Skiing in Summit County, Colorado, USA

Top of Arapahoe Basin on March 5th 2017

For our first trip of this year, and our fifth anniversary, we decided to go skiing in Colorado. We had the Epic Tahoe local pass, which includes five days of skiing at Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone, Arapahoe Basin or Beaver Creek.

Since we were not booking this very far in advance, we took a private room in Frisco through Airbnb. We flew into Denver and rented a car for the two hour drive up. Our flight was delayed, so we only got in at 3am Wednesday night / Thursday morning. 

Thursday

The next morning we were up predictably late, so we decided to have a big breakfast in Frisco so we could skip lunch and spend as much time on the slopes as we could. We strolled over to the Butterhorn Cafe for frittatas and coffee in friendly yellow mugs.

Frisco

Frisco was a pleasant surprise. It is a former mining town, and they have done their best to preserve this spirit, while still clearly catering to tourists that will want good food, coffee and drinks. They even have massages, yoga classes and nail salons! Most importantly, it is excellently located to access all five ski resorts included in the Epic pass in Summit County. We had initially planned to stick to one of the five resorts for our whole stay, but upon realizing how easily we could get to them, we changed tack and decided to do a "Summit County Sampler" - one ski resort per day!

Frisco - Keystone: 15min
Frisco - A Basin: 25min
Frisco - Breckenridge: 20min
Frisco - Vail: 35min
Frisco: Beaver Creek: 45min

We headed over to Pioneer Sports to pick up the skis we had preordered. They were very professional and got us set up with the Demo Package fairly quickly. This is also where we learned that Keystone stays open till 8pm every evening, and they recommended we go there today since we were starting so late. What great advice!

Keystone turned out to be an amazing resort. We stayed for the night skiing, watched sunset from Summit House with a Baileys-Peppermint-Schnapps hot chocolate and then did an extra run because we missed the turn to get back to our car :D

Even though it was already 7pm by now, we went to exchange Fiona's skis because they were not great for carving and her boots were too soft. The guys at Pioneer were very helpful once again and we didn't need to come back for another exchange.

We picked up picnic and breakfast supplies at the Safeway and Whole Foods next doors, before crashing for homemade gluten free pizza and a beer (/cider) at Greco's pastaria in Frisco.

Friday

The guys at the rental store recommended we do the two big resorts (Vail and Breckenridge) on Friday or Monday, since the weekend would see all the weekend tourists come up from Denver. We heeded their advice and headed for Breckenridge after grabbing coffee at Abbey's Coffee (Rocky Mountain Roasters was far too busy). Since we didn't want to pay $35 for parking, we headed for the satellite lot and took the free shuttle to the resort, which was very convenient indeed.

After a very full day of skiing in Breckenridge, and obligatory hot sweet spiked chocolate après-ski, we headed back to Frisco for dinner. It gets busy! We called 4 places before we found room at 5th Avenue Grille.

Saturday

We headed for Beaver Creek at 7:30am this morning to catch the first few runs and get good parking. There is no free parking at Beaver Creek, the cheapest options are Elk lot and Bear lot, at $10 a day each, with a free shuttle up to the beginning of the slopes. These parking lots used to be free, but as of the 2016/17 season Beaver Creek has started charging for them.

After a free hot chocolate at the top of the Centennial lift, we spent the day exploring the resort, and finished off with a glass of bubbles and free s'mores for après-ski. Beaver Creek isn't lying when they say "not really roughing it"!

We had thought ahead this time and had reservations at Vinny's in Frisco for dinner.

Sunday

Happy Anniversary to us! To celebrate, we headed up to A Basin, which we had heard was a fairly steep mountain and very high, starting at 3300m, but not after coffee at Rocky Mountain Coffee Roasters today!

Even though we arrived at 9am, the closest lot was already full, so we headed to the second one, which is still walkable in ski gear. 

It was very windy today, which prevented us from getting much skiing done here. The lifts were not express lifts, and frequently slowed down or even stopped due to high winds. We explored everything a little, but after lunch in the summit hut (during which several ski patrol guys came in to inform everyone that snowboards were blowing away unless attached!) we decided we'd get more ski time per lift time in Keystone, and headed over there for the afternoon.

We were glad we did, even though the Outback was also closed due to weather. We did a half dozen runs down Prospector with almost no people, which was delightful and magnificent carving.

We headed home to shower and dress up for our anniversary dinner at Hearthstone in Breckenridge, where they did a wonderful job of pampering us on our special day 😍

Monday

What was supposed to be our last ski day in Vail turned out quite differently due to fairly severe weather. We were up and out of the Airbnb very early, ready for a day in the region's biggest and most famous resort! 

It looked like it had only snowed an inch or so overnight, so even though it was windy and cloudy, we headed west as soon as we could. Unfortunately, the I-70 hadn't been plowed yet. This would have been manageable but after 15min on the road we realized the combination of fog and high winds gusting very fine snow into the air meant we could not even see the car ahead of us. It didn't seem safe to drive over and we weren't convinced we'd have much fun skiing in these conditions. With a heavy heart we turned around, returned our skis and made our way down to Denver.

