Copper Mountain – Forget the hassle of clicking into skis or strapping into snowshoes. A growing number of Colorado vacationers are seeking out an easier on-mountain thrill: tubing.
“We love it because it’s something we can all do together without getting hurt,” Kathleen Miller of Westminster said as she and her kids stood in line Saturday at the Coca-Cola Tubing Hill at Copper Mountain. The family of four spent $160 for two hours of tubing.
Tubing is one of the fastest-growing snow sports nationally, with the average number of visits last year up 6.7 percent over the 2002-03 season, to 21,675 people per resort, according to the National Ski Area Association.
The total number of skiers and snowboarders grew 2.3 percent during the same time, to 58.9 million people in the U.S. last winter, according to the Lakewood-based NSAA.
Of Colorado’s 26 ski resorts, about one-third offer tubing, including Telluride Ski Resort, Vail, Durango Mountain Resort and Steamboat Ski Resort. There also are independent tubing parks, like the 34-year-old Fraser Tubing Hill.
“It definitely increases in popularity each year,” said Sean Tannehill, mountain-services manager at Telluride. “There are families that literally plan their vacations on whether or not the tubing hill is open.”
Prices range from $5 at Durango to $22 per hour at Copper and Vail during peak season. Copper said it has experienced annual growth in the low teens since its tubing hill opened in 1997.
Rocky Mountain resorts that offer the amenity saw an average of 29,501 tubers last winter, according to the NSAA.
While that doesn’t compare with the more than 1 million skiers and snowboarders that many Colorado destination resorts see annually, tubing is viewed as an amenity that attracts families.
“We do it at every resort we go to,” said Don Pruett of Tiburon, Calif., who also was tubing with his two sons at Copper last weekend. “It’s just a nice way to break up the ski vacation.”
The sport is enticing from a business standpoint because tubing hills are relatively inexpensive to install and maintain compared with the cost of adding new ski lifts or expanding terrain.
And because most tubing hills stay open until at least 8 p.m., they provide another revenue stream after the lifts shut down for the day.
“It has become an incredibly important revenue generator for resorts,” said NSAA president Michael Berry. “It’s an easy way to make money.”
Colorado resorts have recognized the growing demand. This winter, Beaver Creek began offering free kids’ tubing one night per week as part of a new focus on family programming. Winter Park Resort plans to install two tubing hills as part of its new base village.
“We think it will add value to the family experience at Winter Park,” said Winter Park spokesman Matt Sugar.
Smaller resorts Monarch Mountain and Eldora Mountain say they would like to add the activity but are stymied by space constraints.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to do it in the future, but because of our limited parking, it could hurt us financially right now on busy days,” said Monarch spokesman Greg Ralph. “I’d hate to give up a $49 lift ticket for a $12 tubing ticket.”
Staff writer Julie Dunn can be reached at 303-954-1592 or jdunn@denverpost.com.
