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VacationLodgingNetwork.com is a network of vacation homes, condos, cabins, and hotels offered as vacation rentals by professional management companies and property owners in Winter Park and other areas. Find Winter Park Lodging; search the network checking availability and pricing on your initial search. You can book online, or contact the manager or owner directly to reserve or ask questions. You will also find an entertainment guide for Winter Park.

Winter Park, Colorado

Winter Park is in Grand County, Colorado, United States.  Winter Park is home to the Winter Park Resort, a well-known ski resort which is owned by the City and County of Denver and managed by Intrawest. The Winter Park town and resort are served by the Ski Train of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW).

Winer Park, Colorado also has abundant cross-country skiing opportunities, including Devil's Thumb Ranch. In the spring and summer, Winter Park is known for mountain biking, concerts, hiking and fishing.

Winter Park History -  Winter Park began as two small settlements, Old Town and Hideaway Park. Old Town came into existence because of the construction taking place on the Moffat Tunnel. Hideaway Park was a village that began in 1932 and quickly developed into the fourth town in the valley. Hideaway Park was developed and built by L.O. "Doc" Graves, a merchant in the valley since 1922. Doc began by building 26 tourist cabins and a cafe and service station called "Doc's Place." He also installed a water wheel on Vasquez Creek to generate all the electricity necessary to operate his business. The village grew rapidly, considering that the entire country was in the depth of a serious depression at that time. The construction of a water tunnel parallel to the existing Moffatt railroad tunnel had a positive effect on the local economy. Over a stretch of two years, the village added three more businesses — a saloon, a garage, and a nightclub — and nearly doubled in population.

On August 1, 1978 the town was founded and became Winter Park. In 1980 Winter Park grew again incorporating the West Portal Village. The West Portal Village became the home of the Mary Jane Base and various other buildings at the resort such as the Iron Horse Resort.

Winter Park Resort

Winter Park Resort is an alpine ski resort in Winter Park, Colorado in the Rocky Mountains. Located just off U.S. Highway 40, the resort is about an hour and a half's drive from Denver, Colorado.

The mountain opened for the 1939–1940 season as Winter Park Ski Area and was owned and operated by the city and county of Denver until 2002, when Denver entered into a partnership with Intrawest ULC, a Canadian corporation headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, which has operated the resort since then. One popular way for Denver residents — many of whom have learned to ski or snowboard at Winter Park over the years — to get there is via the Ski Train, which arrives at the resort's base area though the Moffatt Tunnel. It is home to one of the world's largest and oldest disabled skiing programs, the National Sports Center for the Disabled.

The resort consists of three interconnected mountain peaks — Winter Park, Mary Jane, and Vasquez Ridge — which share a common lift ticket. Mary Jane, opened in 1975, has a separate base area and is known for its moguls, tree skiing, hidden huts and generally more difficult terrain. It encompasses the above-tree line terrain of Parsenn Bowl. Vasquez Ridge, opened in 1986, offers intermediate terrain and mogul runs. In 1997, 435 acres (1.76 km²) of backcountry terrain in Vasquez Cirque were opened to skiing, although access required hiking from the top of Mary Jane; the 2006 relocation of the former Outrigger triple chairlift to the Cirque provides lift access to much of that terrain.

Since taking over operation of the resort, Intrawest has made several changes to the mountain's infrastructure, renovating the food services in the West Portal base lodge, opening new lifts in 2005 and 2006, and publicly announcing plans for a new base village to include hundreds of new condominiums, a parking structure, a "Village Pond," and a "family swim center," all accessible via a new open-air gondola to be known as "The Cabriolet." However, while this change has been great for the economic development of the town and the resort, it has also been a threat to the existing historic resort base. The historic Balcony House remains under constant threat of demolition. This historic building was designed in the Googie style of architecture, which was a popular style in the 1940s to the 1960s. This building is a standing memory to the original history of Winter Park.

In an attempt to make Winter Park into a year-round resort, Intrawest operates the lifts during the summer months for mountain biking. The Arrow chairlift also services an alpine slide in the summer, and the base area features miniature golf, a climbing wall, and other diversions. While the Winter Park area is also a popular destination for golf, there are no golf courses located at, or operated by, the resort itself.

Elevation

• Base: 9,000 ft (2,700 m)
• Summit: 12,060 ft (3,680 m)
• Vertical rise: 3,060 ft (930 m)

• Skiable area: 3,060 acres (12.38 km²)
• Trails: 143 total (9% beginner, 34% intermediate, 57% advanced/expert)
• Average annual snowfall: 365 in (9 m)

Lifts

25 total (manufacturer, year installed)

• 1 high speed eight person cabriolet gondola
  • Village Cabriolet (Leitner-Poma, 2008)
• 2 high-speed detachable six-passenger chairlift:
  • Super Gauge Express (@Mary Jane)
  • Panoramic Express (@Mary Jane)
• 7 high-speed detachable quad chairlifts:
• • Eskimo Express (Poma, 1999)
  • Gemini Express (Poma, 1993)
  • High Lonesome Express (Poma, 1991)
  • Olympia Express (Poma, 1996)
  • Pioneer Express (@Vasquez Ridge) (Poma, 1986)
  • Prospector Express (Poma, 1994)
  • Zephyr Express (Poma, 1990)
• 4 triple chairlifts:
  • Arrow (Yan, 1977)
  • Eagle Wind (Yan, installed 2006; former Outrigger chair)
  • Endeavour (Poma, 1993)
  • Sunnyside (@Mary Jane) (CTEC, 1989)
• 7 double chairlifts
  • Challenger (@Mary Jane)
  • Discovery (Heron-Poma, 1984)
  • Galloping Goose (@Mary Jane) (Heron-Poma, 1975)
  • Iron Horse (@Mary Jane) (Heron-Poma, 1975)
  • Looking Glass (Riblet, 1965)
  • Pony Express (@Mary Jane) (Heron-Poma, 1975)
• 3 surface lifts:
  • Apollo
  • Lariat handle tow (Poma, 2002)
  • Spirit platter pull (Poma, 2004)
• 3 conveyor lifts:
  • Children's Center magic carpet
  • Comet magic carpet
  • Meteor magic carpet

*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License . It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Winter Park Resort" and  Wikipedia article "Winter Park, Colorado".

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