Skier Sydney Wilhoite at Steamboat. Image: Brett Ploss.

Report from January 20, 2024

The Mountain

Steamboat Trail Map. Image: Steamboat Webside.

Steamboat is located about three and a half hours from Denver. On IKON boasting 3,668 vertical feet, 2,965 acres and 18 lifts, there is a lot to explore.

Skiing

Driving to Steamboat. Image: Ben Miller.

We started the morning leaving from Denver around 4:30am to park by 8am. Since Steamboat is a few hours farther than I-70 resorts, we didn’t encounter too much traffic.

The drive was nice, but getting off of I-70, the roads became icy fast. You could tell the past week’s storm left its mark.

I wouldn’t recommend going up without snow tires or four wheel drive (4WD) at the moment due to the black ice.

Parking there was no congestion by 8am on a Saturday in January which made the extra distance worth it.

The resort is quite confusing because on the trail map it looks like a continuous mountain but there are actually 5 mountains.

Getting around with the map was confusing because sometimes we would ski down and end up in a different valley than we expected.

We were still able to check out the new Wild Blue Gondola. From the base, this gondola takes you to the peak. You can avoid having to take Steamboat Gondola and Sundown Express to get to Morningside (the backside).

This will alleviate crowds now giving people two ways to get up there early in the morning.

Overall, you can tell new snow came in last week. Compared to the rest of Colorado, because Steamboat lies at a lower elevation, I still believe it has the best snow in the state. It skied light and coverage was great.

We explored the new Mahogany Ridge Express as well. This is a new lift in an area people used to frequent in the side country.

New Mahogany Ridge Express at Steamboat. Image: Brett Ploss.

Getting over there from Bar-UE was doable but took a little raking/skating staying at the top cat track. None of the runs are groomed, so expect some tight crowded bumps.

We were tired so decided to come back but the lift cat tracks are not built downhill. They are quite flat which also required significant skating and raking to get out of that lift zone.

We ended at The Range where they have a live DJ for après as well as food options and drinks. Much less crowded than T Bar where drink waits were up to 30 minutes.