VAIL PASS — Over the past 25 years I have spent many wonderful days and magical moonlit nights exploring the backcountry around Vail Pass on skis. I skied here under a blood moon in 2014, far from the light pollution of the Front Range, in awe as the moon took on a scarlet hue in a cloudless starry sky. I have made a ritual of Easter sunrise trips, beginning my treks before dawn by the light of the moon, watching the surrounding slopes turn orange with alpenglow as I climb, finally topping out on Shrine Pass just as sunlight begins to pour over the majestic peaks to the east.
But all this time, there was something about the Vail Pass Winter Recreation Area that I didn’t know until I skied here under a nearly full moon two weeks ago.
I was working at Beaver Creek for the weekend, covering World Cup ski races. After finishing work that Friday night I headed up to the pass hopeful to get in some moonlight skiing but resigned to the possibility that it might not be skiable for lack of snow. That usually isn’t a problem in December, but on my drive over the pass from Denver that morning, I found the lack of snow on the slopes around the pass to be pretty depressing.
I was in for a big surprise that night, though. While the backcountry was speckled with bare spots, the trail from Vail Pass up to Shrine Pass had way more snow on it than I expected, clearly more than could have fallen naturally. Then it dawned on me: Maybe the fees we pay the Forest Service to ski in the Vail Pass Winter Recreation Area aren’t just used to keep the peace between skiers and snowmobilers. They must be using the snowcat I saw at the trailhead to push snow onto the trail.
Sure enough, that is exactly what they do here, and it has been that way for years. I just never noticed it before because there’s usually plenty of natural snow this time of year.
Skiers, snowshoers and snowmobilers pay $6 a day (or $40 for a season) to use the trails of the 55,000-acre Vail Pass Winter Recreation Area, which the Forest Service manages in partnership with the Vail Pass Task Force. The not-for-profit task force, created in 1990, includes members representing the 10th Mountain Division Huts Association, the Colorado Mountain Club, the Colorado Snowmobile Association, Vail Powder Guides and other user groups. The fee program was introduced in 1998.
“Part of the standard operating (plan) is to patch those groomed routes with snow — take snow where it drifts in and accumulates and patch up the bare spots, make it skiable and rideable for snowmobiles,” said Sam Massman, mountain sports administrator for the Dillon Ranger District of the White River National Forest. “There are groomed routes all across the area.”
One of the trails leads from Vail Pass up to Shrine Pass and down to Redcliff, a 12-mile tour that features a beautiful view of the 14,009-foot Mount of the Holy Cross. It’s a dirt road in the summer and makes for excellent moonlight skiing because it’s gentle and wide.
“We manage that road as a winter groomed route and patch it, build it and remove the drifts,” Massman said. “There’s a number of other roads. Resolution Road and the Camp Hale area, same deal, where we’re grooming on top of summer roads. We also have a few places around Ptarmigan Pass and Ptarmigan Peak where we’ve got groomed routes that we are constructing out of snow that aren’t summer roads.”
One of the aims of the management plan is to keep snowmobilers off non-motorized trails. I used to resent having to pay for that, though I eventually came to peace with it. And now that I know those fees are also making it possible to ski on trails that would otherwise be unskiable, I’m all for it.
“We like to say it offers something for everyone, whether you are a skier, a snowmobile rider or a hybrid user using the snowmobile to tow you up and do some backcountry skiing,” said Bill Jackson, the district ranger. “Snow management is a big part. The grooming is one of the biggest expenses that we have with those fees, other than personnel costs to have rangers staffed up there.”
