Buttermilk
Four mountains, one silver-boom town, and America's most storied ski culture.
Difficulty mix
On the mountain
- 10.2 km cross-country trails
Bonvo Score breakdown
Computed from mapped terrain data — no editorial opinion, no pay-to-rank. How the score works
Skiing Aspen Snowmass, told properly
Aspen was a silver-mining boomtown of 1880s opera houses and grand hotels before the crash of 1893 nearly emptied it — then skiing arrived after World War II, when 10th Mountain Division veterans returned to the valleys they'd trained in. Aspen Mountain opened in 1946 with what was then the world's longest chairlift, and the town reinvented itself as America's definitive ski resort: equal parts athletic, intellectual and glamorous, home to the Aspen Institute and a music festival as famous as its moguls.
The skiing spreads across four distinct mountains on one pass. Aspen Mountain (Ajax) rises straight from downtown with relentless expert terrain and zero green runs; Aspen Highlands is the connoisseur's hill, crowned by the hike-to Highland Bowl at 12,392 ft; Buttermilk is the gentle learning mountain that doubles, improbably, as the permanent home of the Winter X Games; and Snowmass is the giant, with more than 4,400 ft of vertical and terrain for every human alive.
Après ranges from champagne on sun decks to dive-bar shot-and-beer — often on the same block. No American resort mixes high and low culture with such confidence.
Signature runs
Highland Bowl
A 30–45 minute ridge hike from the top lift opens 270 acres of steep, perfect pitch — the best inbounds bowl in Colorado.
Walsh's (Aspen Mountain)
Ajax's signature double-black shot toward the valley — steep, fast and in full view of the gondola.
Hanging Valley Wall (Snowmass)
Snowmass's wild side — cliffs, glades and powder stashes far from the groomer highways.
Big Burn (Snowmass)
A vast, open intermediate face born of an 1879 forest fire — cruising at its most expansive.
Local tips
- Free snowcat tows run to Highland Bowl's gate on busy days — save your legs for the descent.
- Ride the Silver Queen Gondola at Ajax and ski the Ridge of Bell moguls when the sun softens them mid-morning.
- Buttermilk in January = X Games; go watch the superpipe finals free under the lights.
- The Highlands' Cloud Nine cabin lunch is legendary — and legendarily rowdy by 2 pm; book the early seating.
Good to know
- Aspen Mountain opened in 1946 with Lift-1, then the longest chairlift in the world.
- Buttermilk has hosted the Winter X Games every year since 2002 — the longest X Games residency ever.
- Aspen's 1880s silver mines briefly made it one of the richest towns in the American West before the 1893 crash.
Slope-by-slope analysis
Every run measured from elevation-aware map geometry: true length, vertical drop, average gradient and a 0–10 slope score that rewards long, sustained descents.
| Run | Difficulty | Length | Vertical | Avg grade | Slope score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homestead Road | Easy | 4.7 km | 593 m | 12.6% | 6.8 |
| Red's Rover | Beginner | 2.3 km | 357 m | 15.6% | 4.2 |
| Big Face Hollow | Intermediate | 1.7 km | 356 m | 20.9% | 4.1 |
| Sterner Catwalk | Easy | 1.7 km | 202 m | 12.2% | 2.9 |
| Buckskin | Intermediate | 1.4 km | 286 m | 20% | 3.5 |
