The influencers were not in Aspen to ski. In their Barbie pink ski suits and matching Moon Boots, they rode the Silver Queen gondola to the top of the mountain, smiling and jumping for their cameras and social media feeds. Soon they would get back on the gondola and ride down, perhaps to pose for more satisfaction with a glass of champagne at Ajax Tavern at the resort base.
She didn’t care after that almost two weeks without snow In what was already a below-average year, a storm had finally broken through, replenishing the mountain’s steep slopes and breathing new life into skied bump routes.
But the rest of us do.
I had come to Aspen in early February to ski Aspen Mountain’s newest terrain, an area called Heroes which, looking uphill, sits on the mountain’s left shoulder and offers 153 new hectares of skiable terrain, most of it a double black diamond. It is the first major development on the mountain since the Silver Queen gondola opened in 1986.
“There are no new ski areas being built in North America,” says Geoff Buchheister, the CEO of Aspen Ski Company, during lunch at the Sundeck near the top of the mountain. “You have to innovate.”
But first snow had to fall. When I had skied the area with Mr. Buchheister and a group of Ski Co. executives. a few days earlier, conditions had been, well, “sketchy.” The snow was hard and slippery as we made our way through the trees to a steep, mogul-covered slope called Loushin’s, which tested my resolve and the newly sharpened edges of my skis.
But now those hard, skied-off bumps were soft and the open spaces at the bottom offered a chance to dance through the trees. My companion and I did a few laps, skiing the Powerline chute and one called Here’s To…, both of which led to a series of glades, and then hit Walsh’s, a wide open slope. We pretty much had the slopes to ourselves.
From Pandora to Hero
The expansion has been a long time coming. “When we moved here 18 years ago, they were already talking about putting in an elevator,” said Pete Louras, 74, who moved to Aspen with his wife, Sam, 72, in 2005 and works 100 days a year. skier. Last summer they watched from their living room as helicopters moved parts of the chairlift into place.
For decades the area had only been accessible through a gate in the hinterland. As early as the 1980s, some ski patrollers proposed turning it into an inbound terrain, calling it Pandora’s, for the mythical woman who unleashed the world’s evil. The resort first listed it under that name in its 1997 master plan.
Some local skiers objected, saying the area would change if it were opened to inbound skiing. (“That is indeed true,” Mr. Buchheister said, adding that more people were skiing the area and the moguls were building up faster.) There were also ownership issues, as the resort sits on a patchwork of White River National Forest, private land and mining located. claims. Environmental impact studies were needed.
Finally, in 2021, the expansion was approved and work began on what was still called Pandora’s: a road and trails were cut, power was brought in, and the forests were thinned to create those clearings.
Mr. Buchheister moved to Aspen last March, lured largely by the idea of working with James Crown, the CEO of Henry Crown & Company, which owns Aspen Snowmass and Alterra Bergbedrijfthe ski area conglomerate and multi-mountain supplier IKON pass. “He was a very compelling mentor,” Mr. Buchheister said.
Then, on June 25, his 70th birthday, Mr. Crown died in a crash at the Aspen Motorsports Park race track in nearby Woody Creek, where Ski Co. and wow the local community.
Against this background, Pandora’s have become Heroes and the slopes have been named after locals, such as ski patrollers Cory Brettman, who died in an avalanche in the areaand Tim Howe, who was known as “El Avalanchero.”
The ramp under the new elevator is called Jim’s, after Mr. Crown.
Good, hard skiing and lots of partying
Tucked at the end of the Roaring Fork Valley, Aspen Snowmass is far enough away from major cities not to draw large weekend crowds. It accepts the IKON pass, but limits the number of days for many pass holders and requires reservations. It can also be staggeringly expensive to stay and dine in the city. One night at dinner my mediocre pork belly tacos were $38.
