I've travelled to Colorado three times this year for snowboarding at resorts valid on my Epic Local Pass in the Summit County area. These resorts include Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin. The first trip was over Keystone's opening weekend in Fall, the second trip was in the heart of winter in early February, and the third trip overlapped with the first day of Spring. Since we visited the area over three different seasons, we experienced different snow conditions at Keystone and Breckenridge, which became our favorite resorts of the area.
Keystone Resort
As I said previously, our first visit to Keystone was on opening day. Compared to other opening days I have visited, Keystone's was the least crazy. Mostly blue runs were open, but the blue runs that were open were wide, well groomed, and long. Since the runs could accommodate large crowds due to their length and width, I did not fear other people running into me or dodging others on the slope. Two high speed lifts, the gondola and summit express, were running ensuring short lift lines. The bunny hill was also open at the summit, ensuring beginners were not traversing the blue runs on such a busy day. Coverage at Keystone each time we rode there was descent. I never feared running over a rock and scratching my board. In the later part of the season any powder or groomed snow was underlain by ice, which required a bit more skill to navigate later in the day when the loose top layer was scraped aside. I can't imagine the conditions were any where near as icy as I have heard the east coast resorts can be.
Keystone is a resort for all skill levels. A gondola transports beginner skiers and snowboarders who are not yet fully comfortable disembarking from a chairlift from the base to the summit. Beginners can then ride the 3.5 mile long schoolmarm back to the base and the gondola. I am more of an intermediate-advanced level, and Keystone suited my level and style of riding perfectly. The gondola only brings skiers and riders to the summit of the first peak. Two peaks equipped with four lifts reside behind the first peak. These peaks offer more of a back country feel, with fewer people than the front side and views of nothing but wilderness, unlike on the frontside where the parking lot can be seen from much of the mountain. Keystone also offers an extensive set of terrain parks ranging from small to large. I enjoy taking a few laps through a small terrain park, but I have not as yet tested Keystone's small park, and can offer no further comment on it. One opportunity which sets Keystone apart from its neighboring resorts is its extensive night skiing. A couple of days after other resorts closed, we drove to Keystone and kept riding until Keystone closed. Night skiing at Keystone encompasses blue runs, green runs, and the terrain parks so we were not forced to lap the same run for three hours. To put a cherry on the ice cream of night skiing, every Saturday night at Keystone during night skiing a fireworks show is launched from mid-mountin. Free parking at Keystone is located right next to the village and gondola, making a trip back to the car for lunch much easier than at Breckenridge, Vail, or Beaver Creek where we had to catch a bus from the runs to the parking areas.
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| View from the top of Outback Express at Keystone. Keystone's back peaks have a back country feel. |
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| The base of Ruby Express and Santiago Express at Keystone. Nice beach chairs with a view of a blue (left) and black (right) run. |
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| The front of Keystone during one of the two snowstorms we experienced during our time there. Overall Colorado had great snow conditions. |
Breckenridge Ski Resort
The first time I visited Breckenridge was on a Saturday, and I was overwhelmed by the crowds, both in the lift lines and on the slopes. However, I have since visited Breckenridge during the week and found the volume of people much more manageable. Breckenridge has three mountain bases, two of which are serviced by a gondola, while the third base is serviced by bus. Each base acts a a base for a specific set of peaks, each with their own unique feel. The Beaver Run base area, the base serviced by bus, offers long runs, with the summit of peak 9 surrounded by easy groomed blue runs which transition into green runs closer to the base. More advanced skiers and riders can ride over to peak 10, which is covered in black runs and not in people.
The middle base services peak 8 and a beginner area. Generally, the runs at peak 8 are shorter than at peak 9, but are of a similar difficulty. The runs also have more of a gentle rolling hill feel and are narrower than at Beaver Run. The beginner area offers a bunny hill serviced by Rip's Ride and a longer chair which services lengthier green runs. The third base area, which is also the first stop on the gondola caters primarily to intermediate and advanced snowboarders. This base is home to peaks 7 and 6. Peak six is the newest peak at Breckenridge to have access via a chairlift. It is also and impressive 12,573 feet in elevation, although the lift stops a little short of the summit. The terrain in this area consists almost entirely of rolling hills, of a much larger amplitude than the middle base area. The rolling hills will challenge beginner-intermediate snowboarders in maintaining a speed in which they will both not get stuck at the base of a hill or ride so fast as to be out of control when going over the top of a hill.
