As snow seasons shrink, ski resorts across the United States are pivoting to summer operations to maintain revenue. Officials note that shorter winters have forced a shift in strategy, with many destinations transforming into full-fledged outdoor adventure hubs during the off-season.
More than 50 ski resorts in the West closed early this past winter due to poor snow conditions. To ease the financial blow, many operators accelerated the launch of their summer activities. The changes go beyond basic hiking and sightseeing, now including high-alpine amenities and unique events.
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Keystone Resort in Colorado exemplifies this trend. The area welcomed its first full-service hotel, Kindred, this May, giving us a basecamp steps from the The River Run Gondola which takes riders up to the top of Dercum Mountain. Kindred’s dining venues—from a sushi restaurant to a burger-and-beer tavern—communal lawn, swimming pool, and novel summer programming such as silent morning nature walks, culinary workshops, fire-pit storytelling, and astronomy nights with the Keystone Science School, created an energy that hadn’t previously existed.
We planned to spend one night so we could check out the Keystone Bike Park, which had just completed a new trail, WD-40. Their first new mountain biking trail in nearly a decade is a cruisy blue (medium-difficulty rating) with jumps and wooden features built from reclaimed Keystone’s Bergman Bowl snow fencing. It allows riders to bypass the easier green trail and reach the switchbacks and berms of the Mosquito Coast trail much faster. When I learned about Keystone’s Summer Afternoon Club—free gondola rides from 4 to 7 P.M. every Thursday up to Dercum Peak (dogs included!) for a free concert and barbecue, we decided to stay an extra day. Once we arrived and discovered it was the Wine and Jazz Festival weekend, we extended our stay even longer.
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Winter Park, 67 miles from Keystone, typically opens Trestle Bike Park in mid-June but had riders on the trails by Memorial Day weekend this year. The ski area also introduced a family-friendly 2.4-mile out-and-back Alpine Fairy Trail and its newly upgraded, 3,000-foot-long alpine slide. Vail is enticing visitors this summer with a handful of new signature summer programs ranging from high-alpine Jeep tours that culminate in chef-curated mountain-top picnics to guided cycling adventures paired with yoga and a sound bath. And about a 2.5-hour drive from Winter Park, Steamboat Resort is luring visitors to the mountain with Friday night comedy shows held at 9,000 feet in Thunderhead Lodge, Saturday movie nights and concerts hosted in the village plaza, and Sunday yoga classes on the lawn outside of Thunderhead Lodge (all free or by donation). The resort continues to expand its hiking and biking trails, but this August, endurance junkies can test their mettle at a 2902
