Take me back to the mountains!!!!!!!!! My husband laughs at me because every time we reach our last day of vacation (no matter where we go) I tell him, “just leave me here!” You could say I don’t handle the last day of vacation very well. It’s so sad! It’s like having to grow up all over again (well I’m still working on the growing up part to be honest)…what do you mean this isn’t the real world? If this isn’t it then I don’t want to go! You can’t make me!…aaaand I’ve arrived. I’m back home and feeling super nostalgic! We had such a great trip to Breckenridge this year. We’ve been able to make this Breckenridge, CO thing a tradition for the past five years the week after Christmas and we LOVE it. We always go through this organization called UBSKI that helps make things a little more affordable! A lift ticket for four days at Breckenridge through the Breck website for an adult my age would be $480 as of right now and that would only allow me on the Breckenridge slopes. With UBSKI we get a condo/house (depending on how many people we have) right on the mountain for 6 days and 5 nights and a lift ticket pass for four days and four nights to any vail resort mountain (breck, keystone, vail, beaver creek and there was one more in Colorado that I forget) and this year it came out to be around $500 a person for both of those things which is pretty amazing! I’m actually hoping to convince my family about going back for a spring break trip. They offer these deals during winter break and around spring break, but you can find the exact dates of the weeks they offer on their website.
Our trip to Breckenridge is one of my favorite trips because it’s usually when parts of our college group can reunite for a week. The real thing you take away from college besides that piece of paper is lifelong friends! And since we all live sort of spread out from each other it’s always great reuniting for a time. The group is ever-changing from year to year but it’s always a great time. This year our good friend’s Shane and Dan came on the trip, along with Dan’s girlfriend whose name also happened to be Amanda, and my little brother (now college student) Lee. We’ve always stayed at the Powderhorn which is a bunch of individually owned condos for the most part. It’s at peak 7 and a minute walk from the lift, and ahhhmazing. This year more than any other we had to get used to the smell of the Mary J seeping through our windows though! There are several dispensaries in Breck and “Organic Therapy” is readily available to anyone! Too bad I’m in the job interviewing process right now…Haha.
My favorite part of the trip is always being on the mountain in the beautiful winter wonderland and fresh air. This year my favorite run was at the top of peak 8 where you could take the highest lift (Imperial) in North America to 12,800 something feet and then hike up another several hundred feet to the very top of the mountain. The views are breathtaking, well maybe that was the hike that took my breath away, but the views from the top were stunning. I might not have been on the tallest mountain but I felt like I was on top of the world and it was really cool to literally have the wind hold you up as you tried to fall into it because it was gusting so strongly.
We usually end up staying at Breckenridge the entire time because of the convenience of waking up whenever we want, being able to walk to the lift and then come back to the condo whenever we want. In previous years we have made our way to Vail, which has amazing wide open and long runs, and we’ve done some night skiing at Keystone, which is pretty although usually a bit icy by night, it’s just hard to beat the convenience even when you have the option of going to five other gorgeous places.
The town of Breckenridge is really cute with an adorable main street that is all lit up with Christmas lights and with a variety of shops, restaurants, and bars. There’s a great night life for the younger crowds and actually anyone looking for a good time on the town! We usually buy groceries and booze for the week and then go out one night and we usually go to Erics for their pizza because it’s large, delicious and reasonably priced especially if you are splitting it between people. This year Shane, Sam and I split their gigantor pizza and we had enough left over for breakfast, lunch and dinner for all of us the next day. We definitely could have split that between our 6 person party which was funny because we all ended up ordering pizza anyway.
Our trip was amazing and went by entirely TOO fast, as it does every year. I’m still trying to figure out a way to make the trip feel longer. Our last day we had a lot of time to kill because our flight left out of Denver at 9pm, needless to say we were wiped by the time we got home at 1am. On the way to the airport we stopped several places for some sight-seeing and food! We found some free back country skiing at Loveland Pass, Ice Racing and a Big Horned Sheep lookout somewhere along the way, a cute historic mining town at Georgetown, CO and finally some delicious Bison Burgers at Ted’s in downtown Denver. I’m already counting down to our next trip…one of these year’s I hope to winter in Colorado but until then I’ll reminisce and share these pictures.
Sincerely, Samanda 