Aspen Snowmass Announces Summer Season Starting June 21

Biking on Snowmass Mountain in Colorado.(Photo courtesy Aspen Skiing Co./ Matt Powers Photography.)

All of Colorado's mountain towns are fun family destinations. While most popular during the winter for skiing, we actually love them most in the summers. Sunny days, cool evenings and an abundance of outdoor activities in a beautiful alpine setting make these mountain towns an ideal weekend or weeklong getaway.

Snowmass, Colorado is a small slopeside mountain village located just a few miles outside of Aspen. It is the most family-friendly of those two ski mountains. And, it has so much outdoor fun to offer in the summer!

Aspen Snowmass today announced that summer operations on Snowmass will kick off on June 21 and run daily through Sept. 6. Operations will continue on the weekends, Friday through Sunday, until Oct. 3.

The Snowmass Bike Park will open with three new trails, as well as two new trails being built and debuted this summer. Snowmass will continue to offer hiking, Elk Camp gondola and Elk Camp chair sightseeing, the Lost Forest including Canopy Tours, Camp Aspen Snowmass and food and beverage options at Elk Camp restaurant.

“We are excited to welcome our guests back to Aspen Snowmass this summer with a wide selection of activities and outdoor exploration,” says Peter Santini, director of business development, Aspen Snowmass. “We continue to try and give our guests and locals a plethora of activities for getting outside in nature. Whether that’s experiencing our Canopy Run Zipline Tour, enjoying mountain top yoga, or testing out one of the new bike trails on Snowmass, we try and offer outdoor enthusiasts many options to explore the vast possibilities at Aspen Snowmass.”

Snowmass has always been known for their on-mountain bike trails. But now there are even more summer activities atop the mountain for families to enjoy. In addition to the fun alpine coaster, a challenge course in the Lost Forest will keep your family occupied for most of the day.

Then there's also the Collective Snowmass, featuring a robust summer lineup of weekly programming. Join Yoga on the Rink by King Yoga on Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays; chess club on Mondays; live music on Tuesdays and Saturdays; a comedy series on Wednesdays; bingo night on Thursdays; the Artisan Market on Fridays (July 2-August 27), and Movies Under the Stars on Saturdays (July 24-August 28). The Collective also features yard games, splash pads, fountains, weekly harvest dinners at Mix6, and pop-up events.

This may be the summer that Snowmass becomes known as Colorado's premier biking playground. According to today's announcement they're building new trails, opening another lift with bike hauls and offering cycling camps for grades one through six.

Mountain biking Snowmass Mountain.(Photo courtesy Aspen Skiing Co.)

Snowmass Bike Park Expansion Continues

The Snowmass Bike Park continues to expand terrain and trail offerings for bikers of all levels. Last fall, the Snowmass Bike Park completed three new trails, EZ-PZ, Lemon, and Dust Bunny, and will introduce two new trails this spring, a new difficult single-track trail, and a difficult skills trail. Dust Bunny is an intermediate technical trail that is accessed via upper French Press, and weaves through mature evergreen groves and subalpine meadows, finishing at the top of the Elk Camp Gondola. On this new trail, riders will descend a combination of machine and hand-built turns, rolling elevation changes and carefully constructed stone pathways down the 500-foot descent.  EZ-PZ is a beginner skills trail in the Meadows area offering approachable entry-level riding and introductory features. Lemon is the next step up from EZ-PZ and offers slightly more difficult features in the Meadows area.

The Snowmass Bike Park will open two new trails this summer. Squeezy, located in the Meadows area of the bike park, is a more difficult skills trail, a third of a mile long, with new features for riders. Squeezy is the last trail to complete the Meadows skills area. Another new, two-mile, difficult single-track trail, accessible off of French Press that will take riders on an 800 foot descent ending at the intersection with Dusty Bunny. With these new trail additions, the Snowmass Bike Park will now offer 2,893 feet of vertical descent as well as 26.3 miles of downhill bike trails.

Meadows Lift to Run Weekends for Bike Haul

The Meadows Lift, located at the top of the Elk Camp Gondola, will open for the first time during summer operations for bike haul. This will allow riders to access a series of new trails on the west side of the bike park as well as the new skills park terrain under the lift. The new trails, EZ-PZ, and Lemon, opened last fall, and Squeezy, set to open this spring, will offer skills features ranging from beginner level to advanced.  The trails will be shorter to allow riders to build skills quicker before heading out to experience the longer trails the bike park has to offer.

Roaring Fork Cycling Club and Aspen Snowmass Bike School Partner for Bike Lessons

Aspen Snowmass Bike School and Roaring Fork Cycling are collaborating this summer season to help with program demand, resources and growth in youth cycling. The two entities will work together to host cycling camps for grades one through six, previously run by Roaring Fork Cycling. This new partnership will help to support the demand and programming of each organization and expand operations and courses for children looking to bike this summer.

Follow me to see more articles like this.

...

Follow

Have you visited Snowmass in the summer? Did you mountain bike? What did you like most? Tell us in the comments below!