Silverton Mountain Ski Area Profile

While the word unique is often overused, it applies to the Silverton concept: One lift, one big mountain, no grooming, limited reservation-only skiing, and a no-frills operation.

Silverton's terrain is for advanced and expert skiers and riders only. The lone double rises from a base of 10,400 feet to 12,300 feet, but there's another 1000 feet of vertical above that, accessible with a modest effort. Skiers and riders in groups of eight with a guide explore the mountain together, which annually sees about 400" of snow.

Patrollers do frequent avalanche mitigation work, but the mountain's avalanche potential is high. Silverton is so new (it first opened in January of 2002) and its concept so untested that the federal public land-use process is still underway. The Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) upped Silverton's daily quota from 40 visitors to 80 this season. It rarely sees that many in a day. Until the process is complete, no unguided skiing is allowed.

The advanced and expert terrain consists of bowls, snowfields, couloirs, chutes, cliff bands, drops, woods, glades, clearings, avalanche paths, and what-not -just about everything except groomed terrain, which is antithetical to the Silverton experience. The wisdom of providing a guide and full avie equipment to each group is apparent.

Silverton has about 1600 acres of skiable terrain. A shuttle bus helps maximize the use of terrain away from the double; a road runs for quite a distance along the base of the mountain on both sides. But it really is a moot point. Although management's goal is to be permitted for 400 skiers and riders a day, even that many would easily be swallowed by the mountain. In the meantime a few dozen people make a negligible impact.

Making little or no impact on the environment is also management's goal. The only cutting which took place on the mountain was for the double chair, and even that was kept to a minimum. Silverton offers a number of educational programs that focus on the environment. And while the mountain may have slopeside huts in the future, "development" is too big a word for Silverton's future plans.

The historic mining town of Silverton is a few miles away, and it's reminiscent of Telluride 20 years ago. This is where you'll find lodging and food and maybe even some entertainment, although the town is still geared more towards three-season activities. Eighty skiers a day Thursday through Sunday aren't likely to change that any time soon. That part-time schedule will likely continue while the land-use process runs its course. But this is really a draw for Silverton, the mountain. When it opens up for a long weekend, three full days will have passed, three days in which new snow gets to accumulate untouched. Better still, you know that when the mountain was last open, a few dozen rather than a few thousand people were on it.