The closest distance between Colorado State University and a ski resort is 69 miles to Eldora Mountain Ski Resort.
Branching out to the more well-known Colorado ski resorts, CSU is 156 miles from Vail, 138 miles from Breckenridge, 130 miles from Keystone and 123 miles from Arapahoe Basin, all of which are over two-hour drives from campus, yet the proximity to ski resorts is something CSU touts in its promotional materials.
“(Proximity to ski resorts) definitely was a contributing factor (for me coming to CSU),” third-year Bradley Hieber said. “I was looking at all schools that were, like, out here by the mountains.”
Hieber, originally from New Jersey, had been visiting Colorado for years before he moved to Colorado with his family before the start of his first year. For him, the distance to the slopes from campus was expected.
“I mean, it’s what I expected because I had been coming out here for years before I knew it would be, like, the three hours,” Hieber said. “I feel like out-of-state students definitely might think that the mountains in general are closer than (they are) because it’s a bit of a journey to get over there.”
Hieber’s time skiing has increased during college, especially when he drives to the slopes on the weekends and days off. But for some students who come to CSU with aspirations of skiing and struggle with the realities of the distance to the slopes, the SkiSU bus provides discounted rides to reach popular mountains nearby.
“Our main goal for the SkiSU bus is taking freshmen, other students and staff up to the mountains in a safe and sustainable way,” said McKenna Courtney, CSU senior and supervisor of the SkiSU program. “One goal there is to just make sure that everyone is getting up there safe and sound and cutting back on emissions (by providing rides) to people on campus.”
The SkiSU bus offers 12 trips a year up to mountains like Eldora, Arapahoe Basin and Copper Mountain.
“(We want to make sure) the freshmen have a way up because we know a lot of them, especially the out-of-state students, really want a chance to get up there, especially if they’ve never been there before, and we want to provide them with the transportation to get there,” Courtney said.
Through a partnership with the Alternative Transportation Fee Advisory Board, Parking & Transportation Services and the Associated Students of CSU, the SkiSU program is able to offer discounted bus ticket prices at $25 for students and $34 for faculty for each round trip.
The SkiSU bus service was started in 2017 by a group of students who partnered with PTS. Following a soft launch the first year with five trips to the mountains and sold-out buses, the program has expanded each year.
“We’ve found that more students are accessing the Ikon Pass location mountains,” Courtney said. “The student passes are a lot less expensive than the Epic Pass mountains, so that’s how we narrowed down our paths of preference for everybody. Since then, we’ve noticed a huge spike in popularity with the program.”
For the 2023-24 ski season, the SkiSU program has partnered with the CSU Snowriders to send two buses up to select mountains some weekends when the Snowriders are sponsoring events. Courtney said she hopes going forward, more buses can be sent up to mountains, as almost every trip is consistently sold out.
“Collaborating with other organizations on campus has been really important,” Courtney said. “We’ve been pretty successful so far in our partnership with the Snowriders, so potentially going and seeing if the CSU Freeride team needs transportation for any of their competitions that happen (or) approaching the Outdoor Club, who might want to try it as well.”
Going forward, Courtney said she hopes SkiSU can expand even further to serve students who are looking to ski.
“Just a lot of collaboration and more integration from the CSU community into this service is what this is going to lead toward,” Courtney said. “A lot of the buses this year sold out before the school year started, which is insane, so my hope is that we just have enough buses to get everyone up there and meet customer demand.”
Reach Allie Seibel at life@collegian.com or on Twitter @allie_seibel_.
