Monarch Ski and Snowboard Area is a

ski resort A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area – a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In N ...

located in the state of

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. It is twenty miles (32 km) west of

Salida, Colorado The City of Salida ( ; Spanish: , "exit") is the Statutory city that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Chaffee County, Colorado, United States. The population was 5,666 at the 2020 census. History A post office has bee ...

, on U.S. Highway 50. The resort is situated on

Monarch Pass Monarch Pass (elevation ) is a high mountain pass in central Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains of the western United States. Location and basic details The pass is located on the Continental Divide at the southern end of the Sawatch Range along ...

at the

continental divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, no ...

. It has 54 trails, two terrain parks, and an extreme terrain area called Mirkwood. The Monarch Mountain Lodge is located three miles (5 km) east of the ski area in the town of Garfield, Colorado. Monarch is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. from mid-November to early April. Monarch Ski Area is named after Monarch Pass and the associated Monarch Mountain. Monarch pass and Monarch Mountain themselves are named after the 19th-century town Monarch, which was razed by the

CDOT CDOT may refer to: *\cdot – the LaTeX input for the dot operator (⋅) *Cdot, a rapper from Sumter, South Carolina * Centre for Development of Telematics, India *Chicago Department of Transportation * Clustered Data ONTAP, an operating system fr ...

to make way for

US Route 50 U.S. Route 50 or U.S. Highway 50 (US 50) is a major east–west route of the U.S. Highway system, stretching from Interstate 80 (I-80) in West Sacramento, California, to Maryland Route 528 (MD 528) in Ocean City, Maryland, on the Atlantic O ...

History

Monarch first opened in 1939, with one rope tow running up the run named Gunbarrel: a long, steep, heavily-moguled run on the south side of the area. The tow rope was powered by a Chevy engine when it was first opened. Monarch has been owned and sold many times and is currently owned by many separate parties, none owning more than 25%.

Ski School

A Sprung building was built in 2007 to be the new home for the ski school and rental shop. The ski school offers lessons for all ages and abilities in all three disciplines (ski, snowboard, and telemark). All equipment needed for the three disciplines are available for rental on-site. The rental shop also has tune-ups and waxing.

Terrain parks

{{Unsourced, section, date=March 2019 The run formerly known as ''Slo-Motion'' was developed into the ''K2 terrain park'' in 2008. It is composed of all-natural features, including logs, stumps, and jumps. The run can be used by anyone, even if they have no intent of using any of the features. It is next known as the ''Never Summer terrain park''. As of 2021 it is now known as Steel City. There is a small park at the base of the panorama double chairlift called Tilt.

Snow Cat

Monarch Cat Skiing offers 1,635 acres of diverse expert terrain featuring wide open bowls, steep chutes, beautiful glades and tree skiing.

External links

Ski Monarch

Ski areas and resorts in Colorado Buildings and structures in Chaffee County, Colorado Tourist attractions in Chaffee County, Colorado