Mountain Review: Aspen | Snowmass, Colorado
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- Опубліковано 14 лип 2024
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An in-depth video review of Snowmass, the largest ski resort in the Aspen/Snowmass conglomerate. The resort is located in the town of Snowmass Village, about half an hour from Aspen, Colorado.
This video was filmed in early March 2021; conditions were okay during the first leg of our trip but became excellent after an 18-inch storm.
0:00 Intro
0:51 Mountain Review
9:37 Score Breakdown and Rank
Overall Mountain Score: 80/100 - #1 in Colorado, #5 Overall
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Snow: 8/10
Resiliency: 8/10
Size: 8/10
Terrain Diversity: 9/10
Challenge: 9/10
Lifts: 8/10
Crowd Flow: 6/10
Facilities: 9/10
Navigation: 6/10
Mountain Aesthetic: 9/10
See our full resort breakdown and written review for Snowmass here: www.peakrankings.com/content/...
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CORRECTION: Snowmass's crowd flow and navigation scores are both supposed to be 6, not 7. Apologies for the mixup!
Tbh that’s not a fair ranking. I work in Aspen and Snowmass does a really good job with crowd flow, especially compared to most other Colorado resorts. It also heavily depends on the time of year, the time of day, and where you are on the mountain (never make the mistake of going all the way down to base after 11 bc it will be a 5-10+ minute wait most times… but if you stay up top then you’ll rarely have problems with crowded lifts!)
@@Jakuboooooooooo hear your point, and agreed that Snowmass does a very solid job crowd-flow wise (it outranks many Colorado competitors in this category). Ultimately, the score hits we aligned on were due to the chokepoint-inducing base setup, the unforgiving nature of mistakes in lower-mountain areas, and the extremely frustrating Sky Cab gondola lines at the end of the day.
Let us know if this rationale makes sense, or if you still disagree!
@@PeakRankings To suggest Snowmass is better Vail, or even Telluride, brings your ranking analysis into serious question. Snowmass ''expert'' areas are ''forced'' developments after years of being know as a big intermediate mountain. The areas are difficult(dangerous) to get into and lack vertical and challenge falls off quickly. And you conveniently didn't cover night life which for the good stuff you need to go into Aspen to experience. Better than Vail...not hardly.
@@PeakRankings I think from your description and lacking any first hand experience with the area, that Aspen should model a well over capacity attractive redesign of the bottlenecks you've listed. I'd think there'd be people with engineering and capacity sense engaged with the area, maybe there were, but they've moved on, that can come up with a well honed solution that makes these old bottlenecks not only better, but maybe even fun to experience. That would be the type of implemeantation one would expect from a premium ski resort.
@PeakRankings I overall agree with your rankings...though I don't think it's in any way fair to give Snowmass the same crowd-flow control (6) as Vail. If Snowmass is a 6 then Vail should be a maximum of a 3... The worst case scenario at Snowmass is a ten minute wait just at the base during holiday weekends a few times a year...whereas Vail's lines make it debatably unskiable some weekends (and can be seen from space).
My home mountain. One comment I will make after 4 seasons skiing Aspen Snowmass is that the crowd flow is top notch. You might stand in a 5 min lift line on a Friday/Saturday or a holiday, but there are NO lines about 90% of the time.
This is our home mountain as well and with the 8 person Village Express, you rarely have to wait long even if there is a long line.
@@StripperMonkey I believe it’s a six person not an eight
@@grahamkingston1679 Yea it is. He might be talking about the 8 person Elk Camp Gondola
This is one of the best mountains. My dad has been skiing in places all over the US since the 80s and has been coming back here consistently because of how much variety there is and how good the runs are. It isn't mentioned in this video but there are tons of kid glade trails and secret areas you can get to such as the halfpipe in alpine springs and the toilet bowl at the elk camp chair. Another plus of going to snowmass is that the people there are very nice and are always willing to answer any questions you have. Its a great mountain for beginners and experts alike!
