Colorado Winter Park Intel

[JoeSchmoe]

I just noticed F and G are shuttle lots. We're looking to get on the mountain ASAP since we likely won't be getting there to at least 10:30 or so (no stopping for breakfast... we'll do drive-thru off I-70).

So as far as I can tell, the Village Pay Parking Garage or one of the MJ lots would be best. Any thoughts?

 

[Chris Walker]

Is it a weekend when you're getting there? If so, your best bet for getting on the mountain quickly is probably the pay parking on the WP side. The MJ lots can be full by 10:30 on weekends, and they will put you on the side of the road, which sometimes stretches all the way back to US 40. Or you can try to hunt for a spot someone left early from, but I've had mixed results with that. Honestly, for me the pay parking isn't that great of an option either. The Vintage lot is a ride in the open air gondola and a walk through the faux village away. The garage gets you out of the gondola, but it's still a fair walk for pay parking to me. In short: I counsel patience.

If it's a weekday you should be fine parking at MJ, but how rank of a beginner is your beginner? If he needs to be handed off to a lesson, I think they only sell lessons at the WP side. @Magi would know for sure. If he can get along by himself but just needs easy terrain, take the Super gauge up, point him to the Hi Lonesome pod and head down to Pano.

 

[JoeSchmoe]

We're going on Monday. Our beginner can cautiously ski greens and easier blues around here. He's a great athlete though, he just needs more "reps".

 

[cosmoliu]

Your son's friend, then, MIGHT be just fine on Village Way from the top of the Panoramic lift. The steepest part of Village Way is at the very top, then it gets very mellow all the way back down to WP base. Go with your plan of letting him take some warm up runs either on the High Lonesome greens or maybe Jack Kendrick /Alan Phipps off Prospector and scope out the top of Panoramic with your son. It's worth getting both of them up there: the views from the top of Panoramic really are great.

 

[Jerez]

Cautiously ski green runs IMHO is not ready for the Pano lift first day. When I used to instruct, the worst thing you could do was to over-terrain a kid. Really sets them back.

If the beginner and dad are skiers, then they could conceivably ski down the catwalk to the WP side which is a green all the way. Snowboarders will not like it.

So you may want start at the WP side after all and follow Magi's advice. Drop off the kids and one dad with all the gear and then go park.

You can pay for the garage parking at WP village, but it is still a pretty long walk through the "village" and past the shops and restaurants to get to the balcony house to pick up passes etc. They have red wagons for shuttling gear, but for first day at altitude it may not be the best way to start the kids off. And, the children's ski school is yet further away at the very other end of the complex from the garage. It is, frankly, the one thing I think they screwed up at Winter Park. Not smart to have parents and kids schlep for what seems like a half a mile from parking to ski school. Makes the shuttle from the parking lots more appealing than paying to park and walking.

 

[JoeSchmoe]

Cautiously ski green runs IMHO is not ready for the Pano lift first day. When I used to instruct, the worst thing you could do was to over-terrain a kid. Really sets them back.

If the beginner and dad are skiers, then they could conceivably ski down the catwalk to the WP side which is a green all the way. Snowboarders will not like it.

So you may want start at the WP side after all and follow Magi's advice. Drop off the kids and one dad with all the gear and then go park.

You can pay for the garage parking at WP village, but it is still a pretty long walk through the "village" and past the shops and restaurants to get to the balcony house to pick up passes etc. They have red wagons for shuttling gear, but for first day at altitude it may not be the best way to start the kids off. And, the children's ski school is yet further away at the very other end of the complex from the garage. It is, frankly, the one thing I think they screwed up at Winter Park. Not smart to have parents and kids schlep for what seems like a half a mile from parking to ski school. Makes the shuttle from the parking lots more appealing than paying to park and walking.

Thanks for the reply... But it has me thinking. Given we have a schlep or shuttle on the WP side no matter what, would it be better to do the MJ parking assuming we get there around 1030 on a Monday? I'm guessing the drawback is how much traversing I'll have to do on my snowboard on Corona Way.

If getting back to the MJ base was to challenging for the beginner, i could meet them at the Winter Park base at the end of the day.

Again, this is all about ski time maximization. When i fly and ski that first day, i admit i get a little silly.

 

[Chris Walker]

Given it's a Monday I would take a chance on MJ parking. Worst case it's a shuttle or schlep which you already know you are facing on the other side. Best case is there are spots left in the Dotsero Junction lot, where you can walk across a short bridge, get your tickets and hop on the Super Gauge, from which you can get to either WP or MJ trails.

If that lot is full, they run a shuttle from the other lots, or you can put your skis on and slide down the Corona way to get to the MJ base building. If you're stuck in the Corona Siding or Rollins Pass lots, it's a bit of a hike uphill to the Corona way cat track. It's a lot easier to access the base by ski from the Utah Junction lot but that one often fills up first.

http://assets.winterparkresort.com/PDF/WPRMaps/mjParking.pdf

 

[Jerez]

What Chris Walker said... With the caveat that if your "other" pair are on snowboards, the cat-track (Siding and Corridor) from MJ base to WP base can be a skate in places. It's not terrible, and it's a green run. Or they can hop a shuttle to the WP base from the base of MJ. There are green/blue runs over to the WP side from the top of the Super Gauge, but those are long runs for the very first go for your beginner. There is a beginner chair at MJ (Galloping Goose) which is very small but may be enough for them to warm up on and then go on up the Super Gauge to Whistle Stop and March Hare and the "Alice in Wonderland" runs over at WP.

 

[JoeSchmoe]

They should be good enough to go straight to the Alice in Wonderland section. I'll give them that advice. Thanks a lot!

