After a 75-minute climb, we arrived to live music and the savory aroma of garlic, onions, and soy sauce wafting from the cafeteria-style venue’s beloved Mongolian grill. Sitting shoulder to shoulder at communal tables, we drank beer and feasted on sizzling bowls of stir-fry, then bundled up and descended the mountain under the light of the Worm Moon. Hot dog skiers, hitting jumps and catching air, blazed past us. A group of ladies in matching neon pink snowsuits trailed us with a speaker blaring Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero.” This was my kind of party.
Aspen’s charmingly historic downtown sits directly below Aspen Mountain, a 11,262-foot massif rising straight up from Durant Avenue. Contrary to popular perception, Ajax, as it is locally known, is not a beginners mountain. It’s full of tight trees and pitchy chutes. There’s not a single green run to be found. Last season saw the addition of 150 acres of expert runs along its high-altitude north-facing slopes.
This past winter, Chris Davenport, a two-time free-skiing world champion who calls Aspen home, introduced me to an even bigger adrenaline rush: 1,500 acres of open bowls and glades on the far side of Ajax. You can access the terrain on guided snowcat trips or on your own, if you have the knowledge and safety gear. When Davenport took me on this out-of-bounds adventure, we marveled at how removed we felt from the DJs and striped cabanas of the AspenX Beach Club, only a few miles away, engulfed as we were in the silence and solitude of the backcountry.
But you don’t need to venture off-piste to experience the understated aspects of Aspen. Less than 10 minutes from downtown is Highlands, with its formidable bowl, as well as family-friendly Buttermilk, which draws a Gen Z crowd each year when it hosts the X Games. Fifteen minutes farther west is Snowmass, the area’s most under-the-radar mountain. Because the mountain was often covered in clouds, the Ute Indian Tribe called it the Cold Woman, believing it to be the source of bad weather. It has some of the best skiing in the country, including one of the longest vertical descents in all of North America at 4,406 quad-burning feet.
Years ago my friends and I would spend mornings lapping the double black runs off Snowmass’s Cirque Lift. Powder-drunk, we’d take in the beguiling views of the Maroon Bells, in my opinion Colorado’s prettiest twin peaks, before losing our mountain buzz when we returned to the snoozy Snowmass base area. Once the lifts stopped spinning, there was no place to eat, drink, or sleep. A proper ski area needs community, so we’d seek it out back in Aspen, often heading to the patio of Ajax Tavern for the addictive Parmesan-dusted truffle fries and living-room-like atmosphere.
Snowmass, which was developed in 1967—more than two decades after Aspen—was inspired by Austria’s Arlberg ski region. But it took years for the European vibe to catch on. It wasn’t until the past decade and the addition of stylish lodging, a base area anchored by a skating rink, and refined on-mountain restaurants that the resort started to resemble swanky ski towns like Zermatt or Cortina.
