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by Charlie
Meyers
http://www.skimag.com/skimag/travel_rockies/article/0,12795,364899,00.html
In the
early-morning aftermath of a storm that closed roads all the way to Kansas, the promise
of fresh snow sends ripples of anticipation down the mountain. A
first-tracks queue coils out from the gondola like a serpent, growing
plumper by the minute.
A building sense of urgency vibrates through the lineup waiting to purchase
tickets at Keystone's River Run hub. Surveying the situation, a latecomer
slyly slithers forward, looking for just the right opening to move closer
to the window. "Pardon me mate, kin ah 'elp you find the right spot in
line?" says a bright-faced young man wearing a resort-issued gold-and-black
parka.
Taken aback, the miscreant mumbles something about a missing friend, then
sheepishly retreats to the end of the line. Murmurs of approval echo among
the throng. Order has been restored, and the sort of experience that gnaws
away the pleasures of many a ski day has been averted without so much as a
sharp word.
Gold
Parka's timely intervention is no accident. Neither is the accent, straight
from the South Island snowfields of New Zealand.
The Kiwi is among many friendly Southern Hemisphere recruits, part of a
program begun six years ago when the resort began soliciting international
conscripts. They help fill Keystone's courtesy patrol, an institution that
speaks volumes about the way the nation's third most popular ski resort
relates to its customers. Some resorts dazzle visitors with gnarly steeps
that punish the knees and gnaw at the psyche. Others soothe them with
gourmet lunches fit for Henry VIII. Keystone offers those, but kills 'em
with kindness. The resort has quietly tallied more than a million annual
skier visits for a decade, yet it's rarely mentioned during après tales of
valor and epic ski days.
Among those who
never have visited this resort tucked into southeastern corner of Colorado's ski-happy
Summit County, misconceptions about this
quiet giant abound. Because it lacks a central feature, either of terrain
or town, it comes off as some amorphous mass that's difficult to define.
While Keystone does have slopes worthy of glowing praise, the greater truth
is that the resort's essence is not something you can send home on a picture postcard. Rather it is a
nebulous collection of pleasures revolving around a central theme of
service, and it creates a loyalty unmatched by even the traditional pilgrimages
of steep freaks to Jackson Hole or powder
hounds to Alta.
The Legacy
When the owners of Vail and Beaver Creek completed a merger to acquire
Keystone and Breckenridge from food giant Ralston Purina in January 1997,
they tried to shoehorn the Summit
duo into the successful Vail mold. Then a funny thing happened. "It
took almost a year, but they realized we were very different entities with
equally different customers," says John Rutter, chief operations
officer and a 28-year Keystone veteran. "The conclusion was that we
could market a much more attractive and successful package by allowing each
to be different."
At Keystone, that
difference had been carved from nearly three decades of stability during
which Ralston proved it knew more than just how to make puppy chow. Purely
from an organizational perspective, that continuity can be traced today to
a sort of seven-headed managerial Mt. Rushmore,
which, in the ephemeral world of ski-resort executives, is as rare as
lace-up ski boots.
Rutter isn't even
the senior member of an administration that includes 30-year veteran Hank
Thiess, vice-president of resort operations, and 28-year anchor Barb
Brandt, who directs human resources. Steve Corneillier, once the marketing
VP and now supervisor of golf operations, arrived 27 years ago. Marketing
Director Margie Bootenhoff and food and beverage chief Doug Pierce rank as
newcomers at 25 years. A visitor soaking up Keystone's kindness might find
particular significance in the fact that Tim Patterson, vice president of
hospitality, also has been helping shape this feel-good resort for a
quarter-century.
"When I came
here, I kept referring to our visitors as skiers. I was informed they were
guests," Rutter explains. "We've developed a special culture with
a lot of chemistry and energy. In reality, it doesn't have as much to do
with how long you've been here as it does the atmosphere. It's contagious,
and it permeates every part of the operation."
The Layout
In a contest of adjectives, comfortable wins hands-down over extravagant at
a condo near the hub of River
Run Village.
Yet there is one attraction here that few resort rentals ever provide. From
a miniature balcony, a skier weary from a day on the slopes observes the
first twinkle of lights as the mountain prepares for Keystone's second
helping. Grooming machines have completed a second tour of duty, and
night-skiing is about to break out. The skier flexes his tired legs, looks
up again at the lights and then at the gondola humming a few yards away.
