Our Skiing Trip in Breckenridge, Colorado

I crossed something off the bucket list recently and went skiing, proper skiing, for the first time ever. For someone that turned 29 when we were there, I thought it was about time! We chose to go to the Vail area in Colorado, USA (the Breckenridge ski area to be exact). At about an hour and half away from Denver, it had everything that we wanted.

The first thing that struck me, though, was the altitude. Just in the town you are over 9000 ft and then when you head up for skiing you are at over 12,000 ft. We took some aspirin each which helped the headaches and then just made sure that we drank plenty of water. After 24 hours or so we were all feeling fine.

The resort we stayed at was right in the middle of it all and we could walk or get a shuttle bus down to the mountain bases. Peak 8 & 9 was where we spent most of our time. Peak 9 had the most green routes to get us started. There were 8 of us that went and 3 of us and never been skiing before. So we spent the first day learning the ropes in the easier areas.

Gosh, I was terrible! I had the husband and my father-in-law giving me instruction but for the first morning I was just hating life. I kept falling over and got quite battered and bruised – getting back up uses so much energy. I couldn’t even get off the ski lift without falling over either! By the afternoon I was getting the hang of it a little bit more and was actually starting to enjoy it! Being able to just cruise down a mountain with bright white snow and blue sky around you is like nothing else. It was amazing. I preferred to stick to the green routes though as it was more fun for me. When it came to blue routes, it meant a challenge, rather than enjoyment. I still did some, though, they were just a lot steeper. The husband and his brothers hit up some black routes but there was no way I was going up (or down) those!

We were there for a week and did 4 days skiing in total. Two days involved travel and the other day was my birthday! On this day we did my favourite thing of the whole trip. Skiing was fun but the snowmobiling was just brilliant. It was about an hour drive from Breckenridge to a different area of Vail called Leadville. Then we hopped on snowmobiles and had a tour of the mountain area. We got up to ver 14,000 ft which was pretty amazing in itself. Don’t even get me started on the views! It felt like I was on top of the world or on another planet. It was so beautiful.

As well as the views, we had adrenalin rush from snowmobiling back down the mountain and having a tour of area. The part were were in had been a military base just before the second world war, and we saw the barracks and bomb shelters that were still there. You’ve got to get a bit nervous about seeing signs saying ‘don’t touch anything you do not recognise’ as there have been bombs and military weapons found in the woods – eeeeek!

Breckenridge itself was really cute and still had Christmas decorations and lights up. I wonder if they stay up all year long? The restaurants we ate at were brilliant, our favourites being Mi Casa Mexican restaurant and Empire Burger (c’mon, we are in the US)!

On our last day we went back down into Denver and enjoyed some Cheesecake Factory. It was immense and is one of my favourite things about America; is that sad?! haha. More about Denver in another post. I loved this holiday and would recommend the area to anyone. Just pack plenty of sunscreen – you catch the sun a lot more than you think you will!

Have you ever been skiing? I’d love to hear which resorts you’d recommend. I’ve got all the gear now so I need to do it again, right? 😉

Linking up to City Tripping.