Eldora 2/16

With my younger brother living in Boulder -- he has a seasons pass to the local mtn 30 minutes up the creek -- Eldora. We decided to check it out.


This was Corona -- one of the widest steep cruisers they had...



Its a nice mtn.. Some great groomers/cruisers, some bumps, some steeps/glades.
If you find yourself in the Boulder area, I definitely recommend heading over for a day--

Should have taken the camera out more than I did.... we had a nice blue sky sunny day.

I've had some amazing upslope days there when I-70 corrider gets 3 inches and Eldora gets 30. It may be the windiest mtn I've ever skied!

Conditions look great, nice blue sky. Looks like a great day!

in Boulder area for biz this Jan.. might make this my weekend plans.

snoseek said:

I've had some amazing upslope days there when I-70 corrider gets 3 inches and Eldora gets 30. It may be the windiest mtn I've ever skied!

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YUP. On upslope storms I'm there. Last year I skied there on a 19 inch pow day when summit CO got 4 inches.

I've heard it's really windy but I've never experienced it up close, guess I've gotten lucky. Windier than Loveland?

I will say though, that place has some terrible management. Just read the yelp reviews.

How long of a drive from Denver? How's the traffic & road clearing after storm?

Since my pass includes Eldora, I wonder whether it would make for a better last day before my flight out, by avoiding the I-70 traffic jam (say, on a holiday Sunday afternoon) heading back to Denver?

abc said:

How long of a drive from Denver? How's the traffic & road clearing after storm?

Since my pass includes Eldora, I wonder whether it would make for a better last day before my flight out, by avoiding the I-70 traffic jam (say, on a holiday Sunday afternoon) heading back to Denver?

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I would say a little over an hour to DIA if you're not in a storm and ok with paying that awful 470 toll. Add a few minutes if you want to save the toll but 470 is pretty consistently good. You have to drop down into boulder which is an annoying town to pass through with all those lights. Usually the roads are in decent shape unless a huge upslope which isn't too common. Without fresh its a little lame IMObut well worth avoiding the 70 clusterfuck

snoseek said:

It may be the windiest mtn I've ever skied!

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i mentioned to a work colleague that i might hit Eldora while in CO for biz, first comment from them was "that place is windy!"

:-D

I skied Eldora for just two days back in Dec 2003. But as an Easterner I thought it was great. It has only a vertical of 1600', but a nice variety of terrain including black diamond glades and a few bump runs. For some reason it reminds me a little of Mt. Ellen in VT. Under the Indian Peaks chair was a very steep liftline bump run, called Ambush?? They have good snowmaking system which helped during our Dec visit and they occasionally get some big storms from a different direction than much of the state. The drive from Boulder is through scenic Boulder Canyon, which is pretty steep and could be challenging in a storm, but works great in reasonable weather and totally distinct from I70. There is a real pretty view East (direction of Great Plains) that includes Barker Reservoir:

Check out trail map.
http://www.eldora.com/downloads/eldora_trails_2013.pdf