Heading to Breckenridge for the first time and I was just wondering how the skiing is and also how the nightlife is. We are staying close to the main strip of bars/restaurants, etc.

You'll have fun. And there will probably be more people from Texas than Colorado there.

Snow is ok. If you're into blues and greens, you won't be able to tell we haven't had the usual coverage. If you're coming to ski the chutes, you'll be SOL.

As for nightlife, I don't think there is a "must go" place. Some good bars and restaurants, most located on Main St.

Sooner,

We went to Breck last December for the first time so I didn't have much to compare the snow to. Is it worse now than it was last December? I'm a green/blue skier so it won't bother me that much.

As good as the snow was last year, it is equally as bad this year. I just off the mountain at beaver creek and it wasn't to bad as long as you stayed on groomed trails that are open faced to the sun. Unless we get dumped on soon, I'd expect abou tthe same conditions. If you cone up to beaver creek/bachelors gulch let me know!

Eric's or Fatty's for nightlife in Breck.... I've heard Breck Brewery is good, but I've never been. I've skied at Breck close to 10 times this year, and last weekend was the best powder by far.

I highly recommend Empire Burger..... the caramel milkshake, burger, and their sauces are money.

I'm patrolling at breckenfridge today and will give you a full groom report and spring outlook when I get home at ~8 central time. I can tell you Vail has pulled extra ski patrols to breck since before Xmas because outside of 1-2 storm weekends, the mountain has been incredibly cold and icy. Personally, breck is my least favorite mountain. It's the one vail & associates hill that is incredibly hard to determine the mid lower and upper bases because the wind typically blows off alot of snowcover. The front/gore range needs at least 4-5 inches of powder to be good skiing for this part of the season. I wouldn't mind a great pacific front to come through, but outside of tomorrow, it doesn't look like ones coming until next week. All 4 mountains have had very few true powder days. Most of the season has been packed powder with groomers adding artificial each night/morning. The reason a bad January is bad for march is because each mountain has a water quota. The more they have to use in dec&jan, the less they have to spread in march when it warms up. Also, please please please wear a helmet. I don't know why texans in general are so anti helmet, but not wearing one is just a recipe for disaster. It only takes one out of control skiier/snowboarder to change your lfe forever.

[This message has been edited by nnichols (edited 1/12/2010 9:24a).]

If you need restaurant recs outside if breck, let me know. Most of them will be in vail minturn Avon Edwards etc, but I'll ask around today about good local places. When I lived at breck, we usually would go out of Dillion/frisco to eat, but that was 5 years ago so I'll ask around.

"How is it?"

Cold and windy. There is a reason few locals ski there. I'm live in Denver and don't know anyone who likes to ski at 'Breckenfridge'.

Personally when I go to the moutains I usually end up at Keystone. More low key, free parking, and the groomers are much better protected.

Though I don't enjoy skiing at Breck, I do enjoy the town. You will have fun at night. There is plenty of restaurants and bars...Empire Burger is good as is the Breck Brewery. Don't miss the Crepe stand on Main St.

If you have any specific questions I would be happy to answer.

High life, isn't it odd how texans think breck is the heaven of all ski hills, yet locals hate it. I've always thought it was odd.

so what are the best mountains, nichols?

Personally I like vail and bc on weekdays and a basin on weekends. I go up to crested butte and steamboat on occasion, and ski telluride for about a month each season. II prefer to ski back bowls and some hills make that difficult without ducking ropes ( big no no). Steamboat and telluride have some interesting terrain variation and wolf creek typically gets alot of snow. I like most of the front range hills - eldora. breck is just miserable and has very few if any unique characteristics you can't find on other mountains. Plus it's crowded with people that terrify me to ski around. For the price, wolf creek is a steal. My fav would be whistler or heavenly.

my wife and i are headed to breckenridge in early february...hopefully it dumps quite a bit of snow by then.

i have been unable to find any decent lift ticket deals for breckenridge (and the other affiliated resorts), and that looks like a calculated move by the parent company. local coupon books, grocery stores, sporting equipment stores, etc don't seem to offer any big discounts. are there any good deals out there that i am missing?