 

[BLT]

Thanks for the reply... But it has me thinking. Given we have a schlep or shuttle on the WP side no matter what, would it be better to do the MJ parking assuming we get there around 1030 on a Monday? I'm guessing the drawback is how much traversing I'll have to do on my snowboard on Corona Way.

If getting back to the MJ base was to challenging for the beginner, i could meet them at the Winter Park base at the end of the day.

Again, this is all about ski time maximization. When i fly and ski that first day, i admit i get a little silly.

I ski at Winter Park/Mary Jane almost every weekend and have friends visit from the east coast several times a year. I would say to definitely park on the Winter Park side of the ski area. Getting to the Mary Jane base for a green skier, even just on Corona Way, is not going to be fun at the end of the day. I made the mistake of doing this more than once with kids from out of town. I think the safest thing to do is to park in the paid area and walk to Balcony House in snow boots/regular shoes. Then, change into ski boots in Balcony House. You can leave your stuff in a bag in Balcony House (that's what my husband does), or you can put it in a locker (maybe downstairs?). You can always make two trips to the car, carrying stuff for the kids. That way they will not have to carry too much. This should set you all up for a great day! Have fun! We're missing this weekend but will be back the last weekend in Jan. Cannot wait!

 

[Freaq]

.......Yeah, not close to knee deep and surely not ready for full charge mode but beautiful it was. If it's open tomorrow, I'd go in again and hope they let us go farther toward Left Hand... but no doubt you're right to advise caution.

Well, this happened. Four more laborious laps of compacting powdypowdypow. Mostly boot top or so but lots of pockets of knee deep+, deeper the farther we traversed skier's left. Fun, fun, fun!

 

[JoeSchmoe]

I ski at Winter Park/Mary Jane almost every weekend and have friends visit from the east coast several times a year. I would say to definitely park on the Winter Park side of the ski area. Getting to the Mary Jane base for a green skier, even just on Corona Way, is not going to be fun at the end of the day. I made the mistake of doing this more than once with kids from out of town. I think the safest thing to do is to park in the paid area and walk to Balcony House in snow boots/regular shoes. Then, change into ski boots in Balcony House. You can leave your stuff in a bag in Balcony House (that's what my husband does), or you can put it in a locker (maybe downstairs?). You can always make two trips to the car, carrying stuff for the kids. That way they will not have to carry too much. This should set you all up for a great day! Have fun! We're missing this weekend but will be back the last weekend in Jan. Cannot wait!

I'm not sure if you saw my post, but I'd pick them up at WP if needed.

 

[BLT]

I'm not sure if you saw my post, but I'd pick them up at WP if needed.

Missed that. Sounds perfect! Parking at MJ, taking Super Gauge up and then skiing down the green runs on the other side will be a great start to the day. Have fun!!!

 

[Magi]

I'm not sure if you saw my post, but I'd pick them up at WP if needed.

I'm going to not so subtly suggest you start and end your first day at Winter Park's base. Any time you *might* (and probably won't) save by parking "closer" to a Jane side lift will be more than lost by having at least one of you leave the group to head to that car at the end of the day. You might "save" 5-10 minutes and lose 90+ at the end of the day. As a first timer at WP, the odds of the losing 90+ are way higher than I think you want.

I'm also going to suggest that you start WP side because the terrain you want that green trail skier hitting first is off the Gemini -> Prospector lift, and THAT is WP side. (Beeline to "Jack Kendrick" off the prospector).

 

[Magi]

Great timing on your trip - Forecast is for 5-20 tonight!

 

[JoeSchmoe]

Yeah... it should be awesome. The downside is my son is pretty sick. He's got a day and a half to start feeling better.

 

[RJS]

I am considering a long weekend trip to Colorado over President's day weekend. How crowded do you think Winter Park will get? Relative to the surrounding mountains? Part of me thinks that Steamboat might be a better bet just being further away from Denver. If I do 4 full days in Winter Park, will that feel like too much?

 

[Magi]

I am considering a long weekend trip to Colorado over President's day weekend. How crowded do you think Winter Park will get? Relative to the surrounding mountains? Part of me thinks that Steamboat might be a better bet just being further away from Denver. If I do 4 full days in Winter Park, will that feel like too much?

Having skied Winter park for over 300 days and still not tiring of it - I think you're okay on that count.

MLK wasn't too crowded after saturday, so hard to say if President's day will be similar or not. Generally the Saturday is pretty busy (take a lesson - skip the lines!) and Sunday/Monday ramp down. Steamboat's crowds will be pretty big that weekend as well, I can't give you a direct comparison of lift line times though. @Ron might be helpful for typical Steamboat Pres' weekend lift line times (then again, he might just skip that weekend generally...).

 

[Ron]

well, seems like almost all CO resorts are off by 10-15% so the crowds are likely to be less than typical but Presidents weekend does tend to be busy. Again, if you get to the lifts as they spin, you will beat the majority of skiers who saunter up at 10:30. Go to lunch at 11 and beat the crowds for lunch and then ski when everyone else is eating.

 

[RJS]

Thanks @Magi and @Ron I appreciate the help! My plan would be to ski Thursday through Sunday. I'm sure that Thursday and Friday are more crowded than normal because of the long weekend, but hopefully they still aren't too bad. Agreed about Saturday probably being packed, I like the advice about getting there for first chair and getting an early lunch, or getting a lesson.

Things have been a little rough this winter on the East Coast. We have gotten a good amount of snow, but have had two bad rain events in the last couple of weeks, so I am really itching for trees or off-piste. Winter Park and Steamboat are both on the MAX Pass and have reputations as being great mountains for tree skiing .