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Rocky Mountain Resorts

Deer Valley Resort

Park City, Utah

Park City, Utah, hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Deer Valley Resort’s Ski With the Champions program allows groups to ski with an entire slate of Olympic athletes who competed in a variety of skiing styles.

It’s one of the exclusive ski experiences available to groups that gather at the resort. Deer Valley has more than 25,000 square feet of function space in several lodges, but its twin conference properties — the side-by-side Lodges at Deer Valley and the Silver Baron Lodge — are the most used, said director of sales Dirk Beal.

The largest space in each property is about 2,500 square feet, but both properties offer several other flexible meeting rooms, all with external light, Beal said.

Deer Valley’s six overnight lodging options have about 500 sleeping rooms among them. The Chateaux at Deer Valley houses the resort’s largest ballroom at 6,600 square feet, and the Stein Erickson Lodge has a 5,800-square-foot ballroom.

Day lodges sit at the base, middle and top of the mountain, and all three have an open, log-cabin feel, making them popular for off-site dinners and product launches, Beal said.

Groups often opt for the fireside dining experience at Empire Canyon Lodge at the top of the mountain. Chefs cook food over the lodge’s various stone fireplaces: One may have a dripping cheese raclette, another lamb roasting on a rotisserie, another a bubbling stew in a Dutch oven. Planners often pair the dinner with horse-drawn sleigh rides for guests.

The resort partners with All Seasons Adventures to arrange group activities such as dogsledding, snowshoeing and fly-fishing. Deer Valley also offers off-mountain guided snowmobile tours for individuals and groups.

On mountain, First Tracks gives groups the chance to ski with a guide on several runs for an hour before the slopes open to the public.

“To be up there early in the morning, and the sun’s coming up, and the mountain’s closed — it’s private skiing,” Beal said.

www.deervalley.com

Cheyenne Mountain Colorado Springs, a Dolce Resort

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains just west of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Cheyenne Mountain Colorado Springs, a Dolce Resort, has a golf course, a private lake with a white-sand beach, a spa and one of the state’s few International Association of Conference Centers-certified conference centers, all looking up at Cheyenne Mountain.

“That is one of our big competitive advantages; it’s right in front of Cheyenne Mountain, so you have beach, lake and then the mountains right there,” said marketing manager Rachel Horgan.

The resort has over 40,000 square feet of event space, and the largest space is the 6,400-square-foot Colorado Room, which can be split into three separate spaces. The 3,500-square-foot Remington’s Room has some of “the nicest views out of all of our meeting space on property,” Horgan said. Floor-to-ceiling windows deliver mountain views, and a stone fireplace provides ambiance.

Planners have several options for outdoor events. The Grand Rivers Terrace offers views of the whole property, with the mountain and golf course to the right and the lake below, Horgan said. The beach is popular for sand volleyball and making s’mores.

Team building is offered both in-house and through partner vendors. Some signature events, such as build-a-boat challenges, incorporate the private lake, but there are other options, such as guided bike rides, the ropes courses and rock climbing in the nearby Garden of the Gods.

The Mountain View Restaurant is the resort’s main restaurant, but groups can also incorporate food activities such as chili cook-offs and cocktail mixology challenges into their event.

www.cheyennemountain.com

Snow King Hotel and Grand View Lodge

Jackson, Wyoming

The Snow King Hotel in Jackson, Wyoming, is nestled right against the mountains, with ski-in/ski-out access at Snow King Mountain Resort so “you can get right on the lift from the hotel,” said Allison Kneubuhl, director of sales and marketing for the 203-guest-room Snow King Hotel and the neighboring Grand View Lodge.

The two properties each have roughly 10,000 square feet of meeting and event space; the largest ballroom is the 5,300-square-foot Grand Teton Room in the Snow King Hotel. When guests arrive, they find a large fireplace in the lobby and another under the vaulted, timber-beam ceilings in Hayden’s Post, which is “kind of the local hangout,” Kneubuhl said.

In the neighboring Grand View Lodge, the 2,640-square-foot Grand View Ballroom has an attached covered veranda, and the Mountain View Room and the Fireside Lounge each have adjoining covered porches.

The hotel just added an outdoor event lawn this summer where groups can have events and special dining experiences, such as a chuck-wagon dinner.

In addition to ski-in/ski-out access, guests can use the Snow King resort’s outdoor maze and aerial ropes course for team building or just have fun ice skating in winter, playing putt-putt golf in summer and zipping down the mountain on the Cowboy Coaster or the Alpine Slide.

Guests can walk into downtown Jackson on summer evenings to catch the Town Square Shootout. Those same actors with the Jackson Hole Playhouse are also available to do a mock shootout for private events.

www.snowking.com