Your favorite Colorado ski town? (Denver, Durango: high crime, homes, construction)

[C24L]

Aspen

[brk330]

I ski-bummed a couple years in Crested Butte, Leadville, and Breckenridge. Then lived in Steamboat for quite a while.
Crested Butte is still the favorite.

[Phil P]

Steamboat is now supposed to be #2 largest resort in CO after they complete their expansion up the mountain with the additional terrain. As far as slopes, I think Steamboat is hard to beat because of the snow, the amount of tree runs, and the variety, everything from high alpine to skiing in scrub oak (the only resort in CO where you can do that).

Crested Butte is awesome in the summer and it's more of a year round destination; I think other resorts trump it when it comes to winter only. That being said I'd rather visit ski towns in the spring, summer, and fall though.

I posted this in the other thread on this subject but I'll repost it here as well: The best designed ski area resort in CO is Beaver Creek, which is also one of the newest. It was built off the lessons learned from other areas. It's completely masterplanned: it's compact in one valley, there's few surface parking lots, it's walkable, it's a quick walk from condo to the lift, the lifts connect into a fanned valley without having lot's of cross mountain hiking to get from one side to the other and the forest is actually thinned making tree runs better. It's upscale while still being within reach of middle America, compared to the global elite money pits that are Telluride and Aspen, ostentatious to the point where it's a turn off.

I like IKON areas, Copper and Winter Park, more over their EPIC counterparts, Breck and Keystone, which don't have as cool of mountain backdrops and are more geared towards the visiting family rather than just being on the slopes.

[Gorges]

Crested Butte is my favorite place to visit in Colorado, period, so that would be my choice. Telluride would be second.

[Melanzana92]

So hard to choose just one, but if we count Silverton as a ski town then I'm all about the Telluride-Silverton-Ouray triangle region on a year-round basis.

Winter only: Crested Butte for its combination of great ski mountain and cute town.

[wamer27]

Telluride, the backdrop to the town can’t be beat, plus there isn’t a freeway anywhere near it.

[Dogmama50]

I've lived in Vail (2x), Aspen and Telluride. Living and visiting are very different.

I love Crested Butte and Telluride but to live there full time limits access to everyday needs. Vail makes it easy to run to Denver if needed, Aspen makes it an overnight trip. If money was no issue it would be the Roaring Fork Valley, just outside of Aspen, close to conveniences but plenty of places to get some space.

[snowave]

This is a tough one. As someone who has lived in a several resort towns across the west, my desires have changed over the years, as to be expected as we age.

My first experience with a resort town was when I was a ski/board bum in 1997/98 in Summit Co. I worked at Copper, but spent a lot of time in Frisco, Breck and also Leadville. I still have a soft spot for that area, due to the conglomerate of ski areas all within close proximity. The lake (Dillon) and plentiful shopping/bars, restaurants... and just in general, a lot going on. It's also only 90 min to Denver (on a good day), which is a plus and minus. However, like may resort areas, that area has grown so much, it's lost much of its "charm" of the time when I was there.

I have also lived in Pagosa Springs more recently. Not really a ski town if you ask me, but it has some quirks that make it fun and a little off the beaten path. We left after 3 yrs due to fear of prolonged drought, my lack of interest in Wolf Creek.. (yeah, they get a lot of snow but the ski area is small, boring and kinda flat). We also missed the Northern Rockies and abundance of water, so that's where we are back to (Idaho). I have visited most of the other ski towns across the state of CO with the exception of Aspen.

My interests over the years have changed from wanting to be in the middle of everything, to having a more low key town, with less tourists, but still a good mountain. Very tough to find anymore!

I really can't narrow it down to one, as I like different areas for different reasons. But here is my short list. (I'm not even sure its in order).

Steamboat
Telluride
Crested Butte
Summit Co.

In the meantime, we now live near McCall, ID where we have found the just about the perfect balance after many years of traveling/living across the west. Great ski areas, still not too crowded (although that is changing, unfortunately), plenty of water, sense of community and decent weather.

[mferris]

I live outside Vail/Beaver Creek in a town called Eagle and love it all seasons! Plenty to do year round and locals are friendly, although they tend to get priced out of the area pretty quickly. That or go to locations with better job growth prospects. Totally depends on what you're looking for in a town. Crested Butte is probably my favorite ski town but it's very geographically isolated.

[SkyDog77]

Telluride or Crested Butte