines what Breck is to the X Games. An Olympic-level bumps course and freestyle jump were just about to be completed. A separate hill, lit up at night, hosts a pitch for gate-slappers and two serious ski jumps (the ones you do for distance).  Instructors from the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, which outdates even the ski resort itself, could be seen everywhere in their blue suits escorting herds of little shred goblins around the mountain.  All this adds up to more winter Olympians than any other town in the United States; 10-15 of them will be in Vancouver this year toting some hideous Roots berets and fighting for athletic fame in their chosen discipline.

You might be saying “Cowboys?  Ski jumps?  Moguls?  The Olympics?  What does this have to do with freeskiing?’  For the purpose of maintaining the cohesiveness of this article, very little.  And that’s the point.  Steamboat “suffers” from what I will call “The Little Cottonwood Shadow.” While everyone guns up to Alta/Bird on a pow day so they can traverse like a sprinter and snake people for first tracks, Solitude remains empty the next canyon over.  Steamboat, 2.5-3 hours from Denver, gets none of the crowds and few of the TGR-posting rippers that Summit County and Vail swallow up every weekend. This leaves the copious amount of trees, ignored by visiting Texans drawn to Steamboat’s family programs, untouched.

After taking a very quick, quiet, and friendly Go Alpine shuttle from Silverthorne to Steamboat (goalpine.com), I got my lift tickets from Loryn Kasten, Steamboat’s PR Manager (yeah girl!), and then it was on to the gondola.  While Steamboat averages 350” a year, and saw 400” the past two seasons, it was suffering through the same drought as Central and Northern Colorado. It still didn’t look nearly as bad as Summit did.  With most of the top section including Christmas Tree Bowl & the Three Chutes closed due to the lack of snow, we spent most the three days skiing off of the Sundown Express and Sunshine quads.   The groomers were quickly getting scraped down to the bone, and were miserable to negotiate on my Czars. We quickly took the party to the woods, and damn were those woods were fun.  While the first day we slogged through a lot of atypically wet Colorado snow, a clear cold night sucked out all the moisture and for the next two days it was on.  The trees were almost all untracked thanks to the people who wanted to keep their bases intact, and as long as you were willing to scrape a few rocks and ollie a few logs on the way down, you were well rewarded with empty sections of boot-to-knee deep pow.  We found ourselves alone, the weekend before Christmas, in runs like 2:30 & 1:30 trees, Closet, and by far the best- Shadows.  Sitting skier’s right of the Sunnyside liftline, Shadows is the best Steamboat had to offer (with Christmas Tree Bowl closed). Top-to-bottom consistent, steep pitch, with sections that narrow and open back up again and mixed stands of Aspens and pines.  This run is incredibly wide and I don’t think I crossed a track the whole time we skied it.  Not to mention that the notable lack of the party patrol kept things casual.  Steamboat lacks a plethora of cliffs or wide-open terrain (the whole resort is below the tree line), but the resort is built for storm cycles where a week of snowy, grey skies make the trees an essential tool in establishing depth perception, and the extent of the ‘Boat’s tree options mean you won’t be suffering from an intense competition for tracks that will affect your safety meeting-induced mellow.

My legs were a little too beat to explore Steamboat’s single up-and-running park on the way back down at the end of the day. Unfortunate, because while not on a PCMR/Keystone/Breck level, Steamboat’s jib scene can compete.  They made some noise a couple years back when they put together a 600’ foot superpipe that was unfortunately not up during my stay, but Loryn informed me that Steamboat convinced Nick Roma, a Sunday River vet and one of the builders of Dumont’s record-breaking quarterpipe, to head up their park division.  Nick is the only American that has been asked to help with the Olympic skiercross course, so it’s clear he knows how to use a cat to build big bumps out of snow.   Steamboat’s three parks are also separated by level, which means no gapers eating shit off the knoll while you’re trying to put down your seven.

Steamboat’s Main St. has that real old-ass West feel, more so than Breck or Aspen, and prices are cheaper than both.  We ate well at the Ale House, including a couple pitchers of craft brews, for about twenty bucks.  The Alehouse also has a pretty high-tech trivia set-up, and we even managed to beat a bunch of nerds from U. Chicago med school. If only the UGA sorority had decided to sit in front of me instead of forcing me to make a complete 180 degree back stretch every ten minutes, it would have been perfect.

Other spots like the Tap House cover the dive bar variety, and for accommodations, it’s best to check out the infamous Rabbit Ears Motel.  Sitting on rent-controlled property at the top of Main St., you and three of your buddies can crash there for $105 a night, or a little over $25/person; a true bum’s chalet.  You won’t need a rental car either; town is right there and the mountain is a free shuttle ride away.  The best time to visit is April, when the spring break crowd has cleared out but the skies are barfing that light, dry “Champagne Powder” Steamboat has worked so hard to sue people over for trademark infringement. Package deals from April 4^th-11^th offer free tickets when you buy three nights of lodging, or you can stay at the Rabbit Ears and be forced to cough up about $300 for four days of tickets ($76 for day tickets).  Flights to nearby Hayden airport from metro areas like LA, Chicago, Boston, and New York will run you about $350-$400 (plus the shuttle ride to and from Hayden), or you can get a cheap flight to Denver and take the $170 roundtrip shuttle to Steamboat.  This option will definitely be cheaper if you’re booking last-minute.

Steamboat is indeed a different kind of ski town.  My friend Ben had the pleasure of a lift ride with a little shred who asked him to hold his ski pole out as a surrogate lift bar.  Ben quickly found out that this little goblin, still not old enough to hold ski poles, had fallen off the lift last year from thirty feet and broken both his legs.  He seemed unaffected by the incident except for the fact that his parents had been “really mad.”  He promptly tore away from the top of the lift and ollied off a roller, double-ejecting into a faceplant.  Still unfazed, he ran back up the hill, clipped into his 100-centimeter skis, and took off again.  While the Steamboat vibe is decidedly mellow, I would suggest visiting before this kid is old enough to snake you.

Thanks again to Loryn Kasten for lift tickets & interview, and to Tracey at Go Alpine for hooking up the shuttle rides!

Ground Transportation

From Denver:

Go Alpine Shuttle: www.alpinetaxi.com, $170 roundtrip

From Hayden airport:

Go Alpine Shuttle: www.alpinetaxi.com, $52 roundtrip

Storm Mountain Express, www.stormmountainexpress.com, $52 roundtrip

Lodging

Rabbit Ear Motel:  www.rabbitearsmotel.com, $105/night for 4 people

Steamboat Central Reservations, www.steamboat.com, for package deals