Best Hotels near Anderson Park, Aspen

As the starting point of a camping expedition, we flew into Aspen for just one night and knew we would be staying less than 12 hours. I’ve stayed in the more expensive hotels in Aspen before but I found it really hard to justify staying at any of them which cost upwards of $600 per night since we were there for such a short amount of time. After much research, I booked at St Moritz. My only regret is not staying at this hotel sooner! We stayed in the room with a private bathroom, it was clean and modern with toiletries provided. The room was clean and quiet. The bed was comfortable. There are hiking trails right outside the parking lot. The view from our room was spectacular. I slept very well. Tom, the host is so great! He gave us a map and some hiking recommendations when we checked in. The next morning we went to Maroon Bells at 7am for a hike and didn’t quite get finished until 10am which was checkout time. I called the hotel frantic and Tom was so accommodating, told me not to worry about rushing back to check out. My husband and I were so pleased with the discovery of this little gem and we definitely plan to be back for a longer stay!!!

Well we returned to the mountain chalet and we didn’t have the same great experience. To be honest it seems as if the ownership of this hotel doesn’t really care about what happens there anymore. There is no continuity from one day to the next. No one seems to be in charge, you’re just at the mercy of the front desk staff and the mood they are in as they make up different rules each day. For instance one of our favorite parts about this hotel is the wood-burning fireplace. You can see my review from last year spoke about this amenity. However when we returned this year, we found the experience not so pleasant and relaxing. I made a nice fire one night and was actually told by a nice maintenance man as he was refilling the wood stuff what a great fire it was and if I needed any help. The next night we came and made the same type of fire sat and relaxed went to a room for a second to get some snacks and came back to see the fire has been spread out and put out. That’s when one of the ladies from team cranky told us, with a furrowed brow and a frown, they have decided to arbitrarily limit the maximum number of logs allowed in the fireplace at any time to four. If you need to read that again please do so. They told me in a 10 foot wide fireplace that four half split logs was the maximum to burn. At this point I knew that woman had never made a fire in her life because no one can start and sustain a fire of half split logs using only four to start, or at a time. The complaint was that the fire was crackling. I almost didn’t know whether to spit or go blind. It all went downhill from there as each day a different team of front desk personnel presented a totally different hotel experience. There was the cranky old ladies team(s), the fun young guys team (the young guys were the only ones who actually seemed to care if you were enjoying your stay) and then people who really seems to be kind of in the middle. So you get one maintenance guy and one set of front desk staff telling me how I’ve got the run of the place and I can make a fire so I’m comfortable. And then another set of front desk staff and maintenance to glare at you, scowl and make stupid rules as they scold you. I honestly got the feeling like I had just stepped into my big brothers room and was shouted out whenever I went to ask the wrong group a question. I like the Mountain chalet for the quaintness and value, but I probably won’t subject myself to the unsettling experience of having different rules on different days and at different times of day instituted by the front desk staff.

The hotel is super nice, the pizza is super delicious, next time I live!