Winter Park

Started: 2026-02-07 12:27:29

Submitted: 2026-02-07 15:25:40

Visibility: World-readable

Three days skiing in Winter Park at New Year's, in marginal snow

We planned our travel for Christmas and New Year's in the middle of September, before snow started falling in the northern hemisphere. By the middle of December very little snow had fallen anywhere in the western United States; I kept seeing complaints about how little snow Tahoe was getting. Snow finally fell in the Sierras in the week leading up Christmas, in the same system of storms that brought rain to the Bay Area and Santa Cruz. But Colorado remained high and dry; as we flew over Colorado on our way to Omaha on Christmas Eve it looked like the ridgelines at the top of the Mummy Range in Rocky Mountain National Park were almost completely free of snow. When I finally checked how much of Winter Park was open I was dismayed: maybe a third of the whole ski area was open, focused on the lower elevations and easier trails on the Winter Park side, because that's where the snow-making equipment was. All of Mary Jane was closed, along with the bowls at the top of the mountain. I rented expensive demo skis and filled out the survey indicating I wanted to ski bowls and bumps (and I got a nice pair of Rossignol Super Blackops, 172 cm), but neither bowls nor bumps were open.

I signed up the kids for ski lessons, and on Thursday morning, New Year's Day, we headed out to pick up their rental gear and drop them off at their lessons. (Julian had an all-day kids lesson; Calvin had a half-day adult lesson.)

With the kids properly geared up and deposited at their lessons, I headed to the new gondola that replaced the Zephyr Mountain Express chair (named "The Gondola" because that's what everyone will call it anyway) to see what I could find that was worth skiing.

I spent most of my time half-way up the Winter Park side of the mountain, skiing the Explorer Express and Prospector Express lifts. Explorer mainly served the longest blue run that was open, Cranmer. Prospector climbed above the one and only black run that was open, Engeldive; it had a few bumps but the snow between the bumps was scraped down to the ground, exposing dead grass and dirt and rocks and the branches of scrubby pine trees growing on the slope. I skied it once each of the three days we were at Winter Park but the poor snow conditions meant it wasn't worth repeating. There was so little snow on the ground it felt like November, even though the calendar said January.

My phone rang late in the morning while I was riding Prospector Express. (I'm always nervous pulling out my phone on a chair lift because I'm worried I'll drop it onto the slope below.) I missed the call from the ski school but got the call from Kiesa a minute later that Julian wasn't feeling well and needed to be picked up. (She was on a quest to explore the town of Winter Park, a few miles away by bus.) I skied to the bottom, picked up Julian, and took him back to the ski condo where we were staying. Kiesa arrived with Calvin, and we all ate lunch before I headed out to ski with Calvin.

I was frustrated by the lack of good terrain to ski, but the conditions on the mountain meant that Calvin could ski everything that was open. We went higher on the mountain, to Olympia Express and High Lonesome Express. Olympia served White Rabbit, which was one of the more interesting blue runs open; we spent much of our time here. (It began to develop bumps during our trip, but these bumps grew icy and began to show grass between the bumps.) High Lonesome climbed to the top of Mary Jane, albeit from the back of the hill, and served a smattering of steeper green runs that were somewhat less crowded than the runs lower on the mountain.

On Friday, our second day at Winter Park, Julian stayed off the mountain, Calvin returned to a half-day ski lesson, and I skied by myself in the morning before meeting Calvin for lunch. It had been snowing lightly on Thursday afternoon, and snowed a couple of inches overnight, which was just enough to dust over the thinner places on the ski trails but not enough to materially change conditions. In the afternoon in a break in between ski runs we stopped at a kiosk called Waffle Cabin, near the base of the Looking Glass lift, for a small hot handheld Belgian waffle drizzled with chocolate syrup. It was beginning to snow again, and we ate our waffles off to the side of the ski train in the forest surrounded by snow.

On Saturday, Julian returned to ski school and ended up in a smaller group with just three kids, one of whom had never skied before. He had a better time with more personalized attention. It snowed another couple of inches overnight, enough to finally dust the neighboring peaks with snow. On the trees there was a noticeable line, maybe around 10,000 feet, where the frost and snow coating the trees intensified, looking like a flocked Christmas tree.

I stopped for coffee at Lunch Rock at the top of Mary Jane (accessible only from the back via High Lonesome Express; all of the lifts running up from the Mary Jane side where closed). I saw a gray jay stalking the tables in the sun, looking for food that might have been left behind by people eating on the sunny outdoor patio.

Even though I didn't get the ski experience I was hoping for it was still nice to spend three days at Winter Park at New Year's.

After the lifts closed on Saturday we returned our rental equipment and rode The Gondola up to the top of the Winter Park side. This was intended to get us to the post-skiing entertainment at the lodge, but we took the time to look around in the snow.

I tried to time our ascent so we'd see the alpenglow on the surrounding mountains, but by the time we arrived the sun had set, leaving only the dramatically-colored lenticular clouds hanging over the Continental Divide across the valley to the east.

Several days of snow had covered the visible mountains with enough snow that the bare rock was no longer quite as visible.

We caught the gondola back down to the base and packed our suitcases to catch the train home for the final part of our Christmas/New Year's travel.