Breckenridge 2019

When we left Dave & Kara's house in Colorado Springs, we were very glad that we upgraded our rental car from a minivan to a 4WD Jeep, though that did make it pretty tight squeezing in all the groceries. The worst parts of the drive to Breck were getting out of Dave & Kara's neighborhood, and the last 100 yards to the house in Breckenridge. We probably could have made it without the 4WD, but we'd be violating the chain laws, and getting back up the snowy drive from the house in Breck would have been a challenge.



The house in Breckenridge was beautiful and included a pool table, a hot tub, and private baths for all the couples. The only drawback being it wasn't ski-in ski-out, and it was quite a hike to the shuttle stop. Fortunately, the Sodermans rented a land-boat, and since Jennifer wasn't skiing, we were able to ferry everyone the three minute drive to the slopes.

On the first day skiing, Mike, Steve, Hayden, Connor, Gabriel and Owen all took a family group lesson together, while Nora went the traditional ski school route. Meanwhile, Elaine and I explored the slopes on our own: we skied all the blue groomers on Peak 7 in the morning, had a lovely lunch together at Sevens, then skied the more challenging blues on Peak 6 as the snow started rolling in, before working our way back over to Peak 9.



Megan and Mirabel got in on Tuesday afternoon (the synchronized skating went great!), so on Wednesday all the kids were in lessons, and all the skiing adults were on the slopes together. Elaine and I guided everyone over to our favorite spots on Peak 7, and we all had lunch again at Sevens (and partook in the free Oxygen bar downstairs ;-). After lunch, Elaine and Megan went off for a Women's Ski & Wine lesson, and I broke off from the guys to explore some black diamonds.



Coming out of lessons on Wednesday, Owen and Hayden were somewhere around level 6.8 and itching to do more black diamonds, Nora was around level 6.5 but wanting to take it easy and ski with the other kids. So, the last two days, I skiied with Owen & Hayden searching out challenging runs, while the rest of the crew stayed together on some of the more reasonable blue terrain. The boys and I spent a lot of time on the T-bar, skiing the North Face Bowl and even some double black diamonds on Horseshoe Bowl. We went up to the top of Peak 8, the highest lift in North America at 12,840 feet, but it was super cold and windy so we just skiied the double black diamond Imperial Bowl together once. We found better conditions off of 6-Chair with loads of fun wooded black diamonds, from the fast and fun No Name, to the super steep narrow and mogul filled Hombre, and best of all going through the gates to the Way Out Bowl. It was super fun skiing with the boys, and we might even have made it to the point I have to admit Owen is a better skier than me :-)


It was a pretty amazing trip, and we've already voted on the DCPS school calendar poll to try and insure we get another trip in next February...

(To see all the skiing pictures, click here.)