Meet the Diehard Stewards of Colorado's Iconic Berthoud Pass

Just over an hour’s drive from Denver, Colorado, stands Berthoud Pass. 

Once a functioning ski area, the collection of slopes has transformed into a popular, easy-to-access backcountry haunt. Advocating for the zone is the aptly named nonprofit Friends of Berthoud Pass (FOBP), which first had the goal of ensuring that public access to Berthoud Pass survived after the ski area shuttered. 

Now, FOBP mainly focuses on avalanche awareness and safety, with free introductory courses and on-snow sessions. It’s also the star of the newest episode of Peaks & Passages, a web series that illuminates the quieter, soulful corners of skiing.

Watch the episode below, and keep reading for our conversation with Jeff Shaffroth, a member of FOBP and Flylow’s director of operations.

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Watch: Friends of Berthoud, Peaks & Passages, Season 3, Episode 2

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Do you have any memorable days that stand out from Berthoud Pass?

I think my most special day was probably the first day I ever splitboarded up there. When I was at [the snowboard company] Never Summer, my mentor, Vince Sanders—still at Never Summer today—took me out and just showed me the ropes of splitboarding. And I mean, from that day on, I was hooked. So I’d say the most memorable day was the first time touring and not boot packing. 

And then 2017 is another year that comes to mind. It wasn’t a great season for us. So then in May, winter turned back on. We got a couple of feet in a couple of days, and I was snowboarding, you know, 24 inches of snow on my birthday—which is late May—up there. Just one of those cycles that came in. It was pretty moist, great bonding. Avalanche conditions were low, and we were able to get out and hit it pretty hard and ride good snow. That happens a lot, so it’s hard to pinpoint it, but I’d say the two most memorable days—it’s probably, yeah, the first day ever splitboarding up there and just riding deep snow in May with friends.

What’s the value and importance of these easily accessible backcountry areas like Berthoud? 

It’s about an hour and 15 minutes from Denver. There’s a huge parking lot at the very top, and there’s a warming hut that’s been around for a couple of years now. We [FOBP] were actually part of that project of helping, you know, get with National Forest land, saying, ‘Hey, this is a heavily used area, it’d be nice if there was something a little bit more than just bathrooms.’ So that’s actually a heated hut at the top of it that you can park at, and you can go put your boots on. 

I think areas like that are amazing for the backcountry community, because it has more than just a backcountry zone—it’s been able to build a community around it. I can go up there by myself, and chances are, I’ll run into somebody that I’ve either snowboarded with in the past, know through friends—it’s just a great area for like-minded individuals to get to pretty quickly for us on the Front Range, but also for people that live in the mountains to access. It’s just a nice little hub community.

It seems to me that one of the biggest things with avalanche safety and nonprofit organizations is awareness. I’m wondering how you think FOBP can make a difference in that realm, and then in other realms as well.

I think for us, it’s accessibility. It’s just the same for Berthoud Pass. We know it’s accessible. We know it’s easy to get to, and we try to take that into consideration with our classrooms. We offer them all over the Front Range, breweries, retail centers, you know, a couple of small shops. We do stuff in Summit County. I think just making it free and accessible for anybody to come in and kind of get their feet wet. 

Do they know avalanches exist? Yes. But do they know why? No. I think that it’s us opening that door and giving everybody the opportunity to come into one of our classrooms, whether that be people who are experienced or people who are here for the first time and just want to know if it’s for them.

We give them the opportunity to come in and listen, ask questions, and gain knowledge, and it gives them the ability to make that educated decision further down the road. Is backcountry skiing or snowboarding for me, or is it not for me? And if it’s for me, do I want to pursue an AIARE program and, you know, go get my avalanche one or my level two? I think that’s what’s great about this awareness, is that we give them just enough information to allow them to ask the questions, like where they want to progress in that side of the industry.

What have you learned teaching others, particularly newcomers, to move safely in the backcountry?

I’ve taken not only people who have come to our classrooms out for the first time ever in the backcountry. I’ve also taken a lot of friends for the first time out in the backcountry. The great thing about taking inexperienced users into the backcountry is just the questions that come up. It’s the stuff that you don’t always think about, because you do it so much. It allows you to think about things because they’re asking questions for the first time. And it’s not always the questions you ask yourself. 

So I think the opportunity of taking newcomers out there is just creating that open line of communication, like, what to do, why you should do this, how it works, how to properly tour and navigate backcountry terrain. You know, why is this area deemed safe, and why is that area not deemed safe? And kind of step into those processes that, on a daily basis, are just kind of ingrained in my mind, and it’s not ingrained in their mind. So it’s always kind of cool to revisit what I’ve learned in the past to present it to a newcomer in the backcountry.

What do you think is better? Riding mid-winter pow on your own, or hitting the skin track with some close friends in the spring, and maybe the snow isn’t as great.

I’m not a big advocate for going out solo. So, typically for me, I’m not riding alone in the backcountry. You know, it’s safety in numbers for anything that you do. If I’m out there by myself, and I do get into a zone that maybe I shouldn’t be in for that day, and something does happen, no one’s gonna know—that kind of thing. So that’s where I go with that. 

But I think, as we touched on earlier, the community aspect, you know, going out there, skinning and touring with friends, it just makes it feel so much more fun and real if you can share those cool experiences with buddies. Whether that be a day where the snow is not great, or a day where the snow is amazing. I think the community aspect of just having people that also like to partake in that side of the industry, to go out there with you and enjoy those things, and high-five and laugh and chat.

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