The resort is unusual in that it encompasses four separate mountains with different personalities. Friendly Buttermilk has nothing but beginner slopes and terrain parks. The powerhouse, snow mass, where 40 percent of visitors ski, extends over 3,300 hectares, with a mix of slopes and open terrain, appealing to skiers of all levels. Much smaller, Aspen Highlands And Aspen Mountainboth with a kind of throwback simplicity, have only mediocre and expert runs.
When asked what makes Aspen different, Mr. Buchheister said, “Aspen is an experience built on quality. We capture the essence of skiing.”
This feels especially true while skiing in Aspen and Aspen Highlands. There are no fancy new lifts or glitzy base lodges, just good, hard skiing.
But it’s just as true that, as the influencers made clear, many people come to Aspen with no intention of skiing. And why not? There’s the Aspen Art Museum with its new building by Japanese star architect Shigeru Ban. There are stores from Gucci, Valentino, Prada and more. There are the intelligent ones Aspen Institute with its Bauhaus campus (and a pretty good new restaurant, West End social, at Aspen Meadows Resort). There is Veuve Clicquot Champagne seemingly everywhere, including bottles on ice in mid-mountain restaurants.
According to local legend, this is even true cloud nine, a seemingly unassuming restaurant on the slopes of Aspen Highlands, sells more of the stuff than any other outlet in the world, although it is said that much of it is sprayed on diners in the restaurant’s seats at 1:30 p.m. and not consumed . People told me about sybaritic partying, where women shed their layers of ski gear and danced in their sports bras.
I had disregarded this story until, near the end of a snowy day in Aspen Highlands, we came across the modest wooden cabin that houses Cloud Nine. A dance remix of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” was played at a volume that seemed to shake the entire room. I floated by, turned and looked through one of the restaurant’s large windows and saw a woman in a black sports bra and ski pants spinning around on a table.
A protection against global warming?
Although not originally planned with climate change in mind, Hero’s has the advantage of being high on the mountain and facing north, which Mr Buchheister said should help mitigate the effects of global warming, because both the height and aspect mean that the snow stays in place longer.
That could be a significant advantage as climate change threatens the future of the snow sports industry. Auden Schendler, chief sustainability officer for Aspen One, the parent company of the Ski Co., said the area has lost 30 winter days since 1980. “Spring is happening earlier, but also faster,” he said.
Mr. Schendler now dismisses much of corporate environmentalism as “complicity.”
“If you were to make a list of all the practices of companies that are trying to be sustainable, these are the things the fossil fuel industry would do to give the impression that they are doing something about climate change, but not disrupt the status quo,” said he.
Making that argument from a luxury ski resort where many visitors fly in on private planes is an irony not lost on Mr. Schendler, who said the way to reduce the number of private flights would be to impose a carbon tax at the airport – something he has asked the FAA for permission to do. But in the meantime, “Aspen’s strength is its media game. We have wealthy and influential guests who really love skiing and the outdoors.”
Packed and loud
One afternoon, as the ski day ended, we joined the river of people descending Little Nell to the bottom of the gondola, taking off our skis to the thunka-thunka rhythm of the dance music from the patio of the Ajax Tavern.
Eric Adler, 39, a restaurateur from La Jolla, California, and his wife, Gretchen, 37, have been coming to Aspen since 2010 and now bring their three children there once or twice a year to ski. Compared to Aspen, other ski areas “feel like Disneyland,” Mr. Adler said, with everything built and controlled by the mountain’s developer. Aspen, he said, is “a more authentic experience, the people are real.”
We set out in search of that authenticity Buck, a small underground bar on nearby Cooper Avenue, where people leave their ski equipment at the top of the stairs before descending. When we passed by the night before, we were alerted by a man coming up the stairs. “It’s full and loud,” he said.
But sometimes, after a day of skiing, full and loud is what you want. There was craft beer and an excellent margarita, and a Phish concert playing on all eight televisions in the room, which felt like ski town. And everyone kept their shirts on.