Vito ValentinettiDays 60-63
Location: Wolf Creek, CO
Resorts: 29 out of 50
Yep. Wolf Creek lives up the hype. We stopped in on a Sunday and didn’t leave until Tuesday afternoon. The snow just kept piling up. 19 inches over the course of the storm. We couldn’t even be bothered to leave the ski area so we posted up the Mystery Machine in the employee lot.
The rumor is that Wolf Creek gets the most snow in Colorado. And this season, southern Colorado is a magnet for every big storm. Here’s a fun fact: Wolf Creek has a 117 inch base.
Skip the front lifts and head straight for Alberta. All the best stuff is out here. We started with the trees off the Coyote Loop. Don’t worry about trail names. Just ride until you see a untracked powder opening and bust a left. We rode these trees for three days and never found a tight spot.
After some knee deep powder runs, it was up to the Knife Ridge Chutes. Get off Alberta, hike straight up, and you’ll find yourself on a ridge with as many chutes as you can handle. Coco convinced me that I need to drop this large rock or in her words — “There’s four feet of snow in the landing. You can’t get hurt. Just go already.”
By the third day, we had found our perfect run. Get off the lift, hike up to Alberta Peak. It’s not a bad walk although the wind threatened to knock us over a few times. The reward is deep, soft turns down the steep face and a straight shot to the Waterfall Area. This gnarly bowl is filled with drops, gullies, and some of the best stuff on the mountain.
There are no fancy lodges at Wolf Creek. No condos. No base village, although developers have been trying their damnedest to slap a few big buildings down. The closest lodging is twenty-five minutes away. Can’t say we minded one bit. After all the employees left for the night, we drank PBR in the Mystery Machine and watched the snow come down. That’s all the entertainment we needed
