Known for its Champagne Powder, Steamboat Ski Resort is tucked up in Colorado’s Park Range Mountains. For years, skiers have enjoyed the bounty of fresh tracks in the Mahogany Ridge and Fish Creek Canyon sidecountry terrain. In the 2023/2024 season, Steamboat added 650+ acres of sidecountry terrain within the ski area boundary.
After a season of integrating the extreme terrain, ski patrol at Steamboat has implemented big changes for the 2024/2025 season. Steamboat has now made improvements to the map and signage for the Mahogany Ridge and Fish Creek Canyon terrain. The new map will feature refined trail names for more efficient communication between skiers and ski patrol. Ski Patrol Director Jon Feiges made a statement to Steamboat Pilot & Today regarding the recent changes to the map and signage. Feiges explained that the reason for changing the existing names of the zones was because they were not descriptive enough to help patrol differentiate the location of individuals. During the previous season, it became clear that people were becoming confused about their location because some zones were very large and did not have separate names, which did not align with the historical names. The team learned some lessons from the previous season and decided to make changes to avoid confusion.
The updated map welcomes the addition of three runs, Nostrils, Granola Bowl, and Bird’s Beak which are all double black diamond runs. The names of each run were curated by skiers who frequented the terrain when it was outside of ski area boundaries and Steamboat ski patrol. Nostrils, a small chute resembles two nostrils with a rock separating the two. Feiges told Steamboat Pilot & Today, Granola Bowl is “where the hippies used to hang out,”.
The extreme terrain doesn’t come without a bit of effort. Bird’s Beak is where skiers start the 30-minute hike out, as well as where ski patrol can access on snowmobiles in case of rescue.
Aside from the name changes, the visual orientation of the map was updated to more accurately reflect the terrain. For example, the terrain was redesigned to appear steeper on the map for better visualization of the extreme terrain. The hike to the top of the expansion area was also tweaked to better resemble the five to 15-minute hike.
The expansion area saw a good amount of skier traffic last season and Steamboat anticipates the terrain to gain more popularity as people get more comfortable navigating the zone. The expansion area is expected to open in late January once the snow coverage is sufficient.
