Tom Key The Perfect Winter Park Ski Trip!
It started with a slip.
Not a dramatic, heart-stopping slide into a snowbank. Just the kind of momentary, stomach-dropping fishtail that happens when your tires find ice instead of asphalt. A warning, not a disaster. A nudge from the mountains: Pay attention. Things are about to get interesting.
The drive through the foothills had been uneventful—Evergreen, Idaho Springs, the slow climb up I-70. But the moment we hit Empire on Route 40, the world changed. The snow thickened. The road darkened. Headlights illuminated swirling flakes, and just like that, winter stopped being a postcard and became something real. Four-wheel drive from here on out.
Berthoud Pass is never a casual drive in winter, but tonight, it felt like the opening act of something big. Ahead of us, a line of cars crept forward, each driver hunched over their wheel, white-knuckling through the curves.
By the time we reached Winter Park, the storm had settled in like a heavyweight fighter leaning into the ropes, conserving energy before another round. The snow was deep. The air was electric.
And we were about to step into something far bigger than just a ski weekend.
A Mountain With a History
Winter Park is a ski resort in the way that the Colorado River is a creek—the term doesn’t quite capture the scale.
Celebrating its 85th anniversary in 2025, Winter Park isn’t just a mountain. It’s a product of time, shaped as much by the movement of glaciers as by the engineers and skiers who first carved its trails. Unlike Aspen or Vail, which were born from a marriage of commerce and alpine appeal, Winter Park was built for the city of Denver itself—a place where everyday people could take a train into the mountains and find themselves somewhere far bigger than their daily lives.
It sits on National Forest land, a fact that helps explain its character. Unlike the corporate polish of some ski areas, Winter Park remains a skier’s mountain—gritty, expansive, and without unnecessary frills. It exists because the land allows it, not because a developer forced it into place. And then there’s Mary Jane—a name spoken with reverence by those who know.
In the late 1800s, the area was home to railroad workers, trappers, and the occasional entrepreneurial woman of interest. Mary Jane, for whom this side of the resort is named, was said to have run a brothel that catered to the men laying track over the pass. Whether she was a real person or an embellished legend, her name remains attached to some of the most iconic mogul skiing in the country.
Normally, I prefer to avoid moguls. My knees, at my age and after years of skiing, don’t appreciate the punishment.
But this weekend? Everything was different.
Thirty-Six Inches of Transformation
The storm didn’t let up. From Friday through Monday, Winter Park accumulated three feet of snow, a slow-motion blizzard that reset the mountain every night.
It’s difficult to describe to a non-skier what this does to a resort. Normally, a mountain has its rules. There are groomers, there are moguls, there are tree runs, and there are places where, no matter how good you are, skiing feels more like survival than sport.
When this much snow falls? The rules disappear.
Tree runs become silent cathedrals, deep and forgiving. Moguls, normally hard and punishing, soften into pillows. Steep slopes transform from intimidating to inviting. Everything slows down. The feeling isn’t so much about speed, but depth—each turn sinking into something bottomless, each fall landing in something more forgiving than gravity usually allows.
For my sons, this was a revelation.
At home, they spend most of their time in the terrain park, focusing on rails and jumps. But at Winter Park, they never even touched the park. They didn’t need to. They had discovered something better—the feeling of powder giving way beneath their skis, the freedom of floating through snow rather than fighting against it.
We skied run after run, each one different from the last, each one better than the first.
The Runs That Defined the Weekend
Skiing is, at its best, a series of moments. Some fade with time, blending into the thousands of turns we take in a season. Others stay with us forever—a perfect run, a deep turn, the feeling of weightlessness before gravity takes over again.
Winter Park’s terrain is as varied as the skiers who flock to it. With over 3,000 skiable acres, it stretches from long, rolling groomers to above-treeline bowls, to the kind of tree skiing that makes you feel like you’ve stepped into a different world. It has something for everyone, and this weekend proved it.
Medicine Man & Little Raven (Eagle Wind Territory)
If there is a secret world inside Winter Park, it’s Eagle Wind. Tucked away, set apart from the resort’s high-speed lifts and bustling groomers, it’s a place where the mountain slows down—where the only sounds are the soft exhale of skis on snow and the creak of branches under fresh powder.
Medicine Man and Little Raven wind through thick pine and aspen stands, the kind of tree runs that are perfectly spaced, but just tight enough to demand your full attention. Here, skiing becomes less about charging and more about instinct—picking a line, reading the terrain, adjusting to the dips and swells hidden beneath the snow.
