The Great Outdoors: Aspen Meadows Resort

Aspen Meadows Resort earned our A+ rank, the highest we award, high in the clean mountain air of the Roaring Fork Valley. This is a resort where a dog can run across open meadow all morning and still have somewhere to be in the afternoon, welcome at the table, on the trail, and at a party thrown for dogs like them. This is my review of the resort, and of the dog friendly town of Aspen around it, for anyone thinking of bringing their dog to the Colorado Rockies.

A Resort That Loves Having Dogs Around

There is a particular bracing you do as a dog owner crossing a smart hotel lobby, half waiting to be told your dog is too big or welcome only in a certain wing. At Aspen Meadows you can leave that at the door. Every one of the ninety eight rooms welcomes dogs, so there is no set aside annex and no compromise on where you sleep, and there is no weight limit, so the big lolloping retrievers so often turned away are exactly as welcome as any lapdog. The fee is twenty five dollars a night with no deposit, and once you see what that buys, it reads as one of the most generous arrangements in American hospitality.

Your Dog Goes Where You Go

The thing that separates a truly dog friendly resort from a merely permissive one is where the dog is allowed to be. Here your dog goes where you go. Into the bar for a drink after a hike, into the restaurant for dinner, out onto the terrace, through the lounge, and happily at ease in the room while you take an hour to yourself. Being welcome across the restaurant and bar, and not just in a roped off corner, is rare even at this level, and it is the clearest sign a resort has thought about dogs as guests rather than as an exception to be managed.

The Dogs Have Their Own Social Calendar

What lifts Aspen Meadows into the very top tier is the thing you cannot fake, and it is this: the team here genuinely love having dogs around. They host Yappy Hour on the grounds, proper social gatherings that have drawn the local golden retriever community out in numbers and become a fixture in Aspen's dog calendar, written up in the Aspen Times more than once. Picture a lawn full of red gold retrievers tearing about in the mountain light while their owners stand around with a drink, and a happy dog working its way through a pup cup someone has just handed down to them. That is a resort that has understood something most never do, that your dog is a social creature having a holiday too, and that the memory you take home is as much theirs as yours.

The Room, And The Little Kindnesses

Back in the room there is a proper dog bed, food and water bowls, a treat waiting and even toys on arrival, so a dog settles far faster in a strange room and the whole thing feels like a holiday for them from the first minute. The resort runs a dog walking service if you fancy a lazy morning, hands out poop bags, and the team will happily point you to the best trails for the day. And in a detail that tells you exactly who these people are, the staff regularly give their own time to a local canine charity. You feel that everywhere you go here.

The Finest Grounds We Have Ever Assessed

The grounds are the real showpiece, and I do not say this lightly: Aspen Meadows won our Great Outdoors Award for the finest grounds of any hotel we assess. Acres of open green space sit right outside the door of a serene, modernist, Bauhaus inspired campus, with mountain trails heading out in every direction and Aspen's backcountry within a short walk. For an active dog this is paradise, morning runs with the peaks turning gold and long afternoon ambles through some of the most beautiful landscape in Colorado. If your dog measures a holiday in square miles of good ground to cover, there is nowhere better.

Walks Worth Waking For

You are spoiled the moment you step off the campus. The Rio Grande Trail runs flat and easy along the Roaring Fork right from the edge of town, a gentle leashed walk with the water beside you. Lower Hunter Creek gives you a shaded climb along a rushing stream up into a broad meadow with Aspen Mountain behind you. And for the walk every local dog knows, Smuggler Mountain Road climbs to an observation deck with the whole valley laid out below, and it is one of the rare in town trails where a dog under voice control can run off the lead. Closer in, the town keeps proper off leash room at Wagner Park, at Rio Grande Park, and at Marolt Open Space, which even has a pond your dog is welcome to swim in.

Where To Eat And Drink With Your Dog

Aspen is a genuinely dog friendly town and you will not go hungry with a dog at your feet. The White House Tavern is the easy favourite, a lovely spot with a handful of patio tables where leashed dogs are welcome alongside its famous crispy chicken sandwich. Hickory House on Main Street does proper barbecue with an inviting patio for slow afternoons. CP Burger keeps a spacious patio your dog can join you on for lunch. And for a cold one after the mountain, Aspen Brewing Company welcomes dogs onto its patio, which on a summer evening is about as good as travelling with a dog gets.

The Verdict

Aspen Meadows is for the owner who came for the mountains and wants the dog at the table, on the trail and at the party alike. A full welcome across the whole resort, the finest grounds we have ever awarded, a walking service, and a genuine events calendar that has made the resort a hub for Aspen's dogs, all for a nightly fee that is frankly a gift. Its A+ rank is not merely earned, it is celebrated. Book it, bring your best friend, and spend the whole stay watching them live like a king. To see this resort's official Roch Dog review, click here.