I've been riding at Snowmass all of my life. I started visiting other out of state resorts(Jackson, Big Sky, Snowbird) about 4 years ago. One thing I notched is that Snowmass lacks steep runs with a long vertical drop. Most of our steep runs only have about 300-500 ft vertical to them then the terrain mellows out. Still an amazing place. I just noticed that I wasn't prepared for the unrelenting steeps that a place like Jackson Hole has to offer.
Great callout- we found Snowmass's challenges to be more in technicality than required endurance. The really long steeps are at Highlands!
Do you ride highlands or aspen?
@@Jakuboooooooooo I've been riding both more alot more in recent years. Highlands is definitely up there in terms of a steep consistent fall line. I only ride there when it's been snowing consistently though. Those steeps on Deep Temerity are exhausting to navigate once you have 1800 vertical feet of volkswagen size moguls.
It’s funny you say that. I have brought two of my friends from Colorado to Jackson Hole and they both said they had never skied or ridden anything like JH. The terrain never lets up, which is what we love. Take care
This is the comment I’ve been looking for 🙌🏼 I’m from nh me and a bunch of friends do a ski trip each year last year snowbird Brighton year before big ski Bridger their talking about aspen im looking for advanced terrain and pow seems like I could be slightly let down compared to years past
Awesome review. You covered everything. #1 in Colorado is a high honor!!!
Thank you! It sure is, and it's one we don't take lightly.
Your reviews are truly amazing and very accurate!! I will be going other resorts based on your review!!! Love it!! Thank you!!!!
Thanks for the review! Surely much time was invested in providing it to us! Always wanted to ski in Aspen to get an idea of NA ski resorts
I really want to get out here some time! That whole Cirque Headwall area of Snowmass looks sooooo fun!
I went there when I was 6 and the headwall was great it was my first double black ever
Easily my favorite ikon mountain
These reviews are fantastic! Thank you and best of luck!
This is such a contender for my #1 bucket list resort. Great review!
Totally agree! A truly fun experience 😀
Good review. Spot on. Snowmass is an exceptional ski/ ride mountain. I do try to hit Highlands once every Snowmass trip for the breathtaking views and nice runs - although the runs are limited for me they are great fast cruisers.
Excellent review
Love this mountain, seems underrated
I went to snowmass when I was 6 and rode my first double black the hanging valley wall its was so cool
Also if you go to the taylor chesnik youtube channel you can see my grandpa fall over on the T-bar
My all-time favorite mountain to ski
Nothing compares to Big Burn.
End of day run from some of the tops can take about an hour, ending near dark at the bottom.
Tip #1, ski the top two lifts to big burn for no lines.
My favorite mountain by far.
it’s my home mountain and although i’m biased it is for sure the best mountain in colorado. but i agree with your rating it was very fair and unbiased:)
While I do love the channel, if there’s one piece of criticism it’s that the rankings are skewed towards experts. For example, the three resorts tied for second place are Jackson Hole, Alta, and Snowbird, all of which lack significantly in that category. While I myself am an advanced/expert skier and most fans of the channel fall into that category, I think as your rankings become more popular that could be something to focus on with a new category (would be hard to fit in as an old one would have to be removed) or a modified terrain diversity category.
Thank you for the feedback Michael! We try to conduct a holistic review of our rankings a few times a year and will take your advice into consideration.
In case you are curious, we actually made a small tweak to our terrain diversity category earlier this year: www.peakrankings.com/content/fall-2021-terrain-diversity-adjustment
As a person that always goes to snowmass during January I suggest you get a ski guide since you can skip most of the waiting time
I've made turns on all major (and almost all minor)ski resorts in Colorado..I really don't know how to pick a true #1 for me...Crested Butte has big mountain/small town flair..Vail..don't need explain. Breckenridge is different than both... Snowmass is right down the street from Aspen mountain....2 totally different vibes...great skiing on both....It's all personal preference...
ooh, I like the wide open packed powder stuff, maybe I should visit from Utah at some point. Do you have corduroy there?
2021 NASTAR NATIONAl CHAMPIONSHIPS Bronze medal Aspen Snowmass, CO. 2022 NASTAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS Gold medalist. Snowmass is a beautiful place.
