What’s the skiing like in Colorado?
Theres no denying the fact that Colorado is a bucket list destination for all skiers and boarders. America’s most popular ski state, it’s home to dozens of ski resorts including many names that are among the most famous in world skiing.
Vail resorts have been transforming the industry with their Epic Pass product which means one lift pass is valid at all its ski areas in the US and around the world, so with one purchase you can ski in dozens of Vail-owned as well as partner resorts including the 3 Valleys in France, Austria’s Arlberg region around St Anton and the Swiss 4 Valleys and Verbier among many others, even in Japan or the Andes if you decide to make additional trips to Europe besides your Colorado ski holiday. Your lift pass for them is already paid for.
Of course, it has grown into much more than a lift pass, the EpicMix app brings access to discounts and simple booking and payment of most other aspects of your ski holiday as well as bringing you handy live info like pointing you to the emptiest ski slopes at that particular moment.
How to travel from London to Colorado’s Best Ski Resorts
All this preamble is to explain why our family flew into Denver in March ’23, to catch some late season spring skiing, armed with our accounts created on the EpicMix app, and heading out on a fabulous road trip to half a dozen of Colorado’s best ski areas including Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Vail.
We flew London To Denver and quickly grabbed a super sized 4×4 to head 130 miles due west on the popular I70 towards Beaver Creek, the first in our prime ski destinations. The two hour journey actually turned into 5 hours due to a last minute snowstorm, which made for a dramatic drive up to the mountains but at the same time, the anticipation of what that snowstorm meant from a ski perspective really did build the excitement for the forthcoming days.
What you need to know about Beaver Creek Ski Resort
Arriving at Beaver Creek gives you a true sense of arrival, as you drive up to the gates with international flags lining the drive, you are greeted by a white gloved concierge to ensure you have a reservation to stay in the resort.
With the windshield chalked up, we head up the drive towards The Osprey at Beaver Creek, their oldest and most established ski-in-ski-out hotel right opposite the entrance to the pedestrianised village area.
The hotel had a sense of maturity with modern facilities, fireside breakfasts and on hand staff to manage all your needs. The rooms are typically spacious with lavish bathrooms and enormous beds, so there’s no tripping over suitcases or struggling to find somewhere to hang salopettes!
The big tick in the box is tripping outside of the back door onto the Strawberry Park Express Lift that can whisk you up to the thick of the mountain in minutes, or trip outside of the front door and find yourself in the centre of the resort surrounded by superb dining options, a huge ice rink and a bunch of coffee shops, ski shops and galleries.
Take a watch below to see what a great location this hotel has:
What’s the Village like at Beaver Creek
Beaver Creek has built a reputation with foodies as well as skiers (and we are all both) with great venues like Allie’s, Zach’s, and Beano’s fine dining cabins on the mountain which offer bucket-list culinary experiences, with snowcat-drawn sleigh rides to elevated epicurean escapes.
On our first night we opted for the wonderful Citrea, with gorgeous Mediterranean cuisine taking our taste buds back over the Atlantic, although here it’s the finest Colorado ingredients and modern culinary interpretations at play.
The following first day skiing of fresh powder up to our knees, revealed that this resort has something for everyone, from adrenaline junkies wanting to check off the resort’s famous annual Alpine Skiing World Cup super steep slope that’s the Birds of Prey racecourse, to families like ours with a wide variety of needs from the huge learning-friendly terrain like the new McCoy Park to intermediated and advanced terrain Beaver Creek has in abundance. Like much of North Americas skiing, the extra wide terrain and lack of piste markers, gives you the enormous feeling of space and having a mountain to yourself. We skied all day and indulged in the novel Ice Cream Parlour on the slopes, with huge Knickerbocker Glory style ice creams, as well as hot soup and toasted sandwiches, it felt a real calorie fuelled holiday treat.
At the end of Day 1, it was a Beaver Creek’s tradition not to be missed as the lifts closed for the day: Cookie Time. Every afternoon at 3 p.m., a sweet aroma sweeps over Beaver Creek Village as Cookie Time Chefs serve heaping trays of warm, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The perfect reward after a great day of skiing!
