For the local Boulder/Denver skier, or a visitor with limited time, Eldora offers the best skiing for the price. Not only are lift tickets $40 with a coupon, you save about $40 in gas vs. the I-70 resorts. Main mountain cruisers are long and well-groomed, and the steep gladed terrain is absolutely some of the state's best (I suggest Moose and Placer Glades, Jolly Jug Glades for the more timid). Runs are shorter and lifts are slower, but that's Eldora. The beginner (Little Hawk) area is varied, but runs are short. The ski school is very reasonably priced (compare Eldora's prices to a $600 private at Breck), and excellent unless they're overloaded through the holidays. That being said, there are a couple things to avoid at Eldora:

1) Holiday Weekends - like anywhere, holiday weekends here pretty much suck. Especially if the weather's bad. They are made worse here by slow lifts, small lodges, and in a couple cases this year, unexpected rushes because of I-70 road closures. Eldora is a local mountain - they handle crowds (poorly) about 2 weeks per year.
2) WINDY days - I can't stress this enough...CALL OR GO ONLINE. I do every time. Forecasts for Ned or Boulder mean nothing at Eldora, and a bad day (or a wind closure, even worse) can be avoided by taking about 5 minutes before driving the 22 miles up the canyon.

Despite the poor apres-ski rating in many other reviews, I recommend checking out the nearby town of Nederland. If you're laid back, and have low expectations, you may find yourself having a great time in this town. It's world-renowned for its Bluegrass music scene, and the 1st Street and Pioneer pubs are great places to check it out. If you couldn't find a place to have fun here, you didn't look hard enough.

I have been skiing for 30 years off and on and I am now doing the Women's Tuesday (and Wednesday) classes! What a find! The classes are small and friendly and the instructors are fab! I have done these classes for two years in a row and I plan to return next year as well. Breakfast and lunch is an added bonus. Eldora is perhaps one of the best kept secrets in the ski industry. I love the mom an' pop feel of the place. There is plenty of challenging terrain for intermediate and expert skiers. I have sworn off the six hr. drive on I-70, and traded it in for the 30 min. drive from my house in Boulder!

I have skiied Eldora only a few times (8 years apart). The first time was in 2000 and I skiied midweek on a number of occasions. I loved the fact that the mountain was quiet, people were friendly and that the area was reasonably small. I returned two weeks ago, and I am delighted to say that not much has changed. I skiied midweek once again and there were no queues, good snow conditions, no lift lines and friendly staff and skiiers. The terrain remained as I remembered with a mixture of intermediate runs and a few challenging steep glades - not a massive range but enough to keep you content for a couple of days at a time.

Growing up skiing in Scotland, the "ice" and "wind" conditions mentioned are simply a Coloradans way of saying I do not know how to carve an edge on hardpack (my wife is from Colorado as are many friends so I feel just in saying this). Although I have experienced the strong winds mentioned, it was only once or twice that it was actually something that you needed to think about i.e. wrap up more.

So, if you want to try something slightly smaller which is perhaps a throwback to what skiing used to be (before real estate became more important than the actual ski experience), then I would give Eldora a try Monday through Friday. Although there are no frills, it is nice and refreshing to ski somewhere where the mountain, the fun and good old skiing/boading is what the hill offers - nothing more and nothing less.

Verrry crowded. I was shocked, considering how small of a place it is, how many people were crammed on the runs. We felt threatened several times by skiers/boarders going way too fast for their skill levels.

The wind was horrible, the town nearby offers nothing.

Stay on I-70! It's worth the drive!

I'd like to echo the comment about "not ideal for beginners on weekends". We went to Eldora for the first time on Friday, 12/28/07 right after the major snow that fell on the front range the day before. I've been skiing all over Colorado, Utah & California for 30 years, but decided to introduce my 13-year old son to snowboarding for the first time at Eldora. We took the local Boulder municipal bus up the canyon to the resort at 8:10am which was fine, but when we arrived there were over 250 people in line for lessons and/or equipment in a building built for 80. It was complete mayhem! 1.5 hours later and late for his first-timer lesson the ski school was completely overwhelmed and therefore disorganized. 14+ people per class and individuals were being left all over the hill as instructors were too busy to keep track of their own students. The winds were brutal with wind storms whipped snow around over 40mph with wind chill of -15 degrees F. The only place to get out of the bad conditions was one of the two very small lodges. Again, there were 700 people in each location designed for accomodating 200. There were people sitting on all stairwells and common vestibules further clogging any reasonable passage. I spoke with several locals who explained that the only real benefit of the Eldora Ski Resort were the ridiculously cheap season passes which allowed locals to come up mid-morning to check on conditions and if things weren't too windy, then they could get in a few runs, leaving early, before things got uncomfortable. This facility is NOT a destination for skiers or boarders who don't have the freedom of a season pass and whatever you do, do NOT use the incredibly poor ski school. Also, don't use the return municipal bus. There is one at 3:17pm and again at 4:57p. Both had lines of skiers waiting 40 minutes in advance outside in -15 degree F. weather. When the bus arrived 30 minutes late everyone converged on the bus in a free-for-all, mass histeria. No position in line mattered. It reminded me of a riot and it scared small children. People were tossed in all directions and were hit with equipment as others pushed to put skiis underneath in the storage compartments. Never again Eldora... good luck.