Snow coverage and conditions were great each time we visited Breckenridge. We've experienced sunny spring type days and snow days with over 6 inches of accumulation. I never experienced icy or mogul-like conditions. Despite all of these great attributes, parking and getting to the mountain from the parking lot is an ordeal. We always parked in free parking, which is a dirt lot on the edge of the city. We then had to take a school bus from the parking lot to the gondola, the closest entry point to the mountain. At the end of the day, when every skier and snowboarder rides the gondola down from the mountain, a long line can form at the red (free parking) bus stop. We have had to wait for two buses to pass before we could fight the crowds to get on. Also, when we ended our day at the Beaver Run area, we had to first take one bus from the Beaver Run area to the gondola station, then change buses to get to free parking. The whole process required more than an hour. As long as we made sure to end our days at one of the base areas serviced by the gondola and did not have to wait in a crazy long line to get on the free parking bus, the whole process from base to car took about 30-40 minutes.
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| Breckenridge's various peaks in the distance over a run at Keystone. |
Beaver Creek Resort
I only snowboarded at Beaver Creek once. While we covered most areas of the resort, we did not visit all of them. The slopes more on the left half of the mountain resort cater to beginners, with wide low grade runs. Slopes on the opposite side cater more towards skiers over snowboarders. This is due to the large amount of runs that consist of catwalks and roads. These runs are relatively flat and narrow, an annoyance to snowboarders, especially of the beginner-intermeditate level. Like Breckenridge, we took a bus from the free dirt parking to the slopes, which are higher in elevation.
We did visit Beaver Creek during the 2015 World Ski Championships. I had never visited a ski resorts while such a large and famous event was ongoing, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that although the parking lots were overflowing most visitors were there simply to watch the races, leaving most slopes on the mountain wide open. We were able to snowboard along the women's downhill course. Being able to watch skiers fly by at speeds of up to and over 70 miles per hour while leisurely picking our way down the adjacent slopes was pretty cool.
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| Watching the 2015 World Ski Championships from the adjoining slope at Beaver Creek. |
Vail Mountain Resort
Vail is a skier's resort. I do not say this, because I felt the people there (skiers or staff) disliked snowboarders. I say it, because the runs are much easier for skiers to traverse than snowboarders. Many times I was left at a juncture where I had to choose between continuing down a rather flat run I would for sure get stuck on or turing down a steep mogul-filled slope. I realize many skiers are also not fans of moguls, but I still argue it is easier to traverse moguls on skies than on a snowboard. As proof I put forth the fact that only skiers encounter moguls in the Olympics, not snowboarders. Vail also had the unfortunate parking system as that of Breckenridge. We had to take two different buses to get back to our car. The free parking at Vail is largely strips of dirt on the sides of a two lane road, with bus stops every few hundred feet or so. I was disappointed in Vail. I think in part my disappointment was due to all the hype I have heard about Vail. In reality I did not think it was necessarily any better than other ski resorts in the area. Looking at satellite imagery, Vail is larger than other ski resorts in the area. It would require days to ride every trail and run on the mountain, but with so many other ski resorts in the area, who wants to spend their whole vacation just exploring one resort? One very cool thing that Vail had, was live action photography available. In certain areas of the mountain photographers work in teams to photograph skiers and snowboarders and they ride down the slopes. The photos we had taken were linked to our season passes, and we were able to find them later online. All Vail resorts haver had the option to have professional photographers take our photos and link them to our season passes for retrieval later online. Vail is the only resort I have been able to have live action shots taken though.
Arapahoe Basin (A-basin)
This little ski resort is an added extra on our epic pass. I am not sure if it is a Vail-owned resort or if they merely have and agreement with A-basin. Either way A-basin, despite its small size, is usually the first resort to open each season, giving all skiers and riders an extra week or two of skiing and riding over the other resorts. A-basin is located a few minutes from Keystone, making a two resort day easy.
Want to see my post about snowboarding in Utah and visiting the Mormon Temple Square? Click here:
Snowboarding Part 1: Park City, Utah
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