Keystone
Overview
Keystone is the quieter of Summit County’s three Vail Resorts mountains, built later than its neighbors — it opened in November 1970, founded by Bill Bergman and Max Dercum, nearly a decade after Breckenridge and Vail both got underway. Ralston Purina bought in after Keystone’s fourth season, in 1974, and ran the resort for over two decades before Vail Resorts took ownership in 1997. That history shows up in the resort’s layout: rather than one broad face, Keystone is built as three connected sections skied in sequence, added over time rather than all at once.
Dercum Mountain forms the front, closest to the base village and carrying most of the resort’s 18.69km of easy and 0.2km novice terrain — useful ground for a resort that markets itself more toward families than the bowl-skiing crowd at Vail or Aspen. Behind it sits North Peak, added in 1984, and past that the Outback, opened in 1991, both trending toward steeper, more varied terrain; between the three sections and five bowls, Keystone’s map skews surprisingly advanced, with 48.91km of advanced-rated runs against 40.41km intermediate and 18.69km easy, out of 109.58km and 142 runs total. A 2022 build-out added lift access into Bergman Bowl, the most recent expansion of that pattern.
The vertical runs 912.9m from a 2,829.3m base to a 3,742.2m summit — noticeably less than Vail’s 1,065m or Breckenridge’s 992.7m — and the lift fleet is correspondingly smaller at 20: two gondolas, 11 chairlifts, and 7 magic carpets. What Keystone offers instead is night skiing, run as a regular part of its schedule on lower-mountain trails, something neither Vail nor Breckenridge does at comparable scale, along with two Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed golf courses that keep the base busy in summer.
Keystone also sits closest to Denver of the three: Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC) is about 78.6km away, and Denver International itself is roughly 112.1km, the shortest DEN run among Vail, Breckenridge, and Keystone. Eagle County Regional (EGE) and Aspen-Pitkin County (ASE) are further out at 84.6km and 89.8km respectively. On the ground, Front Range cities are all around 75km away: Lakewood and Boulder are both about 74.2km out, and Arvada is roughly 76.4km, putting Keystone within a comfortable day-trip range for Denver-area skiers. The Epic Pass and Epic Local Pass both work here without holiday blackouts, echoing Breckenridge’s terms rather than the restricted Local tier at Vail. In imperial terms, Keystone’s 912.9m vertical drop is about 2,995 feet, a touch under the 3,000-foot mark and modest compared with some of its taller Colorado neighbors, but still enough for a full day of varied terrain across three mountain sections.
Key stats
Official website — Last checked 2026-09-13
Lifts by type
| Type | Count |
|---|---|
| gondola | 2 |
| chair lift | 11 |
| magic carpet | 7 |
Runs by difficulty
| Difficulty | Distance |
|---|---|
| easy | 18.69 km |
| other | 0.53 km |
| novice | 0.2 km |
| extreme | 0.84 km |
| advanced | 48.91 km |
| intermediate | 40.41 km |
Maps
View official Keystone trail map (PDF) →
Run & lift overview
Keystone: 142 runs, 20 lifts. Generated from community-mapped OpenStreetMap data, not Keystone's official map artwork. © OpenStreetMap contributors, OpenSkiMap (ODbL).
Typical conditions by month
Monthly conditions data for Keystone is not yet available.
Lift tickets & passes
- Epic Pass — Unlimited, no blackout dates
- Epic Local Pass — Unlimited, no blackout dates
Getting there
Nearest airports
- Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC) — 78.6 km straight-line
- Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE) — 84.6 km straight-line
- Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE) — 89.8 km straight-line
Nearest cities
- Lakewood, Colorado — 74.2 km straight-line
- Boulder, Colorado — 74.2 km straight-line
- Arvada, Colorado — 76.4 km straight-line
Also covered by
Where to stay
A dedicated lodging guide for Keystone is not yet available.
Nearby resorts
- Arapahoe Basin — 7 km straight-line, 512.7 m vertical
- Loveland Basin Ski Area — 11 km straight-line, 548 m vertical
- Breckenridge — 16 km straight-line, 992.7 m vertical
- Copper Mountain — 22 km straight-line, 796.9 m vertical
- Winter Park Resort — 34 km straight-line, 789.6 m vertical
FAQ
- How big is Keystone?
- Keystone runs from a 2,829.3m base to a 3,742.2m summit, a vertical drop of 912.9m, and it's the smallest of Summit County's big three by lift count: 20 lifts, including two gondolas, 11 chairlifts, and 7 magic carpets. It has 142 runs covering 109.58km.
- Is Keystone good for beginners and families?
- Keystone leans more family-oriented than Vail or Breckenridge in layout, with 18.69km of easy terrain and 0.2km novice concentrated on the front-facing Dercum Mountain, plus 7 magic carpets — the highest carpet count relative to lift total of the three Colorado Vail Resorts mountains here. It's also one of the few Colorado resorts with regular night skiing.
- Does Keystone have night skiing?
- Yes, Keystone runs dedicated night skiing and riding on a section of its lower-mountain trails, a rarer offering in Colorado where most large resorts close at dusk. It's built into the resort's operating schedule rather than a one-off event.
- Which pass covers Keystone?
- Keystone takes both the Epic Pass and the Epic Local Pass, each with unlimited, no-blackout access. Vail Resorts has owned Keystone since 1997, after Ralston Purina ran it through the 1970s, '80s, and into the '90s.
- What's the nearest airport to Keystone?
- Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC), near Denver, is the closest at about 78.6km. Eagle County Regional (EGE) is roughly 84.6km away and Aspen-Pitkin County (ASE) about 89.8km; Denver International (DEN), the main gateway, sits about 112.1km out — the shortest DEN drive of Vail, Breckenridge, or Keystone.
- How does Keystone compare to Vail and Breckenridge?
- Keystone is the smallest of the three in vertical (912.9m versus Vail's 1,065m and Breckenridge's 992.7m) and lift count (20 versus 32 and 35), and it opened later, in November 1970, nearly a decade after both. It compensates with three connected mountain areas — Dercum Mountain, North Peak, and the Outback — plus night skiing that its two larger neighbors don't offer at the same scale.
- How many mountains make up Keystone?
- Keystone skis across three linked areas: Dercum Mountain at the front, North Peak added in 1984, and the Outback added in 1991, with a further 2022 expansion adding lift-served terrain in Bergman Bowl. That layered build-out is why the advanced-terrain share (48.91km) is larger than the easy and intermediate categories combined would suggest for a resort marketed toward families.
Data sources
Last verified: 2026-09-15
Base facts from OpenSkiMap (ODbL), OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata (CC0), OurAirports (public domain) and GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). See /data-sources/.