This past week I was lucky enough to experience four days in the beautiful mountains of Colorado skiing and riding with good friends. We were able to make this trip out west pretty efficiently (in terms of time-off work and $) and we still managed to ride three incredible resorts over the extended weekend. Take a look at the recap video(s) below to catch-up on all the action:
In terms of our schedule, we flew in Thursday afternoon and proceeded to pickup our rental car near downtown. We rented the vehicle through Turo–I’ve had great luck with this service out of Denver. If you don’t know what Turo is, I’d highly recommend checking it out if you area in the area. It is essentially Airbnb for rental cars, and I’ve been able to rent some excellent vehicles over the five or six times that I’ve used it. Definitely check it out.
Thursday night was rather uneventful as we crashed at a friend’s place in the city. We were, however, up early Friday morning to head west on 70 (by 5:45am). Since our weekend condo was in Avon, we landed in/on? Vail for our first day of riding. From there, we rode Beaver Creek Saturday and Sunday, and finished the long weekend at Breckenridge on Monday.
The Airbnb we stayed at in Avon was located at BC West–a condo complex I would also highly recommend. I have stayed at this property twice before and have had a great experience each time. It is centrally-located in Avon and offers a convenient shuttle that drops at the nearby Avon gondola (easy 3 min ride to BC mountain).
Our last day (Monday) was a half-day as we needed to catch our flight back to Raleigh, so we got first tracks at Breck and were off the slopes by shortly after 12 noon. It was an absolutely epic trip, and one that we are actually looking to make again very shortly!
Take a look below at my notes on each individual mountain:
Vail – Friday (1 day)
Vail reported 5″ of snow for our first day on the slopes, and we soaked up every single minute of it. In terms of the weather, we were gifted a beautiful bluebird day–sunny skies and warm temps in the upper 30’s.
After riding most of mid-Vail for the morning, we stopped for a lunch break at one of our favorites in the main village, Los Amigos. The margs, chips, and queso always hit so nice on the back deck that overlooks gondola one. We made the short walk back to the parking deck to shed some layers and we were back headed up the mountain.
I was pleasantly surprised by how thin the crowds were for a Friday. The longest lift line we waited in was probably just over five minutes. Not bad at all.
The afternoon involved a bit more of the same with a few new runs added in from the Game Creek area. After a few more hours of riding, we decided to call it an afternoon and head to Avon to check-in to our Airbnb.
Beaver Creek – Saturday and Sunday (2 days)
The Beav is my favorite mountain out of this bunch, so you can see why I lobbied for accommodations in Avon. This resort is always an unreal experience and I was excited to share it with friends for their first visit. Saturday was actually snowing and overcast most of the day while the sun came back on Sunday. Temperatures were hovering right around 30 degrees.
There are never any lift lines at Beaver Creek, and this time was no different. Even at “congested” areas of the mountain, there were minimal to no lines to speak of. Really spoils you compared to other resorts these days. We were able to explore the majority of the mountain (minus Arrowhead–my personal favorite area), and we spent the most time on the Bachelor Gulch mountain.
Lastly, we were able to enjoy the amazing BC village on Sunday evening. After exploring some of the shops, we stopped by the Dusty Boot for some beers and apps, and capped off the night with some to-go pizzas from Blue Moose. Another epic visit to one of my favorite places on Earth.
Breckenridge – Monday (1/2 day)
Although my friend was slightly concerned about us somehow missing our flight back later in the day, we were able to get started early and out the door headed to Breck. Parking here was an absolute breeze, and we were on the gondola shortly after 8:30am. This gave us just about 4 hours to ride, and we certainly made the most of our final morning.
Again, another sunny day with highs in the lower 30’s, we had a tremendous time in our short visit here. With relatively minimal crowds and good snow from the previous week’s storms, it was a great way to finish our trip.
And that’s it! Thank you so much for reading and following along. We will be running the trip back in just a few short weeks, so be sure to stay tuned for that recap! See you then!
– Walker
Texas-Ranger Travels 