Touring Colorado's Newest Ski Area: NO CHAIRLIFTS!

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Today we're visiting one of the most unique ski areas in the country: Bluebird Backcountry.

Bluebird Backcountry is a ski area with no chairlifts, it's a totally human-powered, backcountry-oriented resort. We are about 45 minutes from Steamboat right now, couple hours from Denver, right by Rabbit Ears Pass, if you're familiar with that, so maybe an hour and a half from Breck, due north. So fairly accessible for us and a really good opportunity for us to come check out really what has turned out to be quite a cool project that these guys have started here. It's really the only ski area of its kind. You can tell it's very bare bones. They lay in skin tracks for you. There's ski patrol here, there's gear rental, and sort of basic set of amenities.

But for the most part, the way that this resort was designed and conceived was to be an introduction to the backcountry. So if you're someone that skis in the resort a lot, curious about the backcountry, this would be a really great place to come rent some gear, test it out. See if you even like it, see what you think about the uphill atmosphere, and really get outside and try something new.

So from my understanding, the idea behind this resort was there's a whole group of new backcountry skiers that are looking to get in the sport or lightly interested, but there a there's a cost ceiling, and there's a level of experience and knowledge you need to get out there. So they built this place to provide an outlet for that. It's a place for people to come and try new gear. It's a place for them to come take avalanche courses. You can take lessons and really just get a feel for what backcountry skiing and ski touring is all about without a lot of the danger.

For an area to learn, I think this would be phenomenal. If I had someone in my life that came to me and said, "Hey, I want to learn how to tour or go ski backcountry." I would definitely send them here. A, the AIARE 1 and AIARE 2 courses that run here are in a really great environment, super controlled. There's not a lot of people around, I think it's probably a good place for that. But also after you took your AIARE 1, you can come back here and really ease your way into it. When you're skiing the backcountry, things can go wrong, right? You can break your leg. If you broke your leg here, there's a ski patroller, the snowmobile a mile away. So in terms of just a controlled environment, I think it's a really unique opportunity in that sense.

Last year, this was in a different location. Two years ago, they did a beta test in Summit County on Mosquito Pass that I was actually a part of. And I just didn't remember until now, but they had basically set up a small tent, a grill and were inviting people to come and basically test out this concept. And the idea was, if you come to Mosquito Gulch at this time we'll have light food for you and we'll have a guy taking you around and you can give us feedback on doing that. So seems like they had enough takers in the beta test and enough people last year that they realized, "Hey, we could do this with some cool or cooler terrain." And that's where Bear Mountain came about.

So I think this particular area, I mean, especially for Steamboat, Steamboat is not known for having great terrain. I'll say not steep certainly. So to have them out like this with this terrain is really, really cool.