Eldora Nordic Center — Attraction in Nederland

If you learn to xc ski at eldora you can absolutely ski anywhere. The instructions are all top notch (I've done women's program the program multiple times with different instructors). I am now confident in my skiing and have a new life long sport.

That said, there are two reasons I can't give all 5 stars. (1) The food is not great. The first year I skied they had no food at the Nordic center. The second year they got a food truck and it was decent. This year the food truck is back with such limited offerings there's no point. So pack your lunch or trek all the way across the place to the Alpine section for food.

(2) This is not a beginner friendly terrain. They can't really change that, but 17th Ave would be a blue anywhere else. It feels wrong to lure people in with a promise of an easy trail out of the gate that is most definitely not easy. If you are brand new, I recommend going to a different location that has lots of easy flat terrain to start. But if you want to really learn to xc ski, come back here after your...

If you're an experienced skate skier and have never been to Eldora, you may be in for a surprise when you show up to trails that haven't been groomed. Thus, you'll be powder skate skiing (which isn't a thing), or it'll be an ice rink. This is because if they do groom, they do it the night before using the snowcats from the downhill area. If it does snow that night, skate skiing for that day is pretty difficult. Or, if they receive no snow, they just won't groom at all for days, creating hard and icy conditions.

Basically, it's clear that upper management at Eldora is only willing to maintain cross-country skiing at the most minimal level, one where skate skiing can be a pretty poor experience, even though you've spent $50 for a day pass or $530 for a season pass - easily the most expensive Nordic pass...

We were in Boulder on route to Eldora when Boulder Canyon Road was closed due to a missing person investigation. It was snowing like crazy and the road conditions were horrible. We only had a half-day Nordic pass that expired at 4:00pm. It would have taken us more than 2 hours to drive all the way around in the horrible road conditions for only an hour of nordic skiing (it was a why bother)! Eldora is allowing us to reschedule to a different day, but not without a per ticket charge / penalty. So now it's going to cost us 50% more to ski a half day when the closing of Boulder Canyon was beyond our control (and the alternate route was more than 2 hours out of our way). Make sense to you? I will avoid Eldora...