Boarding Trip Itinerary

Never been to any of them, but I don't think you can lose at either.  I hear good things about all of em.  I'm going to Telluride myself in Feb.

how close are these and other different resorts to each other? i'm planning a trip to colorado as well and would love some input from people who are local or have been there on where the nice spots are!

Steamboat is a solid 2 hour drive