Snowmass Attractions

This adventure outfitter has been in business for 35 years, helping families experience the great Colorado outdoors. With a "storefront" on the Snowmass Village Mall, Blazing Adventures offers in-person help with planning your vacation activities. Many families try whitewater rafting -- a mild float trip on the Colorado River is appropriate for kids as young as 4, while older kids love the rapids on the Roaring Fork River. Starting at age 8, kids can go on horseback rides, and biking tours range from easy downhills on pavement to challenging, mountainous narrow trails. Hot-air balloon rides, guided hikes, Jeep tours and fly-fishing excursions are other trips organized by this respected company.

For a once-in-a-lifetime experience (mostly because it's expensive), book a dogsled ride that takes you through the pristine Snowmass wilderness, racing across wide-open meadows and coursing through aspen groves. Each sled can hold two adults and a small child and is pulled by 10 Alaskan sled dogs, led by an experienced musher. Morning and afternoon rides are about 1.5 hours long and include a three-course, gourmet lunch in a pretty log cabin with large picture windows -- great for taking in magnificent mountain views. It's about $270 for adults and $200 for children, ages 3 to 8.

Snowmass Club golf course is transformed into 10 kilometers of groomed cross-country trails in the wintertime, and the staffed, on-site Snowmass Cross-Country Center -- which offers rental equipment, lessons, tours and trail maps -- makes it easy to sample the sport. Snowshoe rentals and tours are also available. The Snowmass trails hook into the Aspen trails to provide more than 90 kilometers of total terrain.

In the summer months on Wednesday nights, the Snowmass Rodeo is the place to be for families, with free, pre-rodeo activities like a petting zoo and roping lessons. Mechanical bull rides and pony rides are offered, too, for a fee. The rodeo itself features talented cowboys and cowgirls who compete in such events as barrel-racing, team roping and bronco riding. Even kids can get into the act by signing up for the calf scramble and "mutton bustin'" (riding sheep bareback).

Snowmass ski slopes beckon families with their variety of 91 trails over an incredible 3,132 acres of skiable terrain -- 36 Disneylands can fit within the ski-area boundaries! The majority of terrain caters to intermediate skiers, with 50% of the trails considered "more difficult," but there is truly something -- including bowl skiing, plenty of groomed cruisers, steep moguls, three terrain parks and a 22-foot-tall superpipe -- for everyone. Children as young as 2.5 can sign up for ski school -- renowned for its friendly, knowledgeable instructors -- at the new Treehouse Kids Adventure Center. Children learn on the easiest terrain and use dedicated ski-school lifts, including fun "magic carpets" that whisk pint-sized skiers to the top of "bunny trails." (Babies and toddlers are watched by licensed caregivers in specially themed rooms.) The Adventure Center also hosts many free apres-ski and evening family activities, including movie nights, campfire sing-a-longs and Kids' Krafts. It's likely you won't run out of trails to sample at Snowmass, even on a weeklong vacation. But, if you're looking for other action, your Aspen/Snowmass lift ticket is good at the other three area mountains: Aspen, Buttermilk and Aspen Highlands.

Snowmass' ski mountain is open in the summer months, as well, with two-seater chairlift rides that can also carry mountain bikes; a myriad of hiking and biking trails can be found at the top of the chairlift. Other summertime family fun on the mountain includes free Frisbee golf and outdoor paintball for kids, ages 8 and older. Thursday nights bring the Snowmass Summer of Free Music, which features face-painting and other activities for kids in the Base Village, as well as a free Sky Cab gondola ride to a free outdoor concert on Fanny Hill. If kids don't want to listen to music, they can hang at Movie Night at the Adventure Center (for a fee).

At the base of the new Snowmass Village awaits the most kid-friendly attraction available at any U.S. ski destination. The 25,000-square-foot complex features themed rooms for ages 8 weeks and up, with special activities for preschoolers, gradeschoolers, 'tweens and teens. For skiers, free ski-in/ski-out access to the slopes of Snowmass is offered, including lessons for the little ones as mom and dad hit the slopes. Family-friendly climbing gyms are available indoors, and the whole clan can reunite for family-friendly apres ski when the slopes close. Evening activities are also available, as well as summer camp programs.