Winter Park Advanced Skiing

For bumps, try Trestle and Golden Spike; for trees and steeps, Johnstone Junction; for couloirs try Hole-in-the-Wall or Baldy’s Chute on Mary Jane or head higher up to Vasquez Cirque, Winter Park’s most extreme terrain. The South Headwall and the Alphabet Chutes offer several extreme routes down the mountain. Aside from vertigo-causing steeps, Vasquez Cirque and anywhere in the trees on the Jane is best for powder. Vasquez Cirque is undoubtedly very steep, ungroomed, and is a terrific example of extreme backcountry terrain. Little wonder expert skiers flock to Winter Park because of this.

An ideal ski day would be to start at the base of Mary Jane by heading up the Super Gauge Express (formerly the Summit Express chair). Warm up on Sleeper, then take the Challenger lift up to Derailer. Ride the Challenger to access additional black mogul trails including Boiler, Runaway, Cannonball, and Brakeman. Head up to the Parsenn Bowl for trees on the right. Ride the Panoramic Express back up to access Vasquez Cirque, via Parsenn Bowl and head for the South or West Headwall. These lead into Upper Express from where the new Eagle Wind triple chair will take you back to the top of the black glades, Medicine Man, Little Raven, Black Coal, Left Hand and Thunderbird.

No skier may enter onto a trail that is marked “closed.” In-bounds closures may occur on any trail at any time for myriad reasons. In addition, a significant amount of the boundary is closed by the U.S. Forest Service because of hazard immediately outside the boundary. If you should choose to leave the ski area at a point not marked as “closed,” you may do so, but the ski area no longer has responsibility. Rescue, if available, may turn out to be a prolonged and expensive business, and is the responsibility of the Sheriff’s Office.