A Stay at Yurt Village at Snow Mountain Ranch

Our first stay at a yurt this winter taught us one thing – we love yurt life, so when we were invited to stay at Yurt Village at Snow Mountain Ranch, a YMCA property located in Granby, Colorado, we said yes.

At the end of June we packed up the dog and headed out to Grand County, an area that is bursting with lupine, columbine and other colorful wildflowers during the summer.

We arrived at Yurt Village, a cluster of yurts perched on a sloping hill at Snow Mountain Ranch, in the afternoon.

Each yurt is built on a platform and has its own outdoor space that includes a picnic table, barbecue, fire pit and tent site. Inside, guests will find a queen bed and two bunk beds.

All the yurts are wired for electricity and each has a mini fridge and microwave. As we unpacked I looked at my phone and noticed that Yurt Village even has wi-fi. A stay here is not exactly “roughing it,” and in fact, qualifies as “glamping,” aka glamorous camping.

That evening we made steaks on the barbecue, drank wine and enjoyed the stunning views of Grand County. After dinner we walked the short distance to the Yurt Village Bathhouse to wash our dishes. This building is shared by all guests and is equipped with multiple private, lockable bathrooms that have toilets, bathtubs/showers and hairdryers. There’s also  a coin operated washer and dryer at the bathhouse and deep well sinks for washing dishes.

On Xena’s twilight walk before bed we headed into the forested area just below the village where we discovered a frisbee golf course and saw several huge jackrabbits – my first sighting of these big bunnies in Colorado.

Yurt Village is popular with families and if you are expecting a quiet get away, that’s probably not going to be the case here. We were lulled to sleep by the sound of children’s laughter from the yurts around us and the calls of night birds.

Late in the night, when the world had become silent Ryan woke to the sound of a yipping coyote that he swears ran right past Yurt Village. The next night I awoke to the same sound. Poor old, deaf Xena, however, was oblivious to the coyote’s persistent calls.

The next morning, I made eggs using our cast iron skillet on the barbecue – it worked well – and we microwaved water for hot, instant coffee. By this time, Xena was perfectly content with our new dwelling. After all, she’s always wished that we permanently lived in a tent.

If you’re not familiar with yurts, they originated in Mongolia, Siberia and Turkey and were made from felt or skins. Today, they are manufactured by companies such as the Colorado Yurt Company in Montrose (the manufacturer of Yurt Village yurts), and are made using architectural fabrics and structural engineering.

As we ate breakfast at our picnic table, children kept stopping and asking, “What kind of dog is that?” And then running off to tell their mom or brother that they’d discovered that, “that wolf dog” was actually a German Shepherd.

We spent the day playing around Snow Mountain Ranch and I plan to write about our activities in a future blog post.

That evening we dined at Tabernash Tavern, about a eight minute drive from Snow Mountain Ranch. We returned just in time to enjoy a full rainbow form as we made a fire in the firepit. This night was quieter than our first because I think most families had gone to Snow Mountain Ranch’s dining hall for dinner.   

While Yurt Village is extremely popular with families, you don’t have to have kids to take advantage of this place. We thoroughly enjoyed our two-night stay and loved being able to bring along Xena. Much of Snow Mountain Ranch’s lodging is dog-friendly and to increase their dog-friendliness they’ve opened a brand new dog park across from the summer tubing hill and just a short walk away from Yurt Village.

Yurts are $99/night and minimum stay requirements apply. Learn more about lodging at Snow Mountain Ranch by visiting SnowMountainRanch.org. Watch for more about Snow Mountain Ranch in the summer in an upcoming post.

Yurt Village Advice: We learned that it’s wise to heed the advice on Snow Mountain Ranch’s website and bring extra blankets when visiting Yurt Village, as the nights get chilly at 9,000 feet above sea level. We did not follow this advice ended up removing all the blankets from the bunk beds and piling them on our queen bed in order to stay cozy and warm at night.

Thank you to Snow Mountain Ranch for hosting us on this stay.