Steamboat Springs: America’s original ski town
It’s a little bit country (and western), but this Colorado mountain has more powder snow than you can poke a pole at.
I shed my skis at the top of the gondola on Mount Werner in the Colorado mountain town of Steamboat Springs and scoop up a handful of the stuff they call champagne powder. The snow is so light, so lacking in moisture it’s barely there. Trying to make a snowball would be like attempting to fashion a sandcastle out of the finest, driest sand. Instead, I open my hands, bring them to my lips and blow the powder away. I feel I should make a wish, but looking around at the freshly groomed trails flowing down the mountain, the fat blue sky above and the morning mist laid like a blanket over the sleeping Yampa Valley town below, there’s nothing more I could possibly want. With one breath the icy powder disperses into the air like a dandelion.
As theatrical as the snow may be, we’re actually here to ski the legendary Steamboat trees. The pine, spruce and aspens that sprout like thick stubble over the mountain’s many faces appear almost ornamental, like they’ve been plucked off a model railway diorama. But however comely trees may appear, there’s no escaping the fact they are resolutely unyielding should you plough into one at speed. Easing myself into a black diamond run called Biscuits, I’m hoping I don’t end up as crumbs.
It’s gorgeous in the glades. The slope is benign enough to carve a choose-your-own-adventure course, the terrain rising and falling like a rollercoaster. I stop to take it all in, hoping that by pausing, this moment will somehow sink in deeper. Maybe it’s a premonition of what’s about to come, with a global pandemic just around the next turn. None of us suspected at the time how the privilege of international travel would be snatched away so quickly. I take out a handful of nuts to snack on while waiting for the chairlift, and a native grey jay bird swoops down from a tree and snatches some from my hand, as if trying to tell me something. Just like that, all gone.
While some ski resorts dazzle with a contrived glitz, Steamboat Springs is no-fuss, American wild west authenticity. It was a town long before it was a ski resort, before skiing even became a recreational activity. It was first inhabited by the native American Yampatika Ute, who camped beside the mineral springs from which the town gets its name. The “Steamboat” part is because early settlers thought the sound of the hot water bubbling to the surface sounded like a Mississippi steamboat making its way down the boulder-filled Yampa River. The cattle industry developed in the mid 1800s and it’s still very much a ranching town.
We’re staying at One Steamboat Place, a collection of luxury, slopeside condominiums decked out in mountain-rustic style. The Steamboat gondola is at our doorstep, and although we never do work out the bewildering layout of the sprawling building, we always seem to find our way to the complimentary daily happy hour, where local beer, wine and canapes are served by the open fire.
The broad-shouldered mountain doesn’t break the tree line, but the skiing is varied, with 18 lifts servicing 1200ha of terrain. One morning we take the lift early for first tracks, carving at leisure down pristine corduroy, and even tackling a terrain park. Mt Werner gets an incredible amount of snow, averaging nearly 5m a season. In the famous winter of 2007-08, more than 12m fell, with 57 powder days. Skiing is a necessity of life for the locals. It was made part of the school curriculum in the 1940s and is so ensconced in the town’s identity that in 1950, when the high school band was invited to march in a summer parade in Chicago, they wore skis fitted with specially designed rollers.
The town has churned out an inordinate number of Winter Olympians (98 at the last count), most of whom grew up on the Howelsen Hill ski area, the oldest continuously operating ski area in North America, dating from 1915 and as central to Steamboat Springs – both physically and emotionally – as the Opera House is to Sydney. Where at other resorts you’ll find an apres bar at the bottom of the chairlift, here you’ll more likely find a fleet of iconic yellow elementary school buses, disgorging students for their lessons.
If skiing is a religion then Sunday is surely holy day, when Howelsen Hill is open for free skiing and locals flock the way Aussies swarm to the beach. Ranching and skiing is often combined in activities such as “skijoring”, where skiers are towed behind horses. One night we have dinner at the Haymaker Golf Course, driven over the front nine in a sleigh hauled by two huge Belgian horses, stalwarts of the pioneering days. Warmed by thick, woollen blankets and mugs of hot cider, we end our journey at the doors of the rustic clubhouse restaurant, where icicles hang from the awnings.
At Strawberry Park Hot Springs, the town's biggest off-mountain attraction, we soak our weary ski bodies in the silky water of the grotto-like pools, as snow drops in clumps from the pine trees around us. A visit to Steamboat Springs isn't complete without stopping by the town's hot springs for a calming soak. Later on we wander in to FM Light & Sons, a western apparel shop that hasn’t budged since opening in 1905, with its dizzying display of Western boots and stetson hats.
The town’s devotion to its western heritage doesn’t mean it’s without slices of sophistication, such as the positively cosmopolitan restaurant Laundry, with its menu of innovative and eclectic small plates. I order (and don’t regret) a fiery margarita infused with the chilli trifecta of habanera, jalapeno and poblano, just one example of the Mexican influence that infuses Colorado cuisine.
After dinner we rug up and take a walk in downtown Steamboat Springs, where a sudden snow flurry is lit up by passing car headlights. It’s minus 22C so we seek refuge inside a bar called Schmiggity’s where – hold on to your cowboy hats, folks – it’s Two-Step Tuesday. In a delightfully daggy scene, the whole pub (minus a party of slightly bewildered Australian interlopers) starts dancing in loose formation to the latest country and western-inspired pop tunes. Intellectual fortitude is found the next morning at Off the Beaten Path bookstore and cafe, with its engaging local history section (Ski Town Shenanigans, Tales from a Mountain Town, The Yampa Valley Sin Circuit), aroma of fresh coffee and hideaway loft.
As we leave Steamboat Springs, locals are carving sculptures in ice, readying the main street for the winter carnival where the highlight is the annual ski run by “The Lighted Man”, who (apparently voluntarily) skis down Howelsen Hill while spraying fireworks from a pyrotechnics suit, a precursor to an attempt later that night to explode the biggest firework in the world. I wish I were there to see it: snow cowboy culture at its finest in a place simply known as Ski Town USA.
In the know
Travelplan offers a variety of ski packages to Steamboat Springs, including discounted accommodation, plus lift tickets, transfers, airfares and Denver stopover options. Packages can include the Ikon Pass or Ikon Base Pass giving access to Steamboat Springs and more than 46 additional resorts worldwide including Mount Buller and Thredbo in Australia and Coronet Peak, Remarkables and Mt Hutt in New Zealand.
Ricky French was a guest of Travelplan and Colorado Ski Country.
This article was originally published in November 2021 and has since been updated.