On the up side, we got to explore Denver for an afternoon! We were entirely unprepared for this so had to make do with research done on a phone while in a car (not something Fiona's stomach tolerates well). We checked out the 16th Street Mall, which was somewhat disappointing. We expected cafes and shops, but since it was so cold and windy, almost nobody was out and there wasn't much shopping. 

Union Station was probably the most beautiful station either of us had ever seen, so that was worth a short visit! 

We headed over to the Colorado State capitol for a picture at the mile high point (although missed the marker - hasty internet research is clearly insufficient), and then spent some time in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center before a lovely dinner at North Italia. Because they couldn't let us finish our anniversary champagne from yesterday, they offered us a small glass of champagne on the house instead!

Then it was off to our airport hotel, ready for a crack of dawn departure the next morning.

Ski Area Reviews

A note about our skiing style and resort preferences: We primarily enjoy carving, and as the Wikipedia article notes, "Pure carving is a useful technique on slopes of moderate steepness and smooth snow—"groomer carving" is widespread and there are skis dedicated to this style.", meaning our preferred slopes are moderately steep, have well groomed and firm snow, and are ideally wide. This unfortunately translates to steeper green and moderate blue slopes working out best for us. These of course tend to be very crowded, so we like to look for slopes that have an initial black section (to ward off crowds of beginners) that then smooth out into great carving slopes!

Keystone (Thursday)

Keystone was hands down our favorite resort among the ones we've visited in the US, maybe even that we've visited ever. The majority of the runs we did were excellent for carving: Wide, fairly empty, great gradients, firm snow and really long!

Since we got there late both times we were here, we didn't get to see as much of the Outback (the mountain furthest back country), but tremendously enjoyed Porcupine - we would definitely have done it again (and again and again) and explored this peak more had it not closed right after we got there...

Prospector was our favorite run on the North Peak (the middle one), we did this one over and over till the lifts closed on Sunday. We found Alamo to start off too steep and flatten out too quickly.

On Dercum Mountain our favorites were Spring Dipper, the Flying Dutchman and the Frenchman. We must have done each of them a half dozen times. It's worth aiming for the mid-load station of the gondola to save on wait times :)

Breckenridge (Friday)

Breckenridge was big, as we expected, but not unmanageably so. We got a good overview of the whole mountain in one day, even if we didn't do every single run. They have a lot of runs that are really just sections,  so though they list 187 runs, it's really more accurate to take the number of lifts and double that number (34 x 2 = 68). We spent the morning on the right side of the mountain exploring the Kensho area. Our favorite runs for this first of five peaks (peak 6) were Bliss + Euphoria or Delirium and combining that with Lost Horizon to make for a longer run.

We avoided the Independence Super Chair save for the first and last runs of the day because it got more busy. On that peak (peak 7), our favorite was Angel's Rest, followed by Claim Jumper and Wirepatch.

The Rocky Mountain and the Colorado Super Chairs (peak 8) were too steep for very good carving. Northstar and Duke Run would have been the best bet but truly carving down these would have been too fast to be safe.

On Peak 9 (Mercury Super Chair) our favorite was Briar Rose, followed by Cashier and Upper Lehman. Make sure not to miss the exit towards the Mercury Super Chair lest you end up on peak 10, which has only black runs. We didn't try this peak.

Overall peaks 6, 7 and 9 are probably best for carving, if you can avoid the crowds!

Beaver Creek (Saturday)

Beaver Creek was fairly spread out and we weren't as lucky with the snow. We got there early, and though we managed to get some freshly groomed runs, the snow was still extremely hard and not that great for carving. Early afternoon softened it up and this is when we had the most fun!

The left side of the mountain (Centennial & Co) was much busier and the top half was too flat to be much fun, so we headed over to the right side in the afternoon. We had great fun on the Sawbuck trail (we just waited until it was almost empty to take it) and taking the Upper Beaver Creek Mountain Express Lift, as well as the Pow Wow, Cresta and Golden Bear runs at the Arrow Bahn lift. The Cabin Fever and Stirrup/Springtooth runs were really great too. If you like carving, it's probably best to stick to that side of the mountain all day. We didn't wait for longer than 3 minutes at the lifts there and had so much fun on that side. You don't get the free hot chocolate or fresh cookies, but that's not really why we're here, now is it?

Arapahoe Basin (Sunday)

We got a few decent runs down the Norway, Lewanee and Montezuma lifts. On the front side, Dercum's gulch gave us good carving, the back side was mostly too steep. We imagine it must be fantastic with fresh powder along some of the more adventurous ways down the bowl, especially between the trees on the right side.

Overall, the ski resort is quite steep so it is not ideal for carving as you will end up going much too fast. Additionally, since this resort is so high up, the snow ended up being far colder and, you guessed it, harder.

A Basin, "front" side

A Basin, "back" side