Live Love Durango
Things to do

Things to do

Skiing

Purgatory is the home hill, about 25 miles north of Durango. The runs below are the named downhill trails on the mountain, with the rating and the mapped length of each.

Purgatory Resort

Skiing starts at 8,793 feet and the high point is 10,822, which is 2,029 feet of vertical. It is a full mountain, not a neighborhood hill, and it is close enough that plenty of Durango people go up after work. There is a bit more than 1,600 acres. A typical winter lays down about 260 inches, and snowmaking can cover 250 acres when the storms miss.

The chairs are one high-speed six-pack, two high-speed quads, three triples, and three doubles, with two magic carpets for the learning area. About a fifth of the terrain is beginner, a little under half is intermediate, and roughly a third is advanced or expert. Beginners get a real zone. Columbine is where people learn. Mercy and Divinity are the long greens after that. Legends is the wide blue for going fast without getting in trouble. Dead Spike is a blue with a harder stretch in the middle. The steep skiing shows up on Styx and Pandemonium, and Upper Pandemonium is expert.

The terrain parks are Pitchfork Terrain Garden, Halo, Horns, and Headwaters. Rentals, lessons, and a children's ski school are at the base. You can eat on the mountain if you do not want to drive back to town for lunch.

Base
8,793 ft
Summit
10,822 ft
Vertical
2,029 ft
Skiable area
1,600+ acres
Snowfall
About 260 inches
Snowmaking
250+ acres
From Durango
25 miles north
Named runs below
95

The runs

Ratings follow the standard marks: green circle, blue square, black diamond, double black. Length is the mapped line of the run, so a trail drawn in two pieces can look shorter than it skis. Glades and backcountry lines are marked. Hover a tile for what the run is.

Other places to ski

Chapman Hill is the little ski area inside Durango: one chair, a magic carpet, a terrain park, and night skiing. It is where a lot of local kids learn.

Silverton Mountain, about an hour north, is expert-only. One chair serves 1,819 acres, and they also run heli-skiing. Kendall Mountain, just outside Silverton, is the small hill: nine runs, two lifts, and night skiing.

Wolf Creek is about 80 miles northeast, over Wolf Creek Pass. It skis more than 1,600 acres on 10 lifts, and more than half the terrain is expert. People drive it because the pass catches storms.