AVON — Forget the Chinese New Year. For skiers and snowboarders, February 2015 marks the Year of the Beav.
‘s 34th year is likely to be its biggest yet. The stage is set for the Feb. 2-15, and while the hashtag reads #Vail2015, it’s Beaver Creek that’s trending.
Ever since the International Ski Federation (FIS) awarded the Vail Valley its third world championships four years ago, Beaver Creek Resort began preparing for this moment. Starting with a new, high-speed quad chairlift in the popular Rose Bowl area of the mountain in 2011, the ski area followed up with construction of a new women’s downhill and super-G race course that added 17 acres of terrain with a new trail known as Kestrel in 2012.
The complete women’s speed course, called Raptor, opened to on race day, but it’s the general skiing public that will reap the benefits for years to come. The same holds true of investments in improved snowmaking, a 17,000-square-foot on-mountain restaurant known as Talons that will serve as the press center and a state-of-the-art high-speed combination gondola/chairlift that debuted in November.
The new lift, still known as Centennial Express, increases uphill capacity by 35 percent and carries 3,400 people per hour by alternating between six-passenger open-air chairs and 10-person gondola cabins in the heart of Beaver Creek Village, where the former quad lift used to be. Among the ski area’s 24 lifts, total uphill capacity is now 44,264 people per hour.
But most folks don’t visit Beaver Creek for the uphill. Vail’s kid sister ski area has almost quadrupled in size since opening in 1980 and matured into a 1,832-acre ski area offering 3,340 feet of downhill relief that stands on its own.
Much of the mountain’s reputation has been built around the Birds of Prey downhill course, considered among the top challenges on the World Cup race circuit. And that reputation is likely to grow when an anticipated 700 athletes from more than 70 nations are displayed to an international television audience of 750 million people. While Vail will serve as the hub for World Championship ceremonies and festivities, Beaver Creek is where the actual racing will take place.
But the ski area was designed long before it ever hosted a ski race (Birds of Prey didn’t come online until the 1997 World Cup), and it’s the wide variety of terrain — 39 percent expert/advanced, 42 percent intermediate and 19 percent beginner — that has attracted fans of both racing and recreational skiing through the years.
“Beaver Creek is a ton of fun to ski. Just like its Birds of Prey track, the most well-rounded track on tour — it has everything, from flats to steeps, jumps, big air, small air, high speed, low speed,” said Steven Nyman, a U.S. Ski Team racer from Provo, Utah, who placed in early December.
From its origins as a lettuce farm to 1997 expansions into Bachelor Gulch Village and Arrowhead (in Edwards), Beaver Creek has fulfilled its destiny as Vail Resort co-founder Pete Seibert’s lesser-known dream. Renowned for its impeccable grooming and attention to detail, the ski resort routinely invents new ways to pamper its clients — whether its freshly baked chocolate chip cookies delivered daily to skiers as they exit the slopes, the “Buckaroo Gondola” dedicated to children and beginners or the new “powder refresh” snowmaking system on Gold Dust trail, one of Beaver Creek’s most heavily traveled slopes.
Whether or not it snows, skiers and snowboarders on Gold Dust are now greeted several days a week with fresh powder courtesy of 24 automated fan snow guns. The refresh process spreads a soft layer of man-made snow across the entire trail after groomers prepare fresh corduroy overnight.
Consider it another lesson learned from years of race hill preparation.
“Beaver Creek consistently sets the standard for hill preparation,” said Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety of Park City, Utah. “I’ve always loved this hill. It’s so much fun to ski. There is no hill on the World Cup that the snow is so good, consistently, year in and year out.”
Fans of a more wild snow experience will be happy to know that Beaver Creek’s 180-acre Stone Creek Chutes area — an ungroomed expert area with modest cliffs, glades and steeps of 45 degrees — saw one of its earliest openings this year since making it onto the trail map in 2006. The Beav’s original “EX” rated terrain at Royal Elk Glade also opened to skiers and snowboarders before Christmas, courtesy of more than 32 inches of snowfall last week.
Those areas, along with some 90 percent of the ski area, will remain open to recreational skiers and snowboarders throughout the 2015 world alpine ski championships. Race venues will reopen to the public soon after.
Scott Willoughby: swilloughby@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/swilloughby
