re: 2018-2019 Season Long Ski Thread

Made it in last night around 145am, time to get this party started at breck with 5" of fresh powder. 9* outside though...

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Christys is really good and gets you in and out quick and they'll get you everything you need. They will also have ski apparel. 

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Headed to christys shortly, hope it's as quick as you say!

Today was a good day

All I see are Vokl Mantras, and Nordica Enforcers. But that’s probably driven by their respective marketing machines, as much as anything.

That’s perfect for groomers.

With the marketing, they’re good skis, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an element of pay to play.

At the very least, you’re not going to slam a ski a company has lent you to Demo. And that’s doubly true if you got invited on a junket.

This was my first time in Breckenridge. Here’s what I did and thought it was prettty easy.

Book flights to Denver early if flying.
Plan your drive from Denver to the mountains mid day so you don’t drive at night.
Traffic up to mountain gets bad on fridays and down mountain on sundays.
Check in is typically 4pm.
1 week before trip, buy first timer ski lesson/lift ticket online. 2 days is plenty. Doing this a week in advance lets you decide if the snow is good and where you want to stay.
Buy lift ticket online for third day. Stay on greens all day unless you feel comfortable going blue.
3 days of skiing is plenty
I rented equipment from Larson sports just off I70 in Denver. It’s much cheaper than renting on the mountain. They had excellent customer service.
I waited to book condo 3 days before trip on Airbnb and got a smoking deal at the base of peak 8. this may not work on a busy spring break. The condos at the base of peak 7/8/9 are really easy on the family.
It gets crowded on weekends.
Download the EpicMix app to navigate the terrain and lift locations.
Drink plenty of water before trip and during. Bring pedialyte

Look for areas with good snow in spring.

Hanging out in our room for a 4 day stay at Squaw Valley Tahoe, this place is like my heaven, we are close enough to make the day trip quite a but, so nice staying here though

Another Breck review for anyone going soon. Overall pretty good experience, great snow, easily walkable town, and cheap booze.

Long version:
Flew Wednesday night to Sunday morning for this trip with my two of my good buddies and one of their dads so we'd get in 3 days of skiing Thurs, Fri, and Sat. Got into Denver 30 min early (thanks delta) and had a reservation at Advantage ($85 for the full trip) so we took the rental bus over to the off site location. For those of you who haven't rented with Advantage before, the reviews are terrible (see here). When we get there the line is about 9 people long and looks much better than the pictures online so we figure it'll take about 30-45 minutes. Got up and the intermediate suv we reserved was supposedly not AWD/4WD which we needed since it was snowing in the mountains. Guy made us upgrade to the standard since everything else was booked. Overall a pretty terrible rental experience, please spend the extra $100 or so and rent from one of the more respectable companies like hertz, avis, etc.

After 50 minutes we book it out of there and try to hurry to a bud store since we were in colorado. Found a store a half hour away, ran in at 11:50pm, picked out some items, went to checkout when we found out that A, they didn't accept cards and B, they had to shut down sales at midnight exactly (it was 11:57pm at that point). Ran to the atm, back to register, put money on counter and by the time the guy picked up the money it was 12:00... Talk about a terrible way to start a vacation

After that mishap, we get back in the car and drive the remaining hr 30 into the mountains. Went through the first tunnel fine then hit snow around Georgetown where it picked up quite a bit and made the drive more difficult. Ended up in Breck at 1:45am and went straight to bed at the Hyatt Vacation Club off Main St. Woke up around 8:30am with the view below



Before heading to the slopes, I went to christy rental to pick up my demos. Solomon boots and nordica skis, decent selection but took about a half hour and it wasn't very crowded. Around 10:30am, we walk over to the quicksilver lift and head up Peak 9.





With 5 inches of fresh powder, we had plenty of options to choose from. Over the course of the day, we hit up a lot of the E-chair and the 6-Chair by Quandary/Solitude. The mountain was very difficult to get a grasp of just because of how large it is. Think my best run of the day was Tom's Baby or Quandary (pic below is looking at Peak 6)



At night we went out to Brooklyn's Tavern & Billiards since we wanted to play pool. Beer was $2 so we got a few then walked around until I saw the crepe stand. Drunk me knew how good a fresh crepe would be so I got an apple strudel one, turned out excellent. Made our way back to the hotel with the crepe and passed out.

Second day was again more powder except this time focused on Peak 6 and Imperial. View at bottom of imperial



At the top of imperial, we traversed over Whale's Tale to the Peak 7 bowls. Some great snow over there, steep but great conditions for early december.



For lunch we stopped at pioneer crossing and had a burger, fries and gatorade for $31... Not happy with the pricing but it is what it is. Ended up getting a whiskey ginger and sitting on some lounge chairs outside looking straight out at the rockies, doesn't get much better than that.

At night, we went out off Main St. for the Dew Tour boarding and skiing event downtown. They legitimately converted an alley way into a huge ramp with rails and jumps. They had the main events during the daytime on the mountain but it was still cool to see at night.



We stayed for a bit then went bar hopping. First was a bar attached to a ski shop Rocky Mountain Underground. Long wait at the bar but cool vibe. Second up was Napper Tandy's, nice bar environment and it was ladies night . Third bar up was the gold pan saloon. Place was turned into a night club at this point but somehow we met someone from syracuse. Seemed like everyone in the bar was 21-24 or 45-55, interesting crowd.

Third day of skiing went well, lot of Peak 6, tree runs, and Imperial. Some good runs were The Windows off E-chair and Vertigo off Imperial.



After skiing we had to pack up and drive the 2 hours back to our hotel by Denver airport. Hit some traffic so it took around 2.5 hours but not a bad drive overall.

For dinner we went to Steuben's off 17th St in downtown denver. Old diner type feel and apparently was on Diners Driveins and Dives. Food was excellent, got the rachel and a side of mac & cheese with bacon. Drinks were good, but we figured we'd spend more money at a nearby bar and watch the broncos/avs. Didn't spend much time after the game was over downtown before heading back to the hotel and falling asleep. Flight at 9am on sunday left on time and we headed back to Buffalo



Overall had a great trip, would recommend Breck to any age or skiing group. Only took about half a day to get over the altitude, chug water and get a good nights sleep. Skiing wise, I really had trouble getting a good grasp on where I was on the mountain, not sure if that was because the mountain was so large or a lack of good signage.

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Crepes ala Cart is legendary. And has a sister location in Nola...

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Interdasting... where in nola is this? A warm crepe when it was about 0*F out tasted great, can only imagine being drunk in nola at midnight looking for a crepe

Winter Park is awesome for beginners.

If you’re looking for a town with lots of activities, stay in Aspen but ski buttermilk mountain....it’s oretty much entire green runs (for beginners).