Jones Pass Guides — Attraction in Empire

NEW REVIEW: I gave Jones Pass Guides another shot later in the season of 2022 (see below for my first trip review). This time it was easily a 5/5 experience. We did the same lines as before, but there was fresh powder and FULL STOKE the whole day. Everything about the day was awesome, such great people as always.

So, you need to get a bit lucky with conditions due to limited terrain options. But if there's powder to be found - they will find it and you'll have an absolutely epic day.

I'll definitely be booking more trips with them and hoping the wind gods keep the snow on the hill!

OLD REVIEW: People: 5/5 Service: 3/5 Terrain: 2/5 Snow: 0/5 Total: 2.5/5 (3 rounded up?)

After going on a couple other CAT operations (Steamboat, Fernie, etc), I was hopeful when I found this highly reviewed company near Denver and convinced my younger brothers to throw down the ~$700 each when they came to visit.

I twisted their arms since it’s pretty expensive for them - “Don’t worry guys! CAT trips always find powder!”

I felt confident saying this because every other CAT operation I’ve been on has been able to find powder, even after long periods without snow (ex: 13 days in Steamboat without any snow and we still rode fresh powder lines all day. The guides knew exactly where to go right away to find the goods).

Unfortunately, despite fresh snow 2 days prior, we didn’t have a single fresh run all day. My guess is that the terrain here limits their options, and the fact that they operate on public land means snowmobiles eat up everything in sight. Or maybe it was that wind completely ruined all the snow everywhere in their zone… not sure. We never got an explanation.

The sad part was that it was soooooooo painfully obvious that the best snow was in the trees at lower elevation, but we didn’t do a single run there until the very end of the day back to the parking lot in a single file line.

We got 11 runs in total, and without exaggeration, I only made 5 or 6 soft turns.

Not 5 or 6 runs… I mean total turns! Everything else was heavily wind affected, ice, or very tracked out with snowmobiles or presumably previous cat trips.

To finish the day, we did the exact same extremely tracked out run 4 times in a row. Same drop off and pick up. I assume this is because it was the only place we could get some non-ice turns.

I really really really wanted to like this, but I’m generously giving this a 3 out of 5 stars since the people were very kind from start to finish.

But based on my experience, this is not comparable to snowcat operations of similar pricing in due to the public land getting crushed by recreational vehicles and perhaps terrain limitations.

Another thing that was weird but I have to mention…

We had someone on the cat ask for a vegetarian meal. All the guides said “yep! We’ve got you covered!” before we even left the lodge. She wanted to double check, and rightly so.

Then when lunch time comes they tell the poor girl “uhhh, oops. actually we don’t have it, can we just pull the meat off the sandwich for you instead?” Could have been an honest mistake but just seemed like things were falling through the cracks.

Note: I have one more day booked this season with Jones Pass Guides. I’m hoping and praying the experience is different and I can amend my review. I am so ready to rate them 5/5 because I can tell they are great people trying their best to crush it.

Perhaps we really just had uncharacteristically bad conditions and a bit...

on January 31st a large group of us from Toronto Canada booked an entire Cat with Jones Pass. The guides were Scott, Bonneau and Jeff. Mojo (a Veteran) and his service dog man the storefront. Getting fitted for skis and boards, having the safety lecture and learning the equipment was a blast, these are really cool guys who love their trade. The ride to the base camp on the bus is short and you are right into the cat and heading up. The lunch boxes were great, snag the Bacon wrap if you can. The conditions were amazing, 2 feet of snow over the past few days and blue sky's, the winds died down and it was actually a little warm despite the elevation. We had access to some amazing open bowls, we did not hit anything twice except our first 2 runs when they were evaluating us (still had fresh lines each time). The owner Aaron came up and drove the Cat so he could take a few turns with us as we moved over to a previously unopened area. We finished the day with two steep, deep and lightly gladded runs. I was one of two boarders with 10 other skiers, none of the runs led to annoying "flats" or long "run outs". This was well thought out and great terrain compared the other Cat outfit I have been with (2 trips) and my one, very short Heli-day (in my youth). So far this was my best cat experience ever and I am not a youth anymore. Tip, avoid the cat track run to the parking lot, I opted for taking the cat back and was pretty happy watching my friends pole and sake their way home, definitely avoid this if you are a boarder. Jones Pass and the Guides, thank you for the day! Mojo, thank you for your...

My two friends and I booked a trip with Jones Pass Guides back on Jan 26th for Feb 20th Confirmation code: My friend flew in from Oklahoma for this ski trip. We rented an airBNB in Denver for the trip and everything. The day before the trip on the 19th I got a call from Jones Pass saying they needed to cancel and refund the reservation. I was not very happy as we got flights, air BNB etc for this trip and everything. I explained the situation and they said they would squeeze us on a cat trip with a big group of people and would issue a refund as well. We accepted but we have not received any refunds. We booked for the SxS private group so we could ski the terrain we wanted and not be bogged down with a big group.

I also mentioned to a Jones Pass Employee when we arrived for the big cat group trip that I was okay with a 50% refund considering they worked it out so we could somewhat ski and not completely have the ski trip cancelled and they said it was fine.

We have still not received the 50% refund that had been agreed upon, even though they said they would refund in full. Plus I have emailed three time with...