Colorado s ski areas expand their terrain, offering a backcountry light experience to attract more aggressive snow enthusiasts.

By Steve Lipsher
Denver Post Staff Writer
10/19/06

Keystone - Hoping to give skiers and snowboarders an experience out of a Warren Miller ski movie - minus the avalanche danger - Colorado resorts increasingly are expanding into previously off-limits areas.

Dubbed "backcountry light," the new terrain, accessed by Sno-Cat and ski lift, resembles the off-piste experience of European ski resorts, with natural conditions and steeper slopes than traditionally found within ski-area boundaries.

"More and more people want to go into the backcountry but don't necessarily want to take the full ... gear," said Roger McCarthy, head of Breckenridge and Keystone ski areas, both of which are expanding their backcountry terrain this winter. "I think we'll just continue to see that grow."

Nowhere is the trend more evident than in Summit County, where each of the four ski areas is pushing its backcountry offerings to attract a new breed of aggressive skiers and snowboarders aided by ever-improving equipment.

"That's where the demand is. People want that," said Rob Perlman, executive director of Colorado Ski Country USA, the industry trade organization.

Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain and Keystone, which together conduct as much ski business as the entire state of Utah, in many ways are considered bellwethers for the rest of the industry. Colorado is coming off a record season of 12.53 million skier visits.

On a powder day in the mountains that added to the excitement of the start of a new season, expanding "the backcountry experience" was the unifying thread at the widely anticipated annual forum Wednesday of the heads of the county's competing ski resorts.

Consider:

This winter, Keystone is expanding its Sno-Cat skiing operation into steep Independence Bowl after frequently filling every seat on its trips into Bergman and Erickson bowls last winter - in spite of the $75 additional charge.

Arapahoe Basin is seeking final Forest Service approval to build a new lift into Montezuma Bowl, on the backside of the main ski slopes, to offer 400 acres of high-alpine skiing by next winter.

Copper Mountain is considering building a lift on Tucker Mountain, where above-timberline extreme terrain currently is reached via a free Sno-Cat ride.

Breckenridge also is opening more off-piste terrain, adding 150 acres of steep chutes, cornices and wide-open slopes in an area known as Snow White. The terrain is reached via the Imperial Express chairlift, which opened last year to make the resort's famed alpine skiing more accessible.

While the promise of untracked powder and steep runs clearly is the allure for hard-core snowboarders and skiers, the new terrain is about image as much as anything else.

At Breckenridge, for example, a single groomed path down from the top of the Imperial Express - actually the most popular descent route - allows even intermediate skiers to feel as though they are experiencing something extreme.

That is not lost on ski-area officials such as Arapahoe Basin chief Alan Henceroth.

"You can ski these cornices," he said, pointing out a ridgeline of Montezuma Bowl in an aerial photo. "I won't. But you can."