Aspen Mountain

Aspen Mountain, locally called Ajax, is an 11,212-foot peak in Colorado’s Elk Mountains that rises just south-southeast of downtown Aspen and most directly defines the town’s skyline. Its history is closely tied to Aspen’s own. After the town was founded as a silver mining camp in 1879, the mountain’s slopes saw heavy mining in the late 1880s and early 1890s, with remnants still surviving. In 1946, the Aspen Skiing Company, founded by Walter Paepcke, built the first chairlift to the summit and opened a ski area on its north face. Since then, the mountain has stood at the center of Aspen’s shift from mining town to major ski resort.

Colorado · United States