The next day we were greeted with yet more fresh powder, and it’s now April! So a long day on the hill was a must and the favoured McCoys park captured much of our time, skipping among the trees and bushes, that easily makes every run for every person feel different. We rounded day 2 off with dinner at Allie’s Cabin. We were whisked up from our plus accommodation at Beaver Creek Village to the cabin via an open-air sleigh, welcomed warmly with a roaring open fire and a magnificent view over the resort.
You dine alongside the glowing floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace and enjoy sweeping views of the Beaver Creek Village below. As well as enjoying more quality family time together in the intimate space of one of Beaver Creek’s three exquisite on-mountain fine-dining restaurants, Allie’s Cabin poured forth a refined, classic Northern Italian fare.
It’s a decade since I last visited Beaver Creek, and the memories had truly stuck true to reality. Heated pavements, escalators whipping you up to the ski lifts, fabulous dining and service all to match, it won’t be another ten years before I’m back!
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Vail Resort Guide
The sadness of leaving Beaver Creek was softened, after a short hop (literally – just 20 minutes), by arriving in the world-famous Vail, the heart of the Vail Resorts empire.
Under blue skies for more than 300 days each year, Vail is one of the best-known US ski resorts, as well as having the largest ski area in Colorado, a vast 5,300 acres of snowy wonderland.
Established sixty years ago by skiers and businessmen of Austrian descent, it has a faux European Alpine village design and oozes high quality in every aspect of its operations, from resort to slopes.
The vast terrain is embedded within the natural grandeur of the surrounding Gore and Sawatch Ranges and Vail is host to world-class events as well as shops and spas, and still more abundant culinary options (yes, we had plenty of pounds to burn off on the slopes each morning on our Colorado trip). There are luxurious accommodations that line the pedestrian-friendly streets of Vail and Lionshead Villages.
This vast ski area, served by a state-of-the-art fleet of high-speed lifts is on most skier’s ‘must-do’ list and unsurprisingly many return year after year. In knowledgeable ski circles it is most famous for its seven seemingly limitless Back Bowls, but the full domain, covering the area of more than 4,000 American football fields, has something for every skiing desire and every ability.
We checked into the classic beauty, The Lodge at Vail, greeted by enthusiastic Valet Parking Attendants, who absorbed our luggage filled car in a matter of seconds, and covered in yet more snow, we took cover in the reception with its super sized luxurious sweeping staircase to check into our next room. This was a condo style suite with views over the outdoor pool with oceans of steam rising among the falling flakes of snow, it felt like this had all been lavishly laid on for our arrival.
That evening we dined at Fall Line Kitchen and Cocktails where I was coerced into having a rather pink served Elk steak. It was one of the best things I’ve ever tasted in a resort. The food, the service and the recommendations from the staff were second to none and the next days skiing with our Ski Guide was absolutely needed if only to work off the dinner from the night before. But that’s not to say we weren’t able to indulge in the magnificent breakfast at The Lodge at Vail, our best breakfast…so far.
Our guide that day quickly became a friend, this lady clearly knew the mountain aftre more than a decade or two guiding and living nearby, and soon got the measure of our family’s needs, ‘show us the mountain, and don’t hang around’.
We had a best day ever in Vail, among powdery conditions and huge laughs with our guide and promises of house swaps, it felt like we were skiing with a life-long friend which really added to the whole American Charm Appeal.
After a few days of enjoying its snowy slopes and superb dining, it was clear to us just how Vail has risen to become one of the world’s great ski destinations.
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The Ultimate Guide to Breckenridge Ski Resort
So it was quite a tear having to repack our bags to make our next short trip to the authentic ski town of Breckenridge, one of the highest ski areas in the Rockies and indeed home to the world’s highest attitude chairlift!
So what is Breckenridge Resort Really Like?
We were now still only about two hours west of Denver International Airport. It’s affectionately known as ‘Breck’ to locals and visitors alike, and it’s a resort few don’t fall in love with its vintage cool ski town charm paired with phenomenal skiing.
We could sense the impending question of ‘which was your favourite resort’, wasn’t going to be quite some simple to answer.
It’s impossible to miss Breck’s massive Five Peaks cutting into the skyline, serving as the scenic backdrop as you make your way into the historic Town and drive down Main Street.