The temptation proves too much.
Where else can you
ski top-to-bottom 11 hours a day on one lift ticket? This careful
arrangement at bustling River
Run Village
notwithstanding, Keystone's larger silhouette reflects a sense of nature
rarely found at a resort. While Keystone features more base villages than
mountains, a total of four-five if you count nearby Dillon-much of the
infrastructure is tucked away in a dense pine forest. You won't need a
search party to find your condo, but a map comes in handy the first few
days.
Moving west to
east, you'll find the original 25-year-old Keystone Village, with its
landmark lodge, condos, restaurants and shops ringing a dramatic
ice-covered lake that sparkles a nightly welcome to skaters and strollers.
A shuttle ride away, the Mountain House Base Area harbors the original lift
network, along with the Inn at Keystone
and more shops.
Farther east, River
Run Village
more recently sprouted a thicket of lodges and shops in a development
carefully orchestrated to lend architectural and commercial balance to the
busy gondola portal. Size and location make River Run
Village the epicenter
of base activities. Yet it lacks the necessary anchor of a grand lodge or
hotel that might lend a sense of warmth and community. And its nightlife
certainly won't be confused with that of Vail or Whistler.
Scattered like pine
cones through a lodgepole forest, condo clusters form a consortium of more
than 1,600 units under spit-polish corporate command. Not many qualify as
the dazzling showcases that adorn brochure covers, but, on the other hand,
there's not a bad room in the bunch. A total of 5,346 pillows under a
central rental program ranks among the largest in the world.
Close by, but
distinctly separate, a confederation of lodges and shops along Highway 6,
called the Mountain View
Plaza, spins
tantalizingly beyond Keystone's central command. Snuggled into this mélange
is the Snake River Saloon, a raucous roadhouse that, despite the millions
spent elsewhere on fancy bistros, holds fiercely to the pulse of adult
amusement.
On a late Saturday
in January, a bartender sucks in a mouthful of 90-proof, gargles
forcefully, strikes a match and, to a wild chorus of approval, belches
flame up to the ceiling. The performance will not be repeated elsewhere in
the valley, any place, any time.
The Skiing
Standing at the crest of The Outback, a skier's legs suddenly feel more
like rubber than steel. The path before him plunges steeply through a dense
blanket of snow, a sweet invitation to romp and play. Quite literally, he
can see none of this for the trees: thick-set, ready to rip any missed turn
limb from limb. The routes through this minefield have names no one has
ever read before on a Keystone trail map, ominous titles like The Trap,
Timberwolf, Bushwhacker.
At an elevation of
more than 12,000 feet, rimmed by the sweep of the Continental Divide, a sense
of wildness seeps into the bones, a feeling much farther from the main
village than mere miles indicated on a chart. When Keystone opened the
300-acre Outback in 1990, it added a layer of muscle that any resort might
envy. That much of the ski world still remembers Keystone for the
warm-and-fuzzy softness of earlier decades only adds to the list of
confusions that hang on the place.
Years later, many
skiers and boarders with advanced abilities and egos to match haven't
granted themselves the discovery of The Outback or its even older adjunct,
North Peak, which opened in the mid-'80s. They've missed an amalgam of
steeps, bumps and trees with enough scope and variety to keep the knees
pumping for days-or at least until the time comes for a cycle of diversity
that might include nearby Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge (visible from a few
miles away) or even Vail, a 40-minute drive.
On a powder day,
adventurous skiers hike along a vaulting ridge beyond the Outback Express
quad to a place above the trees where unbroken snowfields spill down into
North and South bowls. They plunge through Wombat Chutes, Wasteland or
Southern Cross and find themselves not in Keystone, or Kansas, anymore. The Outback has been
called Colorado's
best-kept secret, and it still is today.
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The
new emotional and retail hub of the resort, River Run added the missing
ingredient to Keystone's village life: action. Photo by Brooks Freehill
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The Banquet
From the elevation of a gondola car, a sunset's fireworks bursting over the
crest of the Tenmile
Range alone prove
worth the ride. Wind-sculpted into centrifugal whorls, banks of clouds
capture the final rays in a fiery display that shifts from red to pink to
purple to gray. As the sunset fades, valley lights twinkle a greeting to
dusk, melting into a single, warm glow as the car rises into the night.
