Tucked away in the northwest corner of Colorado, Steamboat Springs is one of those tourist areas you have to intend to arrive at to get to.  Six hours east of Salt Lake City, UT and three hours northwest of Denver, CO, there aren’t many other stops along the way between those two hubs and Steamboat, which makes th

Steamboat Springs has welcomed its share of tourists over the years.  It was a quarry and a hunting and healing stop for the Ute Indians for centuries before the “white man” arrived, its hot springs became the focal point for settlers in the late 1800s.  Olympian ski-jumper Carl Howelsen put it on the map for his sport in 1913, around the time of the first Winter Carnival west of the Mississippi. And today, Howelsen Hill is still used for world-class ski jumping, cross country skiing, and downhill skiing late into the winter evenings.  Cattle and sheep herders followed into the area over the next half-century; Routt County is now home to tens of thousands of head of cattle, proudly feeding beef to a large portion of our nation.  Yet another era of Steamboat was born when the 1960s welcomed what’s now called Steamboat Ski Area, which would eventually be expanded to nearly 3000 acres of some of the best skiing, and perhaps the driest, “Champagne Powder™” in the world.  Steamboat Springs might be known best for its skiing – Ski Town USA has cranked out more Olympic skiers than any other town in the United States, although summers are just as popular in the Yampa Valley as the winters.

 Active and Accessible

With this much history- and snow for that matter- many visitors with disabilities are daunted by the idea that “old” means “inaccessible.”  Steamboat boasts quite the contrary.  The ski area’s adaptive sports program, Steamboat Adaptive, has been around since the early 1970s, and although it has remained a relatively small program for those forty years, the recent growth in the adaptive travel industry has spread, even to this small town of 10,000, and Steamboat Adaptive saw a 25 percent increase in bookings from the 2006-07 season to the next. 

 Although the 350 average inches of snowfall are managed well both in town and at the ski base as far as accessibility and snow removal, the summer months are more inviting in travel and adventure for wheelers and people with disabilities, and the town has made many advancements for access worth mention.

 In 2004, the City of Steamboat Springs purchased a Solorider® golf cart for its beautiful municipal links course, the Haymaker, bringing adaptive golf to the long list of accessible adventure in the area.  In 2005, Steamboat Ski Area purchased a wider accessible gondola cabin with folding seats for its Silver Bullet Gondola, which moves tourists up the hill for hiking and biking in the summer months in addition to skiing in the winter. There are two short accessible trails and accessible eating options along with magnificent views atop the 8,500-foot Thunderhead peak that the gondola climbs to.

 In addition, local wheelchair users have taught many activity companies how to adapt their services for people with disabilities.  These activities include hot air ballooning, rafting, wagon rides, and fishing in the summer months, as well as dog sledding and snowmobiling in the winter are available to visitors with disabilities.  Although Steamboat’s rustic Strawberry Park Hot Springs retreat on Buffalo Mountain has a dozen or more steps to its main soaking pools, a couple of its private pools and cabins are do-able for manual wheelchairs.  An alternative to Strawberry Park lies in the town’s “Rec” center, Old Town Hot Springs, which is open to the public and has two hot springs tubs, two larger pools, and two waterslides, all fed by the Heart Spring- the town’s original hot spring for tourism.  Steamboat is also home to a NARHA (North American Riding for the Handicapped Association) program at Humble Ranch, where people with disabilities can ride extremely gentle horses for hippotherapy, therapeutic riding, skills lessons, and more. 

 Rolling around the town to see the local attractions is a breeze; the 7-mile accessible bike path will take you past the accessible Botanical Gardens, through downtown, and past the Hot Springs Walking Tour which features half a dozen other hot springs, including the Heart Spring, that bubble, foam, and waft funny smells along the river’s edge on the west end of downtown. 

 A must-see highlight of Steamboat is the Fish Creek Falls Recreation Area. This 290-foot waterfall has a half-mile accessible paved trail to the falls’ observation area, as well as a steep but do-able packed trail to the bridge at the base, where the raging falls will spray your face in the spring months.  Your Golden Access Parks pass will get you into this State Recreation Area free, all others pay $5.

 Accessible camping flanks the Valley on both ends with Stagecoach State Park to the south of town and Steamboat Lake State Park to the north.  Both areas offer accessible trails, fishing, and camping options for visitors with disabilities.