I recently stayed in the Sportsman Lodge in Golden. It's located on the highway, so about a 5 minute drive from downtown Golden. We got a really good price on our room with two Queen beds.

The reception was fairly non-existent. I showed up, said my name (I had booked online), they gave me a key with no other conversation or verification of who I was. The room was only semi-clean. Dirty mirror and open chocolate milk left in the mini-fridge. The beds seemed to have clean sheets and were bug free as far as I could tell. The bathroom was quite small and consisted of a shower and toilet, the sink is outside of the bathroom in the bedroom. In the mornings, there are a lot of Diesel trucks in the parking lot (directly in front of room door) that are left to "warm up" for 1/2 hour at a time and have sleds on the back.

The hot tub/pool/slide area are a nice touch although VERY chlorinated. I went into the sauna and left fairly quickly as the white tiles were quite browned over. On the plus side, there is no supervision to the slide and many fun times can be had on it.

Overall, if you're looking for a cheap, no-frill place to stay while skiing, sledding, or just passing through. The Sportsman works. I would give it 2.5 stars instead of 2 if that was possible, but I decided to round down.