Keystone
Keystone Ski Resort is an extremely popular ski destination located in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, in the town of Keystone. Since 1997 the resort has been owned and operated by Vail Resorts. It consists of three mountains – Dercum Mountain, North Peak, the Outback – and five Bowls offering skiing at all levels. Many area ski trips will also include its neighbors Breckenridge and Vail Ski Resorts. The resort is less than 2 hours away from Denver International Airport, making it an easy spot for seasoned skiers to get to.
Keystone is known for its impressive and powdery snowfall, averaging around 300 inches per season. The ski season at Keystone typically runs from mid-November into early April.
Keystone also offers a variety of lodging options, including ski-in/ski-out condos, hotels and vacation homes, as well as a variety of dining options, and après-ski activities. Keystone Resort does not offer night skiing, but does have tubing and terrain parks.
We recently ranked all of Colorado's ski resorts, so you can see where Keystone stacks up against all its nearby ski hills!
Season Passes
Keystone is a part of the Epic Ski Pass network. This allows you to buy one season pass, and ski at most of the Vail owned and operated slopes with it throughout the year. There are a handful of types of Epic lift ticket passes available, ranging from 3-7 days, to season-long.
Lodging Options
There are numerous options to stay at Keystone around the resort. Check out the available options with the form below.
Keystone Mountain Resort Terrain Overview
Keystone has a total of 130 ski trails, which are serviced by 20 ski lifts, gondolas and/or trams. The amount of skiable area in this park is huge, with a maximum of 3,149 acres available to skiers. This area is equivalent to 1,274 hectares, 4.9 square miles, or 12.7 square kilometers.
Keystone's slopes see on average 235 inches (6.0 meters) of snowfall a year. That is almost 19 feet every year!
Total Runs
130
Lifts
20
Skiable Acres
3,149(13 km2)
Annual Snowfall
235"(597 cm)
Keystone Ski Resort Elevation
Keystone Ski Resort has a summit elevation of 12,408 feet, or 3,782 meters. However, not all of that elevation is able to be skied. The base of the ski slope sits at 9,280 feet above sea level, creating a ski hill that is 3,128 feet (953 meters) high. This is referred to as the slope's vertical drop - or a measure of how high the skiable hill is.
The summit of 12,408 feet makes this ski resort one of the highest in the country. The average ski slope summit is around 4,000 feet, so this is extremely high compared to its peers.
Summit Elevation
12,408'(3,782 m)
Vertical Drop
3,128'(953 m)
Base Elevation
9,280'(2,828 m)
Keystone Ski Resort Difficulty Level
Difficulty Score™
76out of 100
DID YOU KNOW?
At Parks & Trips, we've created a proprietary Difficulty Score that attempts to show how difficult a particular ski slope is. We get to this number by combining a number of metrics for each resort and comparing them to its peers. Most of the score is based off the amount of easy-intermediate-expert slopes by acreage and the maximum vertical drop of the overall resort, but also includes a few lesser-used metrics as well.
Our algorithm compares each resort’s metrics with all others in North America, then assigns each a Difficulty Score, which we use to rank them accordingly. Resorts with a lower score are easier to ski than those with a higher one. However, a high score does not mean that the resort does not have any easy slopes, or vice versa. This is just an overall score given to the resort based on all its metrics grouped together.
Skiable Terrain by Difficulty Level
Keystone has 3,149 total skiable acres, which can be broken down into the three main groups of difficulty: Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert.
Seeing as Keystone is one of the hardest ski areas in the country, it's no surprise that over 88% of its trails rated as either intermediate or expert-level. This leaves only 12% of its skiable acres as beginner terrain.
Beginner
12%(378 acres)
Beginner trails (identified by a green circle) are the easiest trails on the hill with a gradual 25% or less gradient, and are usually wide to accommodate beginner skiers.
Intermediate
39%(1,228 acres)
Intermediate trails (identified by a blue square) are usually the most popular and crowded runs, which have a slope of anywhere between 25-40%.
Expert
49%(1,543 acres)
Expert trails (identified by a black diamond... or two) are the hardest slopes on the mountain, and have very steep gradients over 40%.
Is Keystone Ski Resort good for beginners?
This is one of the hardest ski areas in the country to ski at, so it is not great for beginners. Keystone Ski Resort ranks in the top 10% of the most-difficult ski resorts in the country. It has 49% of its trails rated as expert, or black-diamond level.
