Monarch Mountain Resort Reviews

I was so surprised by this very affordable mountain. Excellent run variety & plenty to choose from, Staff is nice as can be. Good rental equipment. Big lockers. Never more than a few minutes to board the lift - Even on weekends BUT get there early as parking lot can fill up. Carpool if you have a big group. We skied & tubed. Walking a 3 year old up to the tubing start area is a major chore. They need a moving belt similar to the ski school lift. It’s about 50/50 boarders & skiers so the moguls are a wreck for skiers & any packed powder gets hard deep grooves. Wish they had a couple of Skiers Only blue & black runs so powder isn’t immediately scraped off. Food inside is limited & not many healthy options. Burrito Food Trailer in the deck is delicious! Nearby overnight accommodations almost zero.I’ll come back & stay a little further away but I WON’T overnight at the nearby MM Resort. It’s awful. No one at front desk & every amenity is broken, place desperately in need of renovation, crappy bedding and pillows. It’s cheap in every way!!

• What a gem of a mountain
• Lifts are old & slow but operators are super nice to children & beginners. Walk up to the tubing area for little ones is terrible. Needs an escalator!

amazing mountain and awesome staff, but could do a little better on the pricing.

• Amazing parking and kind staff
• High price gouging. expensive

Great all mountain family friendly resort with reasonable pricing!

• Family friendly mountain
• Only 1 modern high speed lift that only operated on the weekend.

1st time skiing mountain didn’t know what to expect but very friendly staff helpful mountain was well taken care of nice place to take a break and eat lunch will most definitely be back

• Well groomed short lift lines price is great
• Trails could be marked better

Love this local resort and all the “extras” they offer over the big ones… affordable, great tree skiiing where I have always had the best luck with superb powder, I’ve often skied right onto the lift without waiting, and a fabulous uphill access program. They used to also (and maybe do again?) allow overnight van camping in the lot. All in all, a fav. They seem to often get reliable snow coverage throughout the season.

• Very family friendly, good range of runs for all levels, affordable as ski areas go, participates in the local GEMS card discounts. I love the tree skiing here, and that they allow uphill travel all day for a very modest cost.
• Short runs, the groomed terrain can get wind scraped.

DO NOT BUY LIFT TICKETS AT THE WINDOW! Online a teen one day lift ticket for the particular day we went was $99 online but $140 at the window! I can understand maybe $15 more but $40 is price gouging!

• Not too crowded
• Need to update lifts

I agree with many of the other reviews that Monarch is a great mountain with some of the best tree powder skiing around. However, the lifts are old and slow and should be upgraded. My compromise to upgrade them without incurring too much cost, or attracting too many new people to make it crowded, is to only replace 3 lifts. Tumbelina and Pioneer should both be replaced with fixed triples, since they are short, and that would require the removal of fewer trees than quads would. Breezeway should be replaced with a high-speed gondola, since it is long, the weather can be bad, and it serves runs, terrain park, and Mirkwood. A bonus would be building a new food lodge with huge windows at the top of breezeway, similar to Ravens Roost at Wolf Creek.

• Frequent powder, tree skiing, late spring
• old, slow lifts.

I've been skiing Monarch for about 25+ years, since I was about 10. For that reason, it holds a special place in my heart. Not much has changed, with is both a positive and an annoying reality of the ski resort. Garfield is one of the most important lifts on the mountain, as it provides access to the majority of intermediate and advanced terrain on the front side of the mountain. Garfield is still the incredibly slow, ancient two-chair it was when I started skiing at Monarch. Pioneer, the quad right next to it, would appear to be a viable alternative but takes skiers to mostly beginner terrain adjacent to the terrain accessed off Garfield and thus is more suited for families. Every year I hope to see that Monarch has started replacing their highly inadequate lifts, much like Loveland does every year, but they seem to be focused on adding gift shops, parking lots, and now a gondola strictly for sightseeing(?!). Bottom line, Monarch seems to want more visitors and has done a lot to improve their base of mountain experience, but has actually done very little to improve the skier experience, which is what matters most if you're a true skier. I'm not asking for anything crazy like a high speed 6-chair, but how about some nice detachable quads to disperse those crowds quicker on holiday weekends?

• Locals mountain, typically not crowded
• Inadequate lifts for volume of skiers

Short lift lines, friendly staff, great choices in places to eat, excellent snow reports, trail maps available, parking was great, lots of different terrain, overall great place to ski.

• Short lift lines, friendly staff, great choices in places to eat, parking was great, overall great place to ski.
• None

Short lift lines, friendly staff, great choices in places to eat, excellent snow reports, trail maps available, parking was great, lots of different terrain, overall great place to ski.

• Short lift lines, Friendly staff, great choices in places to eat, excellent snow reports, trail maps available, parking was great, lots of different terrain, overall great place to ski.
• None