I don't believe you will have any luck finding even a small discount for Breck lift tickets. We went the last two years and I was unsuccessful after looking pretty hard. If you think you will ski Breck more than once you can join their PEAKS program that will earn you points as you purchase lift tickets, lessons, etc. That won't be of any use to you on your first trip, though.

Just got home. Mountain needs snow bad. Hopefully tomorrow and Thursday we will get some new cover. Had to close runs midday because of lack of cover. The snow pumps are running full speed, but the warm weather today and tomorrow doesn't bode well. Had a solid ice cover early that melted off and then refroze when shaded. Made for a busy day.

what runs did you have to close?

this texan doesn't think breck is the end all be all of hills, we just go there because a friend has a house there. i hate that the snow sucks this week.

we'll be skiing thursday-saturday...hopefully it snows quite a bit for us.

nnichols or anyone knowledgeable, me and my friend are flying into Denver Friday morning and are looking for a good place to get a half day in. We are staying in Silverthorne and plan to ski Breck Sat. and Sun but are open to anything on Friday. Where do you think our best bet is for experienced skiers looking for the best snow/resort on Friday?

I'm thinking Keystone, never tried their night skiing and it is the closest to where we are staying. From the snow reports it doesn't look like they have much snow though.



[This message has been edited by Hudson2508 (edited 1/13/2010 2:10p).]

If you're wanting to do a half day and like the greens and blues, ski Keystone. They have night skiing and will be open much later than any other resort.

And FWIW, nobody has any snow right now.

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And FWIW, nobody has any snow right now.

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That's what I figured. From the snow reports it seems that Breck has the deepest base, so hopefully the small snow they get today and tomorrow will give us a decent weekend of skiing.

I'll offer my opinion, but will defer to mnichols on all of this since he is the expert.

For your half day of skiing, usually I would say A-Basin but the snow has been so light this year that Keystone is probably a better bet. You will be skiing groomers (most likely) so Keystone will have better artifical snow.

My opinion on night skiing is that it is pretty miserable. It is usually freezing cold, and though they make their best effort to light up the runs, it can be very difficult to see ice patches. When I stay the night at Keystone I see people up there skiing under the lights, for the most part I think it's people did not ski much during the day for whatever reason.

Be warned that I haven't had a great afternoon skiing yet this year in Summit County. I am not the expert mnichols is but I ski pretty much anything on the mountain but the chutes. I can tell you an average afternoon in Summit this season is extremely icy and dangerous on the weekends because of the horrible quality of the skiers (especially dangerous are blue runs).

I agree with mnichols assessment of his favorite resorts. Beaver Creek is probably my favorite, but I haven't skiied Vail enough to really get to know the mountain.

BC/Vail is followed by Crested Butte (when it isn't too cold) and Steamboat. Both excellent mountains that are smaller than the mega Summit resorts. There is just more space on these mountains and I find the quality of skiers to be much better.

I agree that Wolf Creek almost always has the most snow and is a great value.

Loveland can be very good too. Great terrain and usually excellent snow. The problem with Loveland is there is no high speed quads, so you will get fewer runs in.

In Summit County, A-Basin is probably my favorite when there is good snow, followed by Keystone and then Breck. Keystone has always been the most consistent quality, it is really hard to go wrong skiing off the Santiago Express in the mornings.

I am visiting Telluride for the first time in early March and have really high hopes.

Be safe out there and do as mnichols advises - wear a helmet.

mnichols,

You're right about Texans and Breck. My theory as that your average vacationer who is visiting from Texas doesn't ski full days, so is more enthralled with the restaurants/bars. For that I guess Breck is the place to go for them.

What's really odd is when my Texas buddies ask me where they should ski/stay. I tell them anywhere but Breck and they end up going there anyway. To each his own. The only explanation that makes any sense to me is that Breck does a great job of advertising and making these people think they are getting a good deal on their lodging.

How long have you been patrolling?

