Ski & Snowboard Club Vail Facilities
Golden Peak
Vail’s Golden Peak is the primary training venue for Ski & Snowboard Club Vail’s Alpine programs. Thanks to the generosity and support of Vail Resorts, SSCV is able to operate one of the best training venues in the world. Located at the easternmost point on Vail Mountain, Golden Peak is served by the Riva Bahn Express, a high-speed quad chairlift. By using SSCV’s state-of-the-art snowmaking system, training is often able to begin on Golden Peak in early November.
Years of hard work and dedication were celebrated at SSCV as alpine ski racers closed out 2019 with expanded terrain on Golden Peak. Supporters of the project, athletes and staff, along with key partners from Vail Resorts and the US Forest Service, gathered on December 30 to commemorate the event with an official ribbon cutting and inaugural ski-down on the Golden Peak Expansion, which has doubled the alpine training and racing space for SSCV. The Expansion provides approximately 30 acres of additional alpine trail space, a brand-new surface lift, and improved snowmaking infrastructure. With these enhancements, 600 vertical feet have been added to the alpine venue, providing more than 1,700 vertical feet of total racing terrain, enough to accommodate full-length speed courses. The project creates two new alpine trails, plus a connector that feeds into the preexisting giant slalom start. All told, the new terrain has the capacity to accommodate as many as 18 slalom lanes or nine GS lanes per session. The new Golden Peak T Bar features a four-minute turnaround, which will optimize training sessions and increase productivity. The expanded terrain alone can host slalom racing and training with up to 60 gates per course.
Every November, thanks to our state-of-the-art snowmaking system, SSCV athletes train alongside the best national teams in the world who travel to Colorado to prepare for their World Cup season.
In late 2021 a world-class mogul venue many years in the making opened on Golden Peak. This 230 meter venue with pitches ranging from 25.6 to 31 degrees, is the steepest in all of the Rockies, and is truly spectacular. Mogul athletes begin their early season training on the Golden Peak Expansion and transition to the new mogul training venue once temperatures allow its opening. This new mogul venue maximizes training time, with easy access from the SSCV Clubhouse at Golden Peak and rapid turnaround time between runs via Chair 6.
Clubhouse at Golden Peak
In 2017, Ski & Snowboard Club Vail broke ground on a new, long-awaited clubhouse at the base of Golden Peak, fulfilling one of the organization’s top strategic priorities. Portions of the SSCV Clubhouse opened in the latter part of the 2018-2019 season, featuring a longer, wider driveway, an expansive club room for members, offices for athletic and administrative staff, an industry-leading tuning facility and a large conference room. In time for the 2020-2021 season SSCV added coach workspace, additional conference rooms, athlete boot up areas, space for video analysis, warm-up/cool-down space, gym area and the Steadman Philippon Athlete Performance Center.
The Clubhouse building consists of five stories. The top two levels of the property are two residential units and the lowest level consists of an underground garage, two on-grade affordable housing units and the SSCV Technical Services Shop. With the support and cooperation of many in the Vail community, the project was completed without imposing any cost on SSCV’s membership.
Nordic Trails at Maloit Park
Tucked away in Minturn is the picturesque Maloit Park, which features 10 kilometers of Nordic trails designed, built and maintained by Ski & Snowboard Club Vail. First opened in 2011, the SSCV Nordic Center has quickly become the setting for world-class training and competition as a FIS-homologated site that has played host to numerous high-level events, such as Junior National Qualifiers and NCAA Regionals. The trails also provide a great venue for the community to enjoy the outdoor sports of Nordic skiing and snowshoeing.
Maloit Park
Thanks to a partnership formed with Eagle County Schools, Ski & Snowboard Club Vail has been able to turn the former Minturn Middle School into Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy, the first public ski and snowboard academy in the country.
On the first floor of VSSA, are some unique facilities for our student-athletes. An acrobatics room with two seven-foot flybed trampolines, a foam pit and tumbling areas provides a safe, effective environment for our acrobatic athletes to develop tricks and skills to take up onto the hill.
The Training Table offers daily lunches to aid in proper nutrition for top-level athletes, and a large gymnasium supplies ample space for athlete conditioning.
The Nordic Team has a state-of-the-art wax facility located at Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy adjacent to the Nordic venue which is available for usage by all SSCV Nordic team families.
Minturn Fitness Center
In August 2014, SSCV opened its doors to a multi-million dollar Human Performance Center — the Minturn Fitness Center. The center is located at the Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy campus and was made possible through a partnership between SSCV and the Town of Minturn along with the generous support of donors. It serves SSCV athletes, the residents of Minturn and gym members including SSCV parents.
Complementing our on-hill training, we are proud to have an elite strength and conditioning human performance program based out of the MFC for our full-time athletes in age U16+ teams. This program offers various assessments three to four times per year (which may include functional movement screening and strength, power and cardiovascular testing), as well as customized, individual performance programs, such as strength and conditioning, movement skills and outsourced sports psychology. This state-of-the-art facility utilizes the latest, modern equipment and top-tier staffing to help our athletes achieve their goals and strive for excellence.
In addition to the MFC, the SSCV Clubhouse has a facility fully outfitted to meet the strength and conditioning needs of our athletes at Golden Peak. This presents great opportunity for our athletes and provides for more flexibility around available time at the MFC while also allowing a way to maximize the pre- and post-training periods for athletes training in Vail. The facility at the SSCV Clubhouse continues to add equipment to better support the needs of our athletes and over the last year it has added multiple benches, dumbbells/dumbbell racks and a state-of-the-art leg press.
The club’s strength training and conditioning sessions are supervised by MFC staff and run by SSCV coaches who attend continuing education sessions delivered by the MFC staff. The MFC also has a performance lab, which includes testing equipment that allows for staff to build better customized programming for SSCV full-time athletes age 14 and older.
