Aspen Week After Christmas

[TheHitman]

Would Aspen be one of the least busy resorts the week after Christmas? Or what other resorts on the Ikon pass near-ish to Denver?

 

[Nancy Hummel]

Aspen will be busy by Aspen standards but not nearly as crazy as Summit County or Winter Park.

 

[LowPressureKarl]

Yes.
Snowmass will get the lions share of traffic, Lines can be avoided, but some runs will be crowded.
Ajax, Highlands and Tiehack aren’t usually too bad and I never wait in line.
I get out early and ski everyday.

Going out for dinner is more difficult, especially at 7pm.

 

[Mike King]

Building on what Nancy said, some of the lifelines will be long by Aspen standards. Around 9:45, ski school for kids leaves and for adults it's at 10, so the lift line at the base of Snowmass, the Village Express, can get to be 10 minutes or so. It's unusual for us to have lift lines that are more than a few minutes, but it can happen on holidays and when the upper lifts close due to wind (infrequent) or due to poor snow conditions (not usual, but it was an issue last season.

Nancy and I changed from the Front Range to Snowmass several years ago -- Nancy did leave Breckenridge a couple of years before me. We are nothing like Breck/Summit County/other Front Range ski areas. More than a decade ago, Breck was getting over 23,000 visitors on December 27, usually the peak day of the season. Aspen's peak day, across all 4 mountains, is less than 15,000 visitors. There's a big difference in the quality of the ski experience, IMHO.

Mike

 

[sbooker]

I skied Aspen that week a couple of years ago and did not line up for longer than one minute once. I general skied straight on. I was out early each day though and avoided the lifts out of the village/town.
A fantastic place in my opinion.

 

[Nathanvg]

I've skied Aspen new year's week many times and it's never busy. There is a ton of great skiing and Denver is far enough away that it never gets busy. A few lifts might have 5 to 10 min lines but most of the time there are no lines at all