Winter Park

About Winter Park

Winter Park is in southeastern Grand County, Colorado, at the southern end of the Fraser Valley. The town of Winter Park, Colorado, was founded on August 1, 1978, when the earlier village of Hideaway Park (established 1932), was incorporated and renamed to match the nearby ski area. Its elevation ranges from approximately 8,700 to 12,060 feet (2,650 to 3,680 meters) above sea level (most of town is considered sub-alpine country), with its disputed average elevation - officially at 10,128 feet (3,087 meters). The permanent population was 1,033 at the 2020 census. It is home to the Winter Park Resort, a ski resort.

The town center’s elevation is at about 9,000 feet (2,700 meters), but Winter Park, using administrative boundaries as a measure, became the highest incorporated town in the United States after the July 2006 annexation of 5,214 acres (21.10 km2) of Winter Park Resort to allow new on-mountain improvements. This claim is highly disputed, since Winter Park has no residences living above 9,550 feet (2,910 meters), while contiguous residential neighborhoods in Leadville, Colorado, extend up to 10,360 feet (3,160 meters) and in Alma, Colorado, up to 11,680 feet (3,560 meters), and Alma’s town center is at 10,361 feet (3,158 meters).

Winter Park has a subarctic climate. The town sees 214 inches (555 cm) of snowfall in each season along with 74 snowy days. The area is notorious for “cold air trapping,” where dense, cold air settles into the valley between Winter Park and Fraser, especially on clear, calm nights with snow cover. However, there’s no official weather records that cover what the coldest and warmest days were in the past.