We knew when planning our ski trip so early in the season that with all likelihood, it would be early season skiing conditions. What we did not expect was a total lack of snow. Most of the ski resorts in the Rockies are at a third of average snow totals for this time of the year. Our home resort actually delayed their opening day by a week , which was unprecedented. This time last year, we were snowshoeing on a trail in town. But as we have learned, traveling requires flexibility.
We began our trip this time around by visiting family in the Denver area and then headed west to Avon, Colorado. Our home resort is part of the Powder Alliance and so we got up the next morning and headed out to ski Loveland Ski Area. We get to ski 3 days there for free during the season. They had a few trails open besides their beginner area and we spent a few hours there getting our ski legs back. There was really good coverage with the snow they had made and just a couple of areas with rocks showing.
Originally, we had planned on skiing Beaver Creek, which is literally right up the road from where we were staying. But they were actually holding one of the Men’s World Cup Races that coming weekend, and I’m pretty sure most of their snow making capabilities went toward getting the Birds of Prey Race Course ready. So, with only 1% of their terrain open for general skiing, we looked into other options. We found that a walking tour of Vail was being offered through the Colorado Snowsports Museum.
We got to the museum early enough before the tour to see the movie on the 10th Mountain Division. If you’re not familiar with the 10th, it was an Army division put together to fight in WWII. The movie does a nice job of explaining the 10th’s role in WWII. Many of those soldiers were responsible for creating the ski industry as we know it today upon their return from the war. The walking tour was good, Ron did a nice job of providing the history of Vail and the people who were responsible for developing the Vail Ski resort in the early 1960’s. We had been skiing in Vail before, but it was nice to actually spend some time exploring the ski village a little more and learning how it grew from a number of sheep farms and one man’s idea to today. Vail Village was designed to look like a Bavarian ski village, so the winding walkways and buildings all have that feel. We had lunch at the Red Lion, one of the first restaurants in Vail. The food was good, but be careful their portions are huge.
We were back to skiing the next day. This time it was off to Breckenridge. It’s about an hour drive from were we were staying, but they had 6% of their terrain open. So, that gave us a little more variety then some of the other resorts. This year we also purchased an Epic Pass. So, our trip is planned around resorts that we can ski at with either the Powder Alliance or the Epic Pass. It’s also nice in this instance not to be locked in with tickets to a specific resort on a specific day. We had a nice day skiing Brek and we found it easy to park at the Gondola lot for $10 and riding the Gondola right up to the ski lifts.
We got back to Avon and decided to go ahead and take a drive up to Beaver Creek and a least take a look around. If you get there after 3pm, you can park in the garage by the village for 3 hours for free. Too bad we wouldn’t be hanging around a few more days to watch the races.
That’s a lot of me’s 
