We pulled into our condo, and unpacked, wishing we still had the oxygen content we have back in Chicago. It was quite pathetic how we huffed and puffed just carrying things back and forth between our car and the condo. We called it a night fairly early so we could get up early and hit the slopes.
Monday
Breckenridge. Skis were rented from a group of great guys at Wild Ernest's in Silverthorne. If you're ever in the area, they have downhill, XC skis, and snowshoes to rent at reasonable prices. Not to mention they knew us by name each time we walked in.
It was my first time to Breckenridge (and skiing in Colorado), so I was really excited. After an overfilled gondola ride, during which a lady was overly nervous about how we were over the person capacity, we took the first chair lift for a warm up run on some of the simpler slopes. It took some time to get the ski legs back underneath us, but then we started hitting some more challenging runs. The highlight of the day was when we rode the Imperial Express chairlift to the top of Peak 8. The Imperial Express chairlift is the highest chairlift in North America topping out at ~12840 ft. You can hike up another 100 feet or so to the top of the bowl, but we passed on this since I felt like a gust of wind would have blown me off the mountain.
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| Anna in the bowl at Peak 8 |
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| The view at lunch |
We skied down the ridgeline a bit and decided to get gutsy and jump headlong into the bowl. We stopped to take some pictures about halfway down. Needless to say, pictures don't do justice. The scenery was incredible, especially up above the treeline. Views are spectacular, and it's just amazing what God created. You get the feeling He had some fun making the mountains.
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| The sky leaving Breckenridge |
After lunch and a few falls down the mountain in the afternoon, we called it a day and head to the local micro-brewery - Breckenridge Brewery. We sampled some of their food and custom brews, and then headed home to call it a night. An early night, I sadly fell asleep at about 7:30 or 8:00 while Anna took advantage and snapped some photos of me sleeping...thanks babe.
Tuesday
Reading so much about the Leadville 100 mile mountain bike race and trail run, I wanted to drive thru Leadville and see what it was like in person. If you ever have the chance to go to Leadville, keep on driving, it's not much to see. It's a rough mining town from years ago, not much in the way of rustic charm.
Thankfully we brought our snowshoes with us and had done a little research about a place called Tennessee Pass just outside of Leadville. Fantastic. It has a small ski hill (Ski Cooper) and miles of groomed and ungroomed trails for snowshoeing and cross country skiing. Unlike some of the more well known resorts, this place was relatively affordable, down-to-earth, and not quite so "uppity." We went for a great snowshoe excursion to a yurt that they have in the woods set up as a restaurant, known as the Tennessee Pass Cookhouse. Unfortunately it wasn't open, but it made for a great lunch stop with our homemade sandwiches and snacks we brought with us. It also made for one of the best lunch views I've ever had.
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| Snowshoeing at Tennessee Pass |
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| The yurt |
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| Lunch view, day 2 |
Tennessee Pass also gave me a great chance to try out the cross country skis that Anna got me for Christmas. I took them for a quick little 200 yard trial in advance of the XC ski lessons we were planning on doing the following day.
We drove the long way around so we could see Vail, and then grabbed some pizza and played Scrabble to finish off the night. The pizza went great, the Scrabble, not so great.
Wednesday
We headed back into Breckenridge so we could walk around the different shops. Breckenridge is a great little town, quite quaint and plenty to see and do. I think Breck would be as much fun in the summer as the winter. After a few hours of shopping (and spending a whopping $16 on some cold weather clothing), we headed over to Breckenridge Nordic Center for some cross country ski lessons we had scheduled earlier that day. Admittedly this place seemed a bit pricy, at least compared to Tennessee Pass, but the extra cost was worth what we got in lessons.
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| Me getting some instruction by our Olympian coach |
Our instructor happened to be a former Olympian in rowing (Sydney and Athens), who coached rowing in the summers on Lake Dillon and taught cross country skiing in the winter. He took us on some basic flat trails to get a feel for our skill level, and then he quickly took us to some steeper terrain. Sadly we found that a moderately steep hill is significantly more challenging on XC skis as opposed to downhill skis. While carving back and forth is pretty easy on downhill skis, XC skis have a very undefined and curved edge that doesn't allow for carving. We both tested our abilities to go downhill on XC skis, and I personally found the challenge even more exciting than downhill on the mountains. XC skis going downhill gives me the same feeling of waterskiing, so I'm bound to like it.
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| It doesn't get any better than being with her |
Greg, our instructor, then took us on to some more flat land and worked on rhythm and efficiency of our skiing style. This proved to be more of a challenge than I thought, but nothing a little practice can't firm up. After about two hours of skiing, we called it a day and headed back to Breckenridge Brewery for some happy hour appetizers which turned into our dinner.
At least we did better in the calories burned than calories ingested that day.
Thursday
We saved what we anticipated to be the best for last, and Vail did not disappoint. A massive snowstorm was looming, so we picked up our skis the night before and headed to Vail. To say Vail is huge is an understatement. Vail is literally double the size of Breckenridge. You can ski through what feel like meadows with trees on some of the runs, ski the back bowls, take extremely long and easy runs down to the bottom that give you an awesome tour of the mountain, and ride the steepest chairlifts I've ever been on.
It was cool and sunny when we got there, no signs of the snowstorm in sight. But after about an hour or so, we could see the clouds in the distance heading straight for us. It began to snow, snow, and snow some more. This was the first time I've ever gone skiing where the skiing conditions improved over the day. Powder kept getting deeper throughout the day, and we had a blast floating in and out of trees, going down some more challenging runs, and talking to all sorts of people on the chairlifts.
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| Getting snowed on at Vail |
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| Vail Village |
The snowstorm made for an awesome day of skiing, but it made for a sketchy drive back. Since this was our last day, we decided to head back out of the mountains and figured we would try and find a place to stay East of Denver so we could get a head start on the drive for the next day. With the roads deteriorating from the snow, trucks were required to put chains on tires and we were forced to drive through slow moving and treacherous traffic. Quite honestly I was thankful for the slow moving traffic. Given my midwestern upbringing, driving through snowy and icy mountain roads isn't something I have much experience doing. It took us about three hours to get from Vail back to Denver, and then we decided to stop for a bite to eat.
Wind was kicking up the snow progressively worse, and driving another 60 miles after dinner to our stay for the night was quite challenging. White outs, slippery roads, and shaky semis all made for a very happy arrival at our Best Western in Fort Morgan, CO. What didn't make us happy was the awful smell coming from the food plant down the road and the freaky pictures of people from the early 1900's that were hanging on the wall above our bed, which was placed underneath a tin ceiling. Thankfully it was clean.
Friday
We got on the road about 7:00, and made our way. Nebraska had even worse weather forecasted. The Weather Channel said a high of 3, snow, and 30 to 40mph winds. Unfortunately all were true. It slowed us down for a while, but we were able to make some decent time and get home in one piece after a long day of driving. Our bed never felt so good.
Conclusion
We had a great time. After stressing between Yellowstone, Florida, and Colorado, our last minute decision to head to Colorado was a winner. We did it on a relatively budget considering we 1) drove, 2) found a deal on the condo, 3) mostly ate at the condo or brought lunches, and 4) only had two people. After watching families of six or more people, Anna and I ran the math in our heads of how much it would cost to do a week long Colorado ski trip while staying at a condo, renting a car after flying from the East coast, paying for lift tickets, meals out, and all of the other stuff that a trip like this entails.
We did good. God is good, and we had such a great time together building, as Anna calls it, "marriage equity." Our marriage bank account is pretty dang good right now.
Looks like an amazing trip. Enjoy while you can...
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