Deep discounts on mid-week private snowcats

Take advantage of the best backcountry ski conditions in Colorado and the U.S. and book a mid-week private snowcat for $2,000 with the San Juan Ski Company.

Since October, storms have been tracking south and the Southern San Juans have been hit with fresh powder on almost a weekly  basis. This weather pattern appears to be holding. And, since March typically brings the most snowfall to the San Juans, the next few weeks could be epic.

The snow is piling up and our prices are going down!  Offer is good Monday-Thursday. Private snowcats hold 10, taxes and fees apply. Trips cannot be booked online. Call 1.800.208.1780 for reservations.

SJSC has bragging rights to the best backcountry conditions in the state

It’s full-on winter conditions in the Southern San Juan Mountains!

The storm that blew in February 2nd just keeps on giving. Almost a foot of snow fell Thursday night, followed by four inches Friday; four more on Saturday and eight inches last night. And more snow is predicted this week.

In the past couple of weeks our area has received over four feet of snow.

Skiing has been phenomenal! Almost daily, however, we get calls from people inquiring if we are open. Of course we are! And conditions are great!

We might even have the snowcat skiing bragging rights to the deepest base and best snow in the state.

We started the season with one of the deeper snow packs in Colorado which allowed us to get our roads built before the dry spell, which was also accompanied by high winds and warm temps, hit the state and grounded all snowcat operations. This early snow also allowed us to open earlier than any other snowcat operation in the U.S. We ran several trips in December and after a brief halt in operations, started running trips the middle of January.

Whereas several Colorado snowcat companies are still struggling to build roads or aren’t open due to lack of snow, we are skiing in all of our zones – including alpine bowls and lower elevation trees.

If you are hungry for first tracks, now is the time to schedule a trip. And, as always, we guarantee untracked powder.

SJSC one of the only snowcat operations in the U.S. to open in December. However…

High Winds and Warm Temps Ruin Powder; SJSC Closes Till Snow Falls

By Carrie Rule

Our first trip of the year was December 24. We were gifted with great powder skiing.

As a young ski bum in Montana, dry spells during winter always led to adventure. I’d head north to Canada and follow the storms – getting face shots at Whitewater, Fernie and Red Mountain, hopping on helicopters at standby rates, or flying into BC backcountry huts for a week of power skinning and epic powder turns on glaciers. 

Other drought years took me to Colorado, Utah, California and even the Alps. 

Twenty years later, it’s not so easy for me to follow storms across North America. And fortunately, I don’t have to travel far to find powder, since skiing untracked lines (even weeks after the last storm) is just a snowcat ride away – until this week.

The Southern San Juans started the season with south tracking storms stacked one after another. By the middle of December, our area had one of the deepest snowpacks in the West. Since then, winds have blasted our snowcat terrain (even below tree line), warm temps have melted and consolidated the snowpack (as well as creating a killer crust), and no snow has fallen in almost three weeks. Despite this, the Southern San Juans still have one of the deeper snowpacks in Colorado.

Because of less-than-ideal ski conditions, we are not running any snowcat trips until it snows.