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Monarch, CO 12/29-30 -- Off the beaten path

abc

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Mar 2, 2008
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Lower Hudson Valley
The Rockie Mountain Super Pass Plus allows 3 days of skiing in Monarch on top of Copper/Winter Park/Mary Jane.

As the crowd descends on all the big resorts in CO the day after Christmas, I was desperate to escape into something a little bit more sane. A little known resort in the middle of the state that I've never even heard of seems worth the gamble. Besides, the trail map shows quite a bit of terrain and variety. What can go wrong with free, at a new (to me) mountain?

Add to the attraction, lodging near Monarch, at the little village call Salida, is half of that at Frisco during the busy holiday period. And a bunch of hot spring in the surrounding area might provide some diversion if the skiing doesn't deliver...

The drive from Copper to Salida had me going over the Fremont Pass which is spectacular. Then a bunch of the CO "14'er" (14,000' peaks) appeared along the way. Part way on, I pulled a detour into Mt Princeton Hot Spring to erase any trace of tireness from the previous 5 days of skiing powdery bumps!

Without the detour, the drive would only be about 2 hrs to Salidas. There's a few isolated lodging options closer to Monarch. But I opted to stay "in town". Town of Salida is actually pretty cool, has a cute little 2 block downtown area with some shops and stuff. Spread around the town are the typical set up: McDonald, Super8, DaysInn etc. Even a Walmart. I stayed in the Holiday Inn but it wasn't much. Just a place to rest my head when the sun goes down (which it does quite promptly in December)

Monarch is perched right on top of Monarch Pass, a decent 1/2 hr drive from Salida. It snowed the night before so the road demand attention. Despite a relatively late start ((9:30~10), I pulled into the parking lot pretty close to the lodge. A scan of the 3 bottom lifts, it's obvious it's a more family oriented mountain: the "beginner" and "intermediaate" lifts were busy but the "advance" lift were empty! So naturally, I hopped onto the "advance" lift right away. It serves the entire looker's right of the mountain, a mix of black and blue runs, and a huge hike to terrain label as double black.

Despite being in the state for nearly a week, I was still huffing and puffing every time I exert myself. So I decided to stay within the lift served runs. Besides, a lot of the runs still had a lot of untouched fluff. A shame to let those go to waste!

Time flies when one's having fun! The next time I look at a clock, it was nearly 1. And my legs were screaming for a break. And I still hadn't quite covered all the lines I saw that had so much lovely soft snow.

Food isn't Monarch's strong point. It's not cheap even by ski area price but the quality is nothing to write home about. I resolved to pack my own the next day.

After lunch, I resumed my cruise over untouched soft snow along the side of the deserted black/blue runs. As I turned down a short connector run, I passed quickly a sign proclaiming "beware of natural obstacle". Before my brain register what that means, my skis found out what those "natural obstacles" were: ROCKS! "Where the *%$# did that come from?" The connector was right under the lift and it look white and perfectly smooth from the lift. Well, there were rocks underneath a mm or 2 of white fluffy stuff!

The mountain of Monarch isn't actually segregated in difficulty level. The "intermediate" and "beginner" lift actually serves mixed terrain. So I started to move to those terrain now that the crowds at the lift maze thinned out. The center part of the mountain had some steeper & longer sustain bumps and patches of tree runs. The snow were perfectly preserved in the sparsely spaced trees. Given how much fresh snow was left on the groomers, it didn't surprise me the trees hadn't been skied much. Skiing by myself, I was somewhat worried about tree wells. So I only skied the line where the trees were widely spaced, leaving a wide berth between my skis and the tree trunks (and potential tree wells).

Every time I got off the lift at the top, I was greeted with a panorama of a whole bunch of 14'er in the surrounding area!

Looker's left of the resort faces east (or south). So the snow condition wasn't quite as good as the center and right. It was also a little hard to get to from the lift (a lot of uphill). I left thinking there's not much on that side of the mountain.

Day 2 was another dry blue bird day. Conversation with others on the chair, it appears the conditionn was not worth doing the hike to the "expert bowl". So I further explored the tree runs in the center. Until on one chair I shared with a group led by a local. She gave us instruction to keep our speed up after unloading and kept heading left all the way to the very end of the resort boundry. We were rewarded with some soft baby bumps and butter smooth groomers! I could see the only problem was for us tourists, I wouldn't have been able to figure out how to lap it. So I was grateful for the local help.

All in all, a very nice 2 days in a "small" mountain (by CO standard, it's plenty big by NE standard), with minimal crowd and very laid back atmosphere (everyone waits for their turn, one time I made a move to catch an empty chair and got a "look" from the ticket scanner :oops:).

So here's one alternative to the big name I-70 mountains. The terrain aren't as radical as some of the biggies. But nor does powder competition as fierce either. There's still enough variety to keep most decent skiers happy. In fact, after a bit if fresh snow, it might keep many grinning ear to ear for far longer than in say Vail or Breckenridge!

On the way back to Copper, I pulled yet another detour into the same hot spring partway through to give my legs some much needed help to recover and get ready for the snow to come...
 

skiNEwhere

Active member
Joined
Oct 29, 2006
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4,141
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Location
Dubai
I have the Rocky Mountain Super Pass Plus as well, Steamboat is my first stop, but I definitely want to try Monarch as well. I remember passing Monarch last year when driving to Crested Butte and telling myself that that place looks like it would remain relatively track free after a big storm
 
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