Aspen Has Its Allure, but This Is An Ode to Carbondale, Colorado

We don’t have this where I come from.

And I’m not talking about the caviar app at the on-mountain restaurant or the celebrity snowplowing down the main groomer. For once, the conversation about this town isn’t about Don Henley or Prince Bandar’s homes–abodes whose price tags equal a decent chunk of a small country’s GDP.

We’re talking about Aspen, and we’re actually talking about skiing.

My wife and I are making turns off of the Deep Temerity lift at Aspen Highlands on a beautiful, if bony, February day. And there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Rocks and stumps randomly emerge from the steep face; rollovers are almost assuredly bare on their sun-facing sides. Not only is the company sublime, but the skiing is exciting, even scary at times, especially with the lack of coverage.

We sneak around on a weekend of adventure, looking for good skiing. And we find it in abundance on Aspen’s steep slopes, where we make bounding jump turns directly down the fall line, hooting as our sluff follows us, all subject to the beautiful force that is gravity.

Aspen indeed has a certain renown, and not for no reason. The skiing is fantastic. Our hike to Highlands Bowl later that day was sweaty, aesthetic, and a hell of a ski. Boxes; checked. The day before at Ajax (now called Aspen Mountain), we skied alongside local tele rippers in the enchanting Hero’s area, a collection of glades and chutes that elicit the terrain of Taos, even Jackson Hole.

The other side of the Aspen experience does have its own allure. The ubiquitous stretch pants sported by more than a few taut backsides have a certain appeal, no matter how little–or how poorly–the wearer usually skis. And the on-mountain DJ parties could stir even the crustiest old salt to dancing. 

But the pretension endemic to Aspen unavoidably creeps in. It’s in the designer houndstooth jackets packing the lift lines. It smacks you in the teeth reading the menu at Cloud 9 at Highlands, where the ostentation of $785 dollar menu items collides with the "communal table" set aside for us plebeians who arrive without a reservation. It constantly fills the air, even where the din of private jet traffic rivals that of DIA's runways. 

But perhaps most acutely, it’s seen in the separate spheres of experience; the eye roll that comes from requesting the lunch menus at a nice restaurant that actually offers one. It’s in the fabric of a ski town that caters first and foremost to the highest echelon while indirectly offering the common Ikon Pass holder a strange, voyeuristic, opulence-adjacent experience.

The skiing at Aspen is great, but what about the rest? 

To that, I say: thank God for Carbondale.

The red rocks and modesty of Aspen’s down valley sister offers no skiing. And the soaring real estate prices of the working-class bedroom community are confounding, perhaps pointing to a muddier reality, but Carbondale nonetheless offers an antidote to The Silver City of the West’s faux-sparkle, where, for us skiers, that’s perhaps all Aspen really grants. 

Basking under the towering Mount Sopris, the area that would become Carbondale was long the seasonal hunting grounds of several bands of Ute Native Americans. 1879 would prove a pivotal and disastrous year for the Utes, and would presage in grave reality a land that would from then on grapple with the spoils of opulence. That year, silver ore was discovered in the hills around what would become Aspen. And in September, to the north, Nathan Meeker and several others of the White River Agency would be killed by Utes whom Meeker had forced to abandon their traditional way of life.

Subsequently, the Utes were forcibly removed from the area, and all of Western Colorado.

Carbondale sprang to life from that thorny reality as a potato- and cattle-growing community in the late 1880s, before coal became the main economic driver by mid-century.

But something strange was already afoot in nearby Aspen, where notables and strong skiers were flocking in number to the successful mining town turned nascent skiing destination. Soon, Aspen’s success would become something of a liability.

By the late 1970s, the town constructed its initial subsidized affordable housing complex, amongst the first in the West. Not ten years later would the average cost of a single-family home in the town of Aspen crest $1 million.

Thus, Carbondale became a place where those who worked and played in Aspen could actually afford to live. And while the town has lately become a second-home destination and expensive place to put down roots in its own right, it still offers a brilliant glimmer of light amidst the megalithic shadow of Aspen’s snootiness.

The night my wife and I got to town, we made our way over to the downtown area, a small sprawl of old stone buildings housing galleries, coffee shops, and restaurants. For dinner, we had been recommended Phat Thai, and we waltzed in just after eight. 

The joint was lively, loud, dimly lit, and wonderful. The only spot for two was at the end of the bar’s shared table, but this was no adjunct like at Cloud 9; this was the true commons.

The women we sat next to were sharing dinner and a laugh. The one sitting next to me self-effacingly apologized for spilling her water with a flailing right hand while excitedly telling a story.

The table over—an octet of galentine’s day revelers—cackled and howled over jokes and memories. Entrees were $25. Aesthetic, genuine, fun, and affordable? Boxes, again, checked.

One thing you can’t do in Carbondale is ski, but, perhaps for people of a certain disposition—perhaps for most of us—that might be the only thing you can do in Aspen.

For everything else? You’ll find it down valley, in a little place they call Carbondale.

About The Brave New World of Skiing Column

This article was written by POWDER writer Jack O’Brien for his bi-weekly ‘Brave New World of Skiing’ column. Click below to read the previous column, ‘The Cognitive Dissonance of Resort Touring'.