Keystone Ski Resort Location
Keystone Ski Resort is located in the state of Colorado, USA. This ski area is nearest the town of Dillon, CO.
Address:
Dillon, CO 80435 USA
View on Google Maps
Website:
keystoneresort.com
GPS Coordinates:
39.60000, -105.95000
Getting to Keystone Mountain Resort
By Car: If you are driving, you would set your GPS to either the ski resort's name (Keystone Ski Resort), its coordinates of 39.60000, -105.95000 (latitude, longitude), or simply drive towards the town of Dillon, CO to get close.
By Air: If you are coming in from across the country, then you may need to board an airplane to get here.
A large airport has scheduled major airline service with millions of passengers per year. This type of airport always accepts international flights. Here are the closest large airport(s) to Keystone Ski Resort.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denver International Airport | DEN | Denver, CO | 70 mi |
A medium-sized airport has scheduled regional airline service. This type of airport may or may not accept international flights. Here are the closest medium-sized airport(s) to Keystone.
| Name | Code | City | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eagle County Regional Airport | EGE | Eagle, CO | 52 mi |
| Aspen-Pitkin Co/Sardy Field | ASE | Aspen, CO | 55 mi |
| City of Colorado Springs Municipal Airport | COS | Colorado Springs, CO | 86 mi |
There may also be much smaller regional airports next to Keystone Ski Resort, but we didn't list them here due to the fact that no major airlines go through them.
Other Nearby Ski Resorts
Skiers will - especially if coming from far away - try and visit a couple different slopes all in the same trip. Here are the closest other ski slopes within 100 miles of Keystone Ski Resort.
| Name | Location | Summit | Difficulty Score™ | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loveland Ski Area | Dillon, CO | 13,010 ft | 65% | 6 mi |
| Breckenridge | Breckenridge, CO | 12,998 ft | 85% | 9 mi |
| Copper Mountain | Frisco, CO | 12,441 ft | 72% | 15 mi |
| Vail | Vail, CO | 11,570 ft | 79% | 22 mi |
| Winter Park Resort | Winter Park, CO | 12,060 ft | 87% | 22 mi |
| Echo Mountain Resort | Idaho Springs, CO | 10,650 ft | 28% | 24 mi |
| Ski Granby Ranch | Granby, CO | 9,202 ft | 32% | 24 mi |
| Ski Cooper | Leadville, CO | 11,700 ft | 56% | 25 mi |
| Beaver Creek | Beaver Creek, CO | 11,440 ft | 64% | 31 mi |
| Eldora | Nederland, CO | 10,600 ft | 50% | 31 mi |
| Aspen Mountain Ski Resort | Aspen, CO | 11,212 ft | 62% | 54 mi |
| Aspen Highlands Ski Resort | Aspen, CO | 11,675 ft | 78% | 56 mi |
| Aspen Ski Resorts | Snowmass Village, CO | 12,510 ft | 74% | 60 mi |
| Aspen Snowmass | Snowmass Village, CO | 12,510 ft | 68% | 60 mi |
| Buttermilk | Larkspur, CO | 9,900 ft | 34% | 61 mi |
| Arapahoe Basin Ski Area | Dillon, CO | 13,050 ft | 81% | 62 mi |
| Bluebird Backcountry | Kremmling, CO | 9,845 ft | 60% | 64 mi |
| Crested Butte | Crested Butte, CO | 12,162 ft | 77% | 75 mi |
| Sunlight Mountain | Glenwood Springs, CO | 9,895 ft | 66% | 75 mi |
| Monarch | Salida, CO | 11,952 ft | 53% | 76 mi |
| Howelsen Hill Ski Area | Seamboat Springs, CO | 7,136 ft | 46% | 77 mi |
| Cranor Hill Ski Area | Gunnison, CO | 7,000 ft | 0% | 86 mi |
| Steamboat | Clark, CO | 10,568 ft | 79% | 98 mi |
Keystone Ski Resort Mountain Stats
| Name | Statistic |
|---|---|
| Summit Elevation | 12,408 ft |
| Base Elevation | 9,280 ft |
| Vertical Drop | 3,128 ft |
| Trails | 130 (12% Beginner, 39% Intermediate, 49% Expert) |
| Lifts | 20 |
| Skiable Acres | 3,149 |
| Avg. Annual Snowfall | 235 inches |