The entire town of Breck is practically ski-in, ski-out and is choc full of enticing boutiques, restaurants and shops, we love it. It felt like being on a movie set.
Of course the accommodation couldn’t possibly match that of Vail or Beaver Creek, or could it? The vast change in hotel styling as we checked into the steel and glass clad Gravity Haus Hotel was welcomed.
It felt like the perfect blend of modern and industrial, but still friendly and I guess cool to coin a phrase.
In true American style, our now filthy 4×4 vanished into underground valet parking and our cases magically appeared in our huge family room. With a super view over the sunfilled town, the tiredness started to catch up on us, so we caught 40 winks to recharge. The room had cleverly incorporated 2 separate single rooms within the main room which made for a very spacious few days together, so after unpacking for a third time we started to plan our evening ahead.
In the short unpack time, surprise surprise, the sun drenched pavements of just an hour ago, were now coated white and snow was falling at almost blizzard speeds.
We headed out for a speedy dinner in a local Italian, and it was clear that Breck had an enormous amount to offer from both a ski and après perspective.
The snow storm delivered and we woke to ankle deep snow on the pavements and knee deep on the piste.
Breckenridge’s ski area is big. Like five mountain peaks, 180 trails, 35 lifts and nearly 3,000 acres. Most US resorts just have one mountain, but Breck is part of an entire mountain range, comprised of Peaks 6 through 10 spanning north to south within Colorado’s distinct Ten Mile Range and provides access to some of the most accessible high alpine terrain in the country.
We skied it all, though not in numerical order. Peak 6 is where we got our first taste of Breck’s high alpine on trails like Bliss and Reverie and then we found the below treeline terrain on Peak 7 an intermediate’s paradise with rolling groomed terrain serviced by the Independence and Freedom SuperChairs. Peak 8 at the heart of the resort has everything including North America’s (and the world’s) highest chairlift, the Imperial SuperChair, which of course we had to ride. Peak 9 offers some wide-open intermediate terrain and Peak 10, accessed by the 6-seater Falcon SuperChair, Peak 10 turned out to be a hub of advanced trails from smooth groomers to moguls, glades and rugged natural terrain.
The fabulous skiing of Beaver Creek and Vail all of a sudden became a distant memory, the decision of which is the favourite was now made impossible.
Breckenridge felt like it had it all; it felt more casual, almost cowboy style, a real American ski town, intimate but a good size too. It felt safe, the children were able to wonder around the eclectic mix of shops and restaurants alone and there seemed to be no end of choice of eateries, take aways and coffee shops as well as galleries, clothes shops and not to forget the wonderful toffee apple store.
One night we wondered down the main street to come face to face with an enormous moose. While a police warden flashed his torch at nearby cars to warn them of it impending road crossing, we were just feet away from this beast, filming it’s every move while locals told us about Brits that have visited every year for a decade to try and capture such an experience but without our success. This really secured Breckenridge as, dare I say it, our favourite resort of the trip among extremely stiff competition.
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Would I go Back to Ski in Colorado?
Looking back, this trip is one that our whole family will remember for decades to come, and thankfully for all the right reasons. The quality of Colorado’s ski resorts is unmatched and we were spoilt rotten by fantastic conditions, superb accommodations and wonderful dining experiences on top. The Epic Pass and Epic Mix App make the practical side of the whole experience stress-free, seamless and simple.
It was clear why Colorado is so popular. First, perhaps, was the snow. With some of the world’s highest ski areas, it has not just reliable snow cover from mid-autumn to late spring, but it’s also renowned for its abundance and fluffy, light quality.
Then there’s simply the quality of the ski holiday experience, with most of the state’s ski areas quick and easy to reach on good roads from Denver International and then providing spacious, comfortable accommodations, fabulous dining and every other aspect of your ski holiday from rentals to ski school and childcare, all to the highest quality. In short, for the highest chance of a great ski holiday, it’s a no-brainer.
If you are looking for the perfect destination for your next trip, our Resort Guide has everything you need to know. You can check out our regular podcast here Apple | Spotify | Podcasts or search The White Out on your chosen podcast directory.
