Across the continental divide

Monarch Mountain’s No Name Basin is up and running, providing skiers and riders with new terrain, despite a lackluster winter. 

Ropes officially dropped Jan. 29. “It was awesome,” said General Manager Chris Haggerty. “Seeing [Scott Pressly] and all these guys who have been here for so long, was so rewarding.” The ribbon cutting ceremony saw hundreds of stoked riders ready to make first tracks on all new terrain.

The 377-acre expansion includes 12 runs: eight intermediate, two advanced and two glade trails leading riders through tight tree pack. All trails in the No Name Basin meet back up at the new Tomichi lift, a fixed-grip three-seater.

Conditions are similar to everywhere on the Western Slope at the moment. Make sure you wear your rock skis. Despite that, Monarch has one of the highest base elevations of any Colorado ski area, so much of the snow that falls typically sticks. Because of this, Monarch doesn’t have to blow snow, anywhere, ever. 

“It’s not that we’ve gotten more, it’s that what we’ve gotten hasn’t melted,” Haggerty said. 

Visions for No Name began in the early 2000s with Rich Moorhead, Monarch’s former chief executive officer. The terrain had originally been a part of Monarch Mountain’s cat-skiing services, but they knew it had potential to be more.

2011 was when things really started to take off. The crew at Monarch submitted a master development plan to the U.S. Forest Service. 

“Our main challenges within [No Name] were wetlands, layout, lift alignment, road corridors and heritage, there’s a lot of indigenous sites along the ridge line that had to be considered in our trail design,” said Scotty Pressly, director of mountain operations. “A lot of time and money was spent on mapping that out.” 

“It was a 25-year planning process,” Haggerty said. 

While waiting for approvals from the forest service, Monarch began updating other parts of their infrastructure to prepare for the projected swell in patronage, including additional parking, bathrooms, lodging and restaurants. 

“In 2018 we started doing a lot of timber work,” Pressly said. “We worked with the forest service and they came up with the vegetation management plan for us to address the beetle kill in the San Isabel National Forest, the east side of the continental divide.” 

Monarch boasts that it’s now one of very few ski areas in North America that extends over both sides of a continental divide. The westward expansion, nearly 1,000 feet of vertical drop, overlooks the Gunnison Valley. 

To prepare for the opening of No Name, Monarch hired a local timber crew, Terra Firma, to clean up downed and leaning trees within the new glades. Pressly said they plan to do more extensive work, targeting dead standing trees, in the near future. But for now, enjoy some tight turns and dense, soft snow.

“It has some longer and steeper terrain, which Monarch didn’t really have before,” said Dallas Marx, the Tomichi lift operator. “And if you like the trees, that’s where it’s at.”

“With regular snowfall it’s going to be amazing terrain,” Pressly said. Since they opened midway through the season, it’s hard to get a report on whether the new terrain has brought the surplus of patrons they were aiming for, but they’re confident moving forward.

“The boots on the ground work happened in the last two years to make it come to life,” said Haggerty. The project was officially greenlit in 2023, and trail construction began summer of 2024. 

Monarch has a flexible closing day, ranging sometime in mid April, weather dependent. 

“Any day on snow is better than a day not on snow,” Haggerty said.