Carving Out Savings

Colorado’s ski resorts play host to counts, billionaires and movie stars, but you don’t need to be Bill Gates to ski in the Rocky Mountains. If you’re willing to bypass the $500-a-night hotel suites and $100 lunches, you can breathe the same crisp mountain air, carve the same fresh powder snow and savor the same rosy apres-ski moments at the base of the slopes.

Resort owners are well aware that vacationers with limited resources are their bread and butter. The state’s 25 ski resorts log more than 11 million skier visits a year--a fifth of the nation’s total--and most of those thrill-seekers are average, everyday people.

It’s possible to play in Colorado’s high country for less than $100 a day if you’re a college student looking for an economy ride; on $500 a day if you’re bringing the family; or somewhere in between if you try locals’ favorite ski areas. Some particulars:

Economy Rides

About an hour west of Denver on Interstate 70, Silverthorne is the place for students, ski bums and people on tight budgets. It’s home to one of the country’s best ski hostels and is within an easy commute of four of the state’s tallest and steepest ski mountains: Copper Mountain, Breckenridge, Keystone and Arapahoe Basin, all in Summit County. Better yet, all are served by a free, comprehensive shuttle bus system.

For about $25 a night, guests at the Alpen Hutte (pronounced Hoo-ta) Lodge get a clean bunk bed in a four- to eight-person room; comfortable TV and game rooms with fireplace, guitar and piano; and access to a restaurant-size kitchen where they can cook their own meals. (I toured it, but didn’t stay overnight.) For other affordable lodgings, call Summit County Reservations at (970) 468-6222.

One all-day lift ticket (as cheap as $30 in low season) is good at three of the four resorts (excluding Copper). The hard-core skier or snowboarder, for example, could start at Breckenridge or Arapahoe Basin in the morning, then ski until 9 p.m. on the lighted slopes at Keystone. The free Summit Stage, which stops across the street from Silverthorne’s Alpen Hutte, makes regular loops between the ski areas and runs as late as 10:30 p.m. for those in search of night life or night skiing.

If you can’t afford to ski every day, there’s always snowshoeing; rentals are about $15 a day, and snowshoers are welcome on ungroomed forest land alongside the ski runs or on the 50-mile Blue River Bike Path system that runs alongside the hostel. Or there’s ice skating at five-acre Keystone Lake, for which admission and rentals also run about $15 a day.

Family Favorites

Winter Park, an hour northwest of Denver, is family central, set up to attract people at any stage in the child-rearing process. Condominium complexes outnumber hotels in the Winter Park area, which may be good news for people with children. Two- and three-bedroom units at the Snowblaze Resort Condos in downtown Winter Park average $200 to $300 a night, but give families room to spread out and access to amenities such as indoor pools, hot tubs, athletic club and kitchens (a good way to save on breakfast and lunch bills).

The Winter Park ski resort stretches across 2,000 acres of terrain that ranges from gentle to the fierce.

“We had a children’s center when children weren’t cool,” says resort spokeswoman Joan Christensen. Now that they are, the thriving Children’s Center is home to a day-care and ski school program for children up to age 12, with a magic carpet ride up the bunny slope and a 30-acre learn-to-ski mountain for older kids.

The steeper, bumpier Mary Jane mountain and the 435-acre Vasquez Cirque, new this year, appeal to expert skiers and teenagers in search of an adrenaline rush. And the resort’s programs for handicapped skiers are internationally known.

The best prices at Winter Park come in April, just before spring break. Some of the valley’s heaviest snows fall in March and April, which means late season ski conditions can be some of the best of the year. Beginning April 6 this year, an all-day adult lift ticket will drop from $45 to just $27--tickets for children 6 to 13 are $15 throughout the season--and nightly condo rates will fall by nearly $100.

The Fraser Tubing Hill in nearby Fraser is a slick blast of exhilaration for people of all ages. The owners supply the steep snow-covered hill, huge inflated inner tubes, a rope tow and a warming house that’s open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekends, 4 to 10 p.m. weekdays. Guests can stay as long as they want for the $10 admission price.

Two dude ranches between Winter Park and Silver Creek--Devil’s Thumb Ranch and the YMCA’s Snow Mountain Ranch--also offer horse-drawn sleigh rides and some of the nicest cross-country skiing trails in the valley. Devil’s Thumb has 65 miles of trails, snowshoeing and dinner sleigh rides. Snow Mountain has another 62 miles of trails, two of which are lighted for night skiing, and sleigh rides that end with hot chocolate served around a bonfire.

In the bunkhouse at Devil’s Thumb Ranch, you can get a night’s lodging for as low as $25 a person; rooms in the Elk Lodge are $63, or take the private Fox Cabin for $110 a night. The Y’s prices run $31 for a room in the Blue Ridge Lodge to $223 for a five-bedroom cabin.

Local Picks

When Coloradans get tired of the crowds and high prices at trendier ski resorts, they often turn to three of the best-kept secrets in the state: Sunlight Mountain Resort, Loveland Ski Area and Silver Creek Resort. All three offer interesting, uncrowded slopes at prices that hover between $28 and $33 a day, a savings of more than $15 over Colorado’s priciest resorts.

Sunlight is tucked into an aspen- and pine-covered valley near Glenwood Springs, a honky-tonk town founded in the 1880s around the natural hot springs that bubble up in its center. Gunslinger “Doc” Holliday came here in 1886 for help fighting the tuberculosis that killed him anyway. Today, tourists pack the two-block-long Hot Springs Pool (kept at 90 degrees year-round) and, after skiing, relax in the 104-degree therapy pool.

Skiers often base a winter vacation in Glenwood--warming up at Sunlight, known for its long intermediate runs and $28-a-day lift tickets--then taking day trips to Vail, an hour to the east, or Aspen, an hour south.