I'm thinking Keystone as well. I don't imagine we will ski much into the evening but having it available due to our late start will be nice.

I have been wearing a helmet for years and will be glad to have it on a sure to be packed weekend.

I love Telluride, one of my favorite places to ski and a great ski town.

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My theory as that your average vacationer who is visiting from Texas doesn't ski full days, so is more enthralled with the restaurants/bars.

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they're missing out...you can get bars and stuff at home. you go to the mountains to ski...period

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You're right about Texans and Breck. My theory as that your average vacationer who is visiting from Texas doesn't ski full days, so is more enthralled with the restaurants/bars. For that I guess Breck is the place to go for them.

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The only reason we plan to ski Breck is due to the free lodging in Silverthorne. I grew up skiing Southern Colorado and New Mexico so this area is new to me. If yall think Keystone is a better bet than Breck, I will be advising my group to head there the whole weekend. We are looking for the best skiing, not the bar scene if that helps with your advice.

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they're missing out...you can get bars and stuff at home. you go to the mountains to ski...period

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Dude, I totally agree but weren't you the one who wanted trails that weren't too challenging?

yeah because i suck...i've been skiing a grand total of twice. but i love it, and am still not ready to tackle bowls and more difficult stuff. i'll stay on the mountain all day trying to get better.

you don't suck

you are just outskiied

don't remind me

Sorry for the tardiness, been Very Very busy today. I would second keystone for the half days. However I would never recommend night skiing. There are to many factors to go into it, but overall the skiing is going to be icy and extremely dangerous. It's a cool concept, but nothing I'd do more than once. I'm still trying to find out if I can score you guys some discounted passes and I'm striking
out at every angle. We really need the storm to dump on us tonight/tomorrow. The non groomed runs are slick and some are lacking a consistant base. I had trouble all morning catching an edge, and went over more than a couple huge,deep, pockets of ice. Tore my wax off . We have all been spoiled the last couple of seasons by huge snowfall and this year it's just not coming down. Again, please wear helmets. They will save your life. Nothing makes me more sick than seeing someones life get changed becase they thought that helmets were dorky or didn't look cool. For $50 your ears will be warmer, your head will be protected, and you can ski your heart out knowing you've prepared properly. I've seen more injurys and worse injuries this year than I've seen since I strted in 04. Part of it is the lack of cover/the other is people not recognizing the lack of a base through ignorance and endin up insituations that are lose lose. Remeber if you go ob, at this point we cannot and likely will nit be ableto reach you because of the extreme av conditions.

Thanks for the info nnichols. Would you recommend Keystone for the whole weekend over Breck?

My wife works for a school district in Washington and we were thinking of going skiing in that part of Colorado in the first week of April. We have always gone during Christmas or mid March. Are all mountains still open during that time? Is the snow the same?

We will usually drive to Leadville and go to Ski Cooper, but occasionally we ski Keystone or Copper.

The hills should be open. The conditions will be a crap shoot. Im not tying to discourage people from breck. Everyone has their fav hill that fits their ski approach. To me, breck is to flat to warrant the wind and cold. Some people love it, I just can't justify the price for the product. The food is better around Avon/vail. Ti amo, larkspur, gashouse, sato, etc. Pazzos is great pizza too. If you make it to bc, blue moose is great too.

[This message has been edited by nnichols (edited 1/13/2010 7:58p).]

If traffic is bad either way, Tommyknocker's in Idaho Springs is worth a stop. Great beer and food. Warning, the sampler there is huge. I think they give you 10 4oz tastes, some of the beers have high alcohol content. I'm no lightweight and was pretty buzzed after I had it. If you're not into the sampler try the Butthead Bock.

I prefer Tommyknocker's to both the Dam Brewery in Dillon and Breckenridge Brewery.

I don't mean to totally sh*tcan Breck either. If the weather is right it can be enjoyable, e.g. not windy or too cold. You can get great pictures above the tree line there.

Just make sure to mention that youre from the great state of TEXAS and they will all smile and open their homes to you!