| Oregon Trail (To Tiehack) | Beginner | 1.4 km | 91 m | 6.5% | 1.9 |
| Racer's Edge | Advanced | 1.3 km | 364 m | 28.4% | 4.3 |
| Ptarmigan | Intermediate | 1.2 km | 297 m | 25.8% | 3.8 |
| Camp Bird | Intermediate | 1.1 km | 247 m | 21.8% | 3.3 |
| Larkspur | Easy | 1.1 km | 215 m | 19.2% | 3.0 |
| Ridge Trail | Intermediate | 1.1 km | 226 m | 20.5% | 3.1 |
| Javelin | Advanced | 1.1 km | 324 m | 30.4% | 4.1 |
| Bear | Intermediate | 1.1 km | 182 m | 17.1% | 2.7 |
| Jacob's Ladder | Advanced | 1.0 km | 167 m | 15.9% | 2.5 |
| Sterner | Advanced | 1.0 km | 288 m | 28.1% | 3.8 |
| Timber Doodle Glade | Advanced | 979 m | 290 m | 29.6% | 3.8 |
| Tiehack Trail | Advanced | 968 m | 302 m | 31.2% | 4.0 |
| Teaser | Intermediate | 965 m | 187 m | 19.4% | 2.8 |
| Ptarmigan Glade | Advanced | 815 m | 241 m | 29.6% | 3.5 |
| Westward Ho | Easy | 778 m | 143 m | 18.4% | 2.4 |
| Uncle Chuck's Glades | Advanced | 751 m | 134 m | 17.8% | 2.3 |
| Sterner Gulch | Intermediate | 697 m | 132 m | 18.9% | 2.3 |
| Tiehack Parkway | Advanced | 650 m | 105 m | 16.2% | 2.0 |
| Magic Carpet | Easy | 636 m | 116 m | 18.2% | 2.2 |
| Superpipe | Advanced | 619 m | 129 m | 20.8% | 2.4 |
| Columbine | Intermediate | 615 m | 126 m | 20.5% | 2.3 |
| Government | Advanced | 587 m | 130 m | 22.2% | 2.4 |
| No Problem | Intermediate | 574 m | 140 m | 24.4% | 2.6 |
| Lower Savo | Intermediate | 559 m | 116 m | 20.7% | 2.3 |
| Lover's Lane | Intermediate | 550 m | 72 m | 13.1% | 1.6 |
| Tom's Thumb | Easy | 483 m | 51 m | 10.6% | 1.3 |
| Little Teaser | Advanced | 478 m | 81 m | 16.9% | 1.8 |
| Lower Larkspur | Advanced | 473 m | 116 m | 24.5% | 2.4 |
| Eagle Hill | Intermediate | 457 m | 96 m | 21% | 2.1 |
| Friedl's | Intermediate | 440 m | 122 m | 27.7% | 2.7 |
| Savio | Intermediate | 394 m | 115 m | 29.2% | 2.7 |
| Spruce Face | Advanced | 364 m | 77 m | 21.2% | 2.0 |
| Midway Ave | Intermediate | 364 m | 91 m | 25% | 2.3 |
| Sterner Gulch | Intermediate | 344 m | 44 m | 12.8% | 1.3 |
| Spruce | Advanced | 338 m | 59 m | 17.4% | 1.7 |
+ 14 more mapped runs and connectors — all of them in the free 3D map in the Bonvo Ski app.
Lift network
8 mapped lifts, moving up to 3,600 skiers per hour.
| Lift | Type | Capacity/h | Ride time | Length | Vertical |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tiehack Express | Chairlift | 2,400 | 7 min | 2.0 km | 511 m |
| West Buttermilk Express | Chairlift | 1,200 | 5 min | 1.7 km | 362 m |
| Ski School Lift | Drag lift | — | — | 148 m | 9 m |
| Panda Peak | Chairlift | — | — | 314 m | 31 m |
| Ski School Magic Carpet | Magic carpet | — | — | 35 m | 3 m |
| Summit Express | Chairlift | — | — | 2.9 km | 560 m |
Buttermilk — quick answers
How many ski runs does Buttermilk have?
Buttermilk has 54 mapped downhill runs totalling about 41.2 km of pistes, with the longest single run measuring 4.7 km.
What is the vertical drop at Buttermilk?
The mapped skiable terrain spans 613 m of vertical, from 2401 m at the base to 3013 m at the top.
How many lifts does Buttermilk have?
Buttermilk operates 8 mapped lifts moving up to 3,600 skiers per hour.
Ski Buttermilk with the map in your pocket
Every run and lift on this page, rendered in interactive 3D — and it keeps working in airplane mode at the top of the mountain. Free on the App Store.
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