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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2021
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DENVERPOST.COM
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THE DENVER POST
Where to fly down a hill on a snow tube By Dan England Special to The Denver Post Rod Rodgers used the Fraser Tubing Hill for years before he started to work there clipping the ropes and sending kids back up the slope. The cowboy who owned the place, who most knew simply as John, charged $3 a ride. He’d opened the hill in 1971 mainly to attract customers for horseback rides, ice skating and crosscountry skiing.
“Then more and more people like us came to use the hill,” Rodgers said in a phone interview. “So he took the other things out and just did the tubing.” Fraser may be the oldest commercial tubing hill in Colorado. It’s hard to know for sure, but even when Rodgers began working there, in 1982, “there were tubing hills nowhere,” he said. But Fraser was probably the one that made tubing a feasible attraction. In 1991, Rodgers bought the place with his brother, Monte. “Fraser’s got quite the reputation,” Rodgers said. “I just think we are good at what we do.” Many ski resorts offer a tubing hill now. Other places that offer winter attractions have them as well, such as Saddleback Ranch in Steamboat and its “Yee-Haw” hill and Snow Mountain Ranch’s tubing hill in Winter Park. (Winter Park resort also offers one, making the area the Orlando of snow tubing.) “I think you’d be surprised how many folks have them,” said Chris Linsmayer, public affairs director with Colorado Ski Country USA, which lists 10 resorts with snow tubing on its website. “That’s a space the ski industry has really stepped into.” What Fraser offers is friendly but no frills service and tubes for rent in a building that, save for the orange paint, resembles your grandfather’s mountain shack deep. The prices have gone up to $25 for an hour, but those are comparable to other sites, especially the stiff competition next door provided by the Colorado Adventure Park. Colorado Adventure inspired a Hatfield-McCoy love affair be-
Snow tubers zoom down the hill at Frisco Adventure Park. Todd Powell, provided by Frisco Adventure Park
A group gets final tips before they head down the mountain at the Snowmass tubing hill. Jeremy Swanson, provided by Aspen Snowmass tween the two hills, and Rodgers admits that his competitor, with its updated buildings and amenities, hurt Fraser for a while. But last year was a good year, Rodgers said, as the pandemic inspired families to get outside for adventure. “Our hill is quite a bit bigger and steeper,” he noted. Indeed. These aren’t your neighborhood tubing hills, even if your childhood friends named one of them “Killer Hill” or something equally ridiculous. Fraser’s hills are fast and, yes, furious, which, along with the towing, inspires the amusement-park prices. “This is like a ride,” Rodgers said. “I compare it to Lakeside and Elitch’s.” Tubing hills have taken off in the last half-dozen years, Linsmayer said, as resorts look for ways to compete with each other by investing in experiences not related to skiing. It’s not enough to simply offer the most terrain, bowls or runs any longer. “When you’re with family or friends, some may not want to go skiing every single day,” Linsmayer said. “Not everyone in that group will necessarily want to go skiing at all.” Aspen opened a hill in 2014 at Snowmass, a resort viewed by the industry and customers as more family-friendly than its bougie
counterpart, Aspen Mountain. It accompanies a large ski school and a play center. “People come on vacation to ski and have the kids learn,” said Tucker Vest Burton. “But you know kids. It’s good to have options.” Much like Las Vegas resorts, ski places want to offer complete packages, Vest Burton said, to make it more of an experience. “As part of being a top destination, it’s an added thing,” Vest Burton said. “If you’re from New York, and you want to have the true winter destination experience, for some that’s just skiing, but for others it’s not.” Some resorts are so pleased with their tubing hills they see them as a main attraction. Monarch Mountain opened its tubing hill a couple of years ago and it has inspired some people to make their first visit to the ski area, said Scott Pressly, vice president of mountain operations. “We do have people to go tubing who wouldn’t be here otherwise,” Pressly said. “Our goal is maybe they will see the skiing and snowboarding, and maybe next time they will want to give that a try.” Last year, for instance, the park had record visitation in the tubing park, but the resort also had record numbers overall, another COVID-
19 influence. “We are all trying to grow and diversify our offerings,” Pressly said. “I think a large percentage of our guests are here to go tubing the first time. It’s not quite as scary to sit on a tube and slide as opposed to skiing.”
Tubing hills
This list doesn’t cover all the hills, but it’s a decent start. • Fraser Tubing Hill, $25 per hour, $30 for 90 minutes; frasertubinghill.com • Colorado Adventure Park, $25 per hour, $40 for double tube per hour; coloradoadventurepark.com • Snow Mountain Ranch, TBD, ymcarockies.org/Locations/SnowMountain-Ranch • Frisco Adventure Park, $32-$36 per hour, bit.ly/3vYZBTa • Copper Mountain, TBD, bit.ly/3BwnVNl • Echo Mountain, $29-$34 per hour, echomntn.com/tubing • Hesperus, TBD ($12 in 202021), ski-hesperus.com/tubing • Monarch Mountain, $24-$28 per hour (discounts for add-ons), $12-$14 ages 12 and under, skimonarch.com/tubing-park • Keystone Resort, $33-$48, bit.ly/3BxZBe7 • Purgatory, TBD, purgatory.ski/ activities/tubing • Snowmass, $44-$67 unlimited, aspensnowmass.com/visit/activities/winter/tubing • Vail, $50-$130, bit.ly/3GDm2Co • Winter Park, $34-$39 per hour, bit.ly/3jSXag8
