When Tony and Lisa Nolan of Highlands Ranch took off skiing in Winter Park over the holidays, they had no idea that they would end up captivated by an entirely different mountain…or that they’d put down a deposit on a new ski-in, ski-out condo…one with a price $150,000 less than when the project opened last year.

Watching the kids ski at Sol Vista, homeowners gather for wine-n-cheese at Base Camp One; including Tony and Lisa Nolan, left; developer Greg Finch, center, and his daughter Amy and wife Sharon to the right.

Last week the Nolans were back with their young kids to see their place at Base Camp One, by the lifts at Sol Vista in Granby Ranch, 15 miles beyond Winter Park. “I had no idea this was here,” Lisa Nolan said, spending their first weekend skiing at Sol Vista, where the condo is set to close this week. “It just makes so much sense.” more »

Skiers and other vacationers are getting an entirely new way of looking at Winter Park and the Fraser Valley this year…with a newly made-over base mountain area, new amphitheater for concerts in downtown Winter Park, and opening Dec. 18, a new $16 million, vacation-oriented rec center with splashdown pool, 20-foot water slide, climbing wall and other attractions.

New Fraser Valley Recreation Center opens Dec. 18, with resort-style pool, climbing wall.

“The center will allow people to consider Winter Park in an entirely new light,” says, Dan O’Connell, president of the Fraser Metropolitan Recreation District’s Board of Directors. “When going on vacation, many times it’s kids that drive the decision on where you go, even if the parents pay for it. To have an attraction as fun as this is a great thing.” more »

Winter Park Ski Area had been open for 20 years when Dwight Miller, a development pioneer in the town of Hideaway Park, posed the question whether inexperienced skiers were getting the most from Winter Park’s terrain, or whether they might prefer a beginner-friendly hill where they could improve their skills.

Buz Koelbel, developer of Rendezvous in Winter Park, presents an original lift chair to Dwight and Jean Miller, who opened Ski Idlewild as a beginner ski area in 1960.

On Aug. 26, 2009, some 49 years after Miller opened Ski Idlewild in what is today the resort community of Rendezvous, Walter ‘Buz’ Koelbel, Jr., of Koelbel and Company presented Miller and his wife Jean with a lift chair recovered from the site. The boutique ski area where a generation of skiers, including Buz Koelbel, learned their sport is now part of Rendezvous’ 688-acre expansion area, east of the town of Winter Park. more »