At one point, deep in the trees, the silence became almost overwhelming. No wind, no lift chatter, no scraping of skis against hardpack. Just the deep inhale of mountain air, the slow pull of gravity, and the satisfying whump of a ski slicing through untouched powder.
Parsenn Bowl
At the top of Parsenn Bowl, the mountain opens up. The trees thin out, and suddenly you are standing at 12,000 feet, the entire valley stretching out beneath you. On a clear day, you can see all the way to the Indian Peaks Wilderness, the snow-covered ridgelines folding into the distance.
We didn’t have a clear day.
With the storm still churning, visibility in Parsenn Bowl was limited to a few turns ahead—just enough to keep you focused, not enough to see what was coming next. In some places, the wind had sculpted gentle, rolling drifts; in others, it had piled snow so deep that each turn felt like dropping into a cloud.
We floated down Larkspur and Juniper, carving big, effortless arcs through the open bowl before dropping into the trees below. There, the wind disappeared, the visibility improved, and we were back in Winter Park’s signature glades—soft, forgiving, and perfectly spaced.
Brakeman, Coupler, and the Legendary Moguls of Mary Jane
There’s a saying at Winter Park: “No pain, no Jane.”
Mary Jane’s moguls are legendary, and not in the “Hey, this is a fun, bumpy run” way. More in the “These moguls are the size of compact cars, and if you fall, you might disappear into the trough between them” kind of way. Normally, I avoid them.
But this weekend, everything changed.
The deep snow softened Brakeman, Coupler, and the infamous trails that define Mary Jane, turning them from knee-destroyers to something playful. Instead of feeling like punishment, they felt like a game—bounce, float, pivot, repeat.
Hughes
Some runs are defined by their steepness. Others by their length, their flow, their sheer sense of speed.
Hughes is huge and has all three.
On most days, Hughes is the quintessential early-morning groomer—a long, rolling descent that lets you open up your turns, feel the edge of your skis bite into fresh corduroy, and pick up just enough speed to wake up your legs.
This time, it was something completely different.
The relentless snowfall meant that even after grooming, Hughes was a rolling, ever-changing slope of soft powder, still holding some structure from the groomer’s path but layered in fresh, forgiving snow. Each turn felt like gliding through velvet, the usual hardpack underneath nowhere to be found.
Ski, Eat, Sleep, Repeat
By the time we made it off the mountain each day, our legs were fried and the only thing that mattered was food. Not just any food—the kind that refuels you after 16,000 vertical feet. The kind that lands heavy, doesn’t need explanation, and disappears within minutes.
Elevation Pizza
Our first stop, after barely making it into town through the storm, was Elevation Pizza. It was late, we were starving, and we needed something fast and filling. The pizza delivered on both counts—crispy crust, generous toppings, but greasier than I’d prefer. Not bad. Not amazing. But when you’re eating it straight from the box, standing in your condo kitchen in ski socks, it does the job.
Hernando’s Pizza
Hernando’s is a local institution. The kind of place where the walls are covered in dollar bills, the lighting is dim, and the smell of baking crust hits you before you walk in the door.
We barely had time to settle in before the food arrived. And then? It was gone. We demolished a large and a small in what felt like seconds. And my Sierra Nevada Pale Ales disappeared almost as fast.
Randi’s Irish Grill & Pub
By the last night, we were in full ski-eat-sleep survival mode, and Randi’s was exactly what we needed. No frills, just big portions, cold beer, and solid food. I stared at the menu for a full minute, torn between the chicken sandwich and the fish and chips. The waiter didn’t hesitate.
Before I could even finish saying “fish and—” he nodded. “That’s the one.”
He was right. It was perfect.
At the end of each night, we stumbled back to the condo, muscles aching in the best way. Gear was tossed into corners, ski socks peeled off, phones checked for the next day’s snow report. Sleep came fast, not because we wanted to, but because we had no choice.
After all, tomorrow? We’d do it all over again.
Closing Thoughts
On Monday morning, as I waited at the base of Sunnyside chair two snowboarders, a father and his young son, stopped beside me. The dad looked at me, then back at his kid.
“Days like this,” he said, “everyone’s smiling.” Then he pointed at me.
“See? Look at him.” His son turned, and I saw his face. His smile was bigger than mine.
This is why we ski.
It’s not about the numbers—85 years of history, 3,000 acres of terrain, 36 inches of snow. It’s about the feeling. The turns, the moments, the grins shared between strangers and family alike.
If you’re thinking about going to Winter Park?
Go.
You’ll leave with more than memories.
