Ajax or Aspen Mountain? Aspen’s flagship ski mountain has a split personality.

Aspen Mountain is the technical name as it appears on US Geological Survey maps. Ajax (no, it’s not the kitchen cleanser) has long been a local nickname for the very same mountain, originating, according to some, from a mining claim filed during the early silver mining days in the booming 1880s.

The colorful nickname stuck and for decades, the mountain has had two monikers. Many local skiers who heard old-timers refer to Ajax linked themselves with the history of the town and took on the same habit. The name change is not official for the Aspen Skiing Company, but rather an acknowledgment of what some locals have known all along.