More than a dozen local hotels have joined Sunlight on “Ski-Swim-Stay” packages that offer lift tickets, Hot Springs Pool admission and lodging for as low as $43 a night per person. The Hot Springs Lodge, just across the street from the pool, is about as nice as they come in Glenwood, with good-sized modern motel rooms and discount coupons for the pool.

The Hotel Denver, across the highway from the pool, has more character. It was built in the 1900s in Glenwood’s downtown red-light and saloon district, served as a saloon, a rooming house, a restaurant and a grocery store before it was rescued and, in the 1990s, renovated into an elegant Art Deco-style lodging. I haven’t stayed overnight since the renovation, but I’ve seen the dramatic maroon-and-teal face-lift and have eaten in the hotel’s lively Glenwood Canyon Brew Pub. Local young professionals celebrate the weekend here on Friday afternoons with home-brewed Hanging Lake Honey Ale and Oatmeal Stout, grilled ribs, pot-pies and one of the area’s best bread puddings.

If you’d rather stay near the ski mountain, the Brettelberg Condominiums are one of only two choices, and the only one I’d recommend. They may be the state’s best ski-in, ski-out deal, with one-bedroom units holding as many as six people and renting for about $20 a person. Don’t expect luxury; these condos are spare and built for function rather than aesthetic pleasure, but guests have access to microwaves, kitchens, VCRs and a hot tub.

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The natural mountain basins at Loveland Ski Area, which straddle the Eisenhower Tunnel at the entrance to Colorado’s “ski country,” catch some of the earliest snow of the year and keep it long after other resorts are reduced to mud and muck.

But good snow is just one reason why Coloradans have been skiing Loveland since the 1920s. It’s also just an hour away from Denver, sells lift tickets for $33 a day and is located on the good end of the tight Interstate-70 corridor that can get clogged with eastbound traffic on weekends and holidays. Because of its prime location beneath Loveland Pass, the ski area also is a gateway to extreme out-of-bounds skiing.

Loveland is just a ski area, with the closest lodging 11 miles east in the historic mining towns of Georgetown and Silver Plume. Lodging recommendations and information are available from the Georgetown Information Center (tel. [800] 472-8230). Loveland skiers also may stay in Silverthorne and Dillon, 12 miles west on I-70 through the Eisenhower Tunnel.

Finally, Silver Creek Resort, in nearby Grand County, was undeveloped ranchland until 1983, when investors decided to cash in on its gentle mountain peaks. The resulting ski area now is known as a learn-to-ski spot for budget-minded families. It’s located in a self-contained basin that feels as though it’s miles from nowhere (actually only 20 miles north of Winter Park) and is serviced primarily by a day lodge, two mountainside condo projects and the Inn at Silver Creek. To find city services, you’ll have to drive or ride the free shuttle two miles north to Granby, itself a sleepy little country town, or travel 20 miles south to Winter Park.

Skiers choose between two small peaks, one easy enough for beginners with trails so wide they’ve been called ballroom skiing. West Mountain is a little higher, with an earth-bermed half-pipe for snowboarders and a steep, bumpy run called Widowmaker. To attract beginners, Silver Creek offers a One-Day Guaranteed-Start-to-Ski program that promises money back to first-timers 13 and older if they don’t ski the beginner knoll by the end of the day. Similar beginners’ programs are offered for first-timers 50 and older, and snowboarders 6 to 12.

Snowbiking, a European sensation but something of a novelty in the U.S., is available at Silver Creek Resort. The bikes have runners where the tires should be and are easier to ride downhill than skis. The resort also has 25 miles of tracked cross-country skiing trails.

The Inn at Silver Creek looks somewhat out of place on first glance. The large, 342-room resort hotel looms over the deserted countryside along U.S. 40, with the ski area tucked out of sight two miles farther up a winding country road. The resort is more family oriented and less luxurious than some, but I found large rooms and good mountain views. A complimentary shuttle transports inn guests to and from Silver Creek and Winter Park ski areas every day.

Castrone is a freelance writer based in Boulder, Colo. Her book, “The Insiders’ Guide to the Central Colorado Mountains,” will be published in January (Insiders’ Publishing Inc.).

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GUIDEBOOK

Skiing Colorado

Getting there: Nonstop service, LAX-Denver, is available on United, Frontier and Western Pacific; fares begin at $136 round trip. From Denver, resort shuttles, buses and limousines serve ski areas. Greyhound buses leave Los Angeles four times a day on routes bound for Silverthorne. Prices start at $119 round trip; telephone (800) 231-2222.

Where to stay: The Alpen Hutte in Silverthorne (tel. [970] 468-6336) charges $13-$25 a night (all rates listed are for winter, excluding Christmas and New Year’s). Snowblaze Resort Condominiums in Winter Park (tel. [800] 525-2466) range $145-$383 for two-bedroom, two-bath units and $180-$506 for three-bedroom, three-bath units. Rooms at the Hot Springs Lodge in Glenwood Springs (tel. [970] 945-6571) are $63-$80 a night. The Hotel Denver, Glenwood Springs, (tel. [800] 826-8820) charges $69-$145 a night. At Brettelberg Condominiums (tel. [800] 634-0481) studios rent for $81 a night; one-bedrooms, $111. Rooms at the Inn at Silver Creek (tel. [800] 926-4386) range from $69, standard room, to $199 for a master suite that sleeps eight.

For more information: Summit County Chamber of Commerce, tel. (970) 262-0817. Winter Park/Fraser Valley Chamber of Commerce, tel. (970) 726-4118. Glenwood Springs Chamber Resort Assn., tel. (970) 945-6589. Silver Creek Resort, tel. (800) 754-7458. Sunlight Mountain Resort, tel. (800) 445-7931.