The light show
forms a proper prelude to a culinary achievement at a resort that
flourishes with food. For someone with a romantic bent-or maybe just a
simple craving for exquisite cuisine-a visit to the Alpenglow Stube stands
tall on any list of gastronomical events.
At 11,500 feet and
at the end of two gondola rides, the restaurant qualifies as the ultimate
in secluded hideaways-far in space and spirit from the resort bluster. Open
winter and summer, the Stube features a prix-fixe menu of European cuisine
with a New World twist.
Spectacular as it
is, Alpenglow Stube may not represent Keystone's finest dining experience.
That distinction belongs to Keystone Ranch, which, in the opinion of some
reviewers, ranks as the best restaurant in Colorado for its international menu of
game dishes and celebrated service. Equally elegant, the Garden Room offers
a varied menu highlighted by steaks and salads.
Diners searching
for the soul of Keystone invariably come to Ski Tip Lodge, a historic
marker whose central log building served as an 1880s stage stop. Maintained
as a rustic inn and a splendidly intimate restaurant with only nine tables,
the lodge provides a unique escape from the electronic assault of
telephones and TV. Nightcaps and cherry brûlée are served beside a rustic
fireplace where skiing pioneer Max Dercum, who first made the lodge his home 60 years ago, spent evenings planning the
resort that would become Keystone.
The Symbiosis
The most optimistic premise of any marriage holds that the union joins the
best resources of each partner. Keystone didn't wait long to learn the
benefit of the 1997 merger. "Vail immediately gave us a lot of
money," Rutter says.
The $70 million in
capital improvements purchased three high-speed quads and a second golf course,
and it doubled the size of the conference center, making it tops among ski
resorts. Slow to develop, the long-awaited River Run
Village showed only
two buildings at the time of the merger. With a new impetus from Vail
Resorts, and in partnership with Intrawest, the village quickly sprouted to
maturity and the resort's overall bed base effectively doubled. "We
also improved our snowmaking and grooming, which we thought was already
pretty good," Rutter says.
The connection
worked to a visitor's benefit in yet another important manner. For a
quarter century, Keystone managers lay awake nights puzzling how to keep
vacationers from being drawn to the powerful Vail magnet 35 miles to the
west. In a twinkling, this link to the mega-resort became a selling point.
Keystone's standard ticket package not only permits interchangeable visits
to Summit partners Breckenridge and Arapahoe Basin, it also includes a
one-day pass to either Vail or Beaver Creek-easily accessed via a $10
shuttle service. Skiers who purchase the popular five-resort Colorado Pass or the
three-resort Buddy
Pass also get bonus
days at Vail and Beaver Creek, with certain holiday restrictions.
The Goodies
"Because we own everything, we can give it away," Rutter explains
of Keystone's guest incentive program, which may be unprecedented in all of
snowsport. Conceived as a business plan to leverage the resort's
advantages, the Mountain Passport provides a rainbow of free activities for
visitors who stay at Keystone's lodges. The list of complimentary options
includes cross-country rentals and trail fees, figure skating clinics,
guided mountain tours, hockey clinics, horse-drawn sleigh rides, ice
skating, Nastar races, mini ski lessons, ski-tuning clinics, snowshoe
rentals, a boot diagnosis, wine tastings, yoga and night-skiing on the
evening of arrival.
For the families
who comprise much of Keystone's business, the highlight of the package is a
parental godsend called Kids Night Out. When adults dine at a Keystone
restaurant, kids enjoy free supervised entertainment and snacks at a
children's center.
It's Keystone's
constant vigilance to its customers that keeps 'em coming back. Part of
that vigilance is the realization that families don't like surprises. So a
major component of Keystone's appeal is consistency. The traditional
Keystone is always there for the many who love it: That ego-friendly cruise
in the park with the guarantee of endless snowmaking, the heart-pounding
steeps and trees of The Outback, the night-skiing, all the pampering and
more diversions than anyone can sample in a month.
Unlike those
resorts with a drop-dead, oh-my-god attraction, none of this plays well on
a brochure cover. But it sure keeps the regulars returning for more.
Keystone
Condo Rental Vacation Lodging
http://www.GreatrentalKeystone.com
Keystone Condo Rental 4br 4ba – Walk to lifts and more for your
Keystone Vacation Condo Rentals
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