I love Snowmass, but where is your review for Ajax Mountain, aka Aspen Mountain?
I found your review of Ajax on your website, but no video.
Which parts of the trail map are wildly not to scale? I was looking on Google maps and trying to figure out which part of the mountain you were referring to.
This is the case in a few places, but the chief issues are that the Elk Camp chair and Cirque platter are considerably longer than they look, while the Campground chairlift is shorter.
We really like a site called Mapsynergy that specializes in geographically accurate maps. Here's a better figure for scale from them: skimap.org/data/1033/1923/1599491782.jpg
@@PeakRankings This is an excellent resource. Thanks!
Can u review Breckinridge Colorado please I would love to see your rankings on that
Yes! We have the footage for the video review and just have to edit it together, which will likely take a few months (think summer or fall '22 for release).
In the meantime, written review is already up: www.peakrankings.com/content/breckenridge
@@PeakRankings ok great super hyped for that
Sick video!!! However I was just reading up the reviews on some of the Canadian ski resorts you visited and I’m a bit confused about the snow scores. I feel like big white only having an 8 in snow which is the same score as snow mass is a bit of a low blow.Idk I would bank on big white having more snow than Aspen any day of the week. It’s much colder which makes it very snow sure, Aspen can have crazy warm ups, just take this past season when it was like plus 6 and sunny for weeks in a row in mid winter. That almost never happens in big white. Even statistaly I don’t see places like park city and Aspen putting up the same numbers as big white or having the same snow surety
Hey Adrien! Thanks for the critical feedback.
We ultimately decided to give Big White a snow score of 8 for the following reasons:
- In the past 3 years according to OnTheSnow, Big White has averaged 176 inches of annual snowfall. This is much lower than the Colorado resorts, which averaged ~300 in the same period.
- Big White tends to see accumulation in small, consistent bouts, rather than true powder days (perhaps this is the point you are getting at about warm ups being rare).
- Big White largely faces south, so conditions can deteriorate more quickly than most U.S. competitors in the event of clear skies.
We also re-calibrate our reviews 1-2x a year. Would love to know if it sounds like we are still low-balling Big White given the above, and we can take it into account in a holistic review. This is our first time calibrating the Canadian Rockies to our score criteria, so we may not get everything perfectly.
@@PeakRankings hey!! Thank you for the response.
So I did some more digging, and I’m kind of unsure on how accurate on the snow is when it comes to snow totals, for the Canadian Rockies at least.
For example, silverstar, a ski resort only 45 mins from big white, is known for amazing snow, it’s in a great microclimate for snowfall, very similar to big white, and they have 7 meters as the average on their website. But onthesnow puts its at 170’? As someone who’s been to silverstar, I can say they get way more than that for sure, it’s insane how much snow they have. Onthesnow also put Panorama at 174’, so according to them panorama gets more than silverstar, which they most definately do not. Panorama is known throughout bc as the ski resort that gets less snow than it’s competitors.
They even claimed that silverstar got 115” this past year and only 80” in the 2020/2021 season?! No way they only got 80”. It sits in the same climate zone as other Okanagen gems such as big white, so I don’t see how that could be possible. I was just at Silverstar the past season and there was meters and meters of snow. They even had an amazing March and April where it just dumped (silverstar doesn’t even make snow, they have 0 snow machines on the entire mountain, they just depend on natural snowfall), because of this, If it were true that silverstar got 80” in 2020-2021 they literally wouldn’t have been able to be open for most of the season, because as stated previously, they don’t make snow. Panorama often depends on snow making on the upper and lower parts of the mountain, this was another resort I visited this past season. I get that the official website can sometime give inflated numbers as they will want to promote their resort, but I’m not buying 170” for a ski resort that doesn’t even have any snowmaking.
This is why I was a big skeptic of the numbers they put for big white, however the totals for big white were higher than what they had recorded for silverstar, so it seems more realistic, but again, big white sits very close to silverstar and they pretty much get the same amount of snow so I don’t see how onthesnow has such a huge discrepancy between the two.
