Steamboat Springs

A Working Ranch Town In The Yampa Valley That Has Sent More Athletes To The Winter Olympics Than Any Other Town In North America Close To A Hundred And Trademarked Both 'Ski Town U.S.A.' And The 'Champagne Powder' Its Snow Is Named For. · Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Steamboat is the Colorado ski town that never stopped being a ranch town, and the difference shows: cattle trucks on Lincoln Avenue, a rodeo through the summer, and a main street of actual shops rather than a pedestrian mall of boutiques. It has sent close to a hundred athletes to the Winter Olympics, more than any other town in North America, which is why it trademarked the name Ski Town U.S.A. The snow is the other trademark - Champagne Powder, a phrase coined here for the dry, light crystals the Park Range wrings out of Pacific storms - and it falls on a mountain famous for skiing between aspens rather than beside them. The town's own name came from a hot spring that chugged like a steamboat until railway blasting silenced it in 1908. The rest of the springs are still running, and the town has two places to sit in them - one in the middle of Lincoln Avenue and one up a dirt road in the forest that needs four-wheel drive in winter.

Lincoln Avenue, Steamboat Springs, Colorado, 80487, United States

A year-round town. The ski area runs from roughly late November to mid-April depending on snow, and the gondola also runs in summer for hikers and mountain bikers. Strawberry Park Hot Springs is open daily with an unpaved access road that requires four-wheel drive or chains in winter; Old Town Hot Springs in town is open daily year-round. Howelsen Hill and its ski jumps operate in winter. The rodeo runs weekly through summer.

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