They also said big white only got 121” this past season? Another number that I find weird, I’m really into these things and I check the web cams and read snowtotals of a lot of these out west resorts weekly ( I know I’m weird lolll) and I don’t understand how that’s possible. It’s another number where I don’t see how they could even stay open since they too don’t make snow on most of the mountain.
I then chose to look up a ski resorts near me, since I live near it, I figured I could more accurately gauge the stats. I took blue mountain, and horseshoe, two ski resorts in Ontario not far from me. I focused on the 2020-2021 season again, and long behold I found some, let’s just say fishy numbers. They claimed only 7 and 8 inches respectively throughout the entire year…. I know the east doesn’t get great snow, but I found this to be kind of unbelievable, I remember that winter and I would have to say more than 7 inches total fell.
So that’s kind of why I find it hard to gauge what the stats are here. But to be fair, I haven’t been to Aspen snowmass, or any of the places in the western United States. I do however look at their webcams and read there snow totals almost all the time and I think it’s no secret this past year was pretty horrible for the Colorado resorts, yet onthesnow put its total for 2021-2022 at 350” ?? Really? I was reading the totals and looking at the cams and couldn’t believe how bad it looked snow wise. Even UA-camrs I watch who ski at these resorts we’re saying the snow was so bad that year. On the contrary, a lot of the Canadian ski resorts had a fantastic year, so this just added to my confusion.
I’d love to hear back on your thoughts :) thanks for the amazing content you put out!!! Ain’t no one out there doing in depth reviews like you guys!! Peace out 🤙🏻
Another update on the whole onthesnow debocle. Now I’m very confused about some of these stats. As they are recording the max base depth at big white for the past season to be 669” which over 5x what they have as the total snowfall for the year, I don’t even know how that would be possible. They have silverstars max base depth for 2020-2021 to be 6365”, this was the year they said it only received 80”…. 6365” would be the most snow ever recorded as a base depth, and there would have been glaciation at this point which would cover the entire mountain in an ice sheet that still wouldn’t have melted to this day, so yah I’m assuming that was a gap in h the data. Luckily silverstar sits in a provincial park so imma see if I can get in contact with there ecologists and get some independent stats. Imma call the the ski patrollers at big white who record the snowfall to see what the records were for the past few years.
I’ll keep you posted here if I find anything!
@@ajb66658 interesting findings, thanks for the heads up!
We have been working to find methods to pull our own snow data, but while that is in the works, OntheSnow and SnowPak are our go-tos for reference. We also encompass significantly more than just the accumulation totals in our snow score, including weather patterns, temperatures, and terrain exposure.
That's a good video, I'm surprised you don't have more views and likes. The graphics when you display the scores could be less intrusive though, maybe move them down into a corner.
Thanks for the feedback!
How does Aspen Snowmass beat Vail's backbowls? Do any other Colorado resorts have them?
Vail’s back bowls look amazing. The first problem is they get skied off before noon on any powder day. The biggest problem, however, is that they face south, and all that snow turns to slush in the afternoon, then freezes into crusty ice overnight. Unless there’s enough fresh snow, those bowls are often unskiable.
What piste are you on at 2:15?
That's the upper part of Sheer Bliss!
Nice vid! I have started a small UA-cam channel for mob and ski reviews and was wondering if you had any tips to gaining subscribers or what you think viewers want the most? Also if you think there is any gear you think I should have than let me know!
Thanks! Would recommend consistent content and listening to your audience! This video was recorded with a GoPro Hero7 Black.
8:57 Why is a Pulse Gondola a sight to behold?
Cause it's cool 😎
highlands soon?
Vid is in the pipeline! But we're posting another CO resort first ;)
If you go to snowmass enough, you will learn that a popular name for the sky cab gondola is "the skittles". Ride the rainbow, taste the rainbow.
👠
I cut my teeth on Snowmass (mostly) '77-78 just out of High School. Aspen Highlands 2nd best. Aspen Mountain on good snow, uncrowded days.
Should redo the video, audio feels outdated
''intermediate adventure'' kind of an oxymoron.😉
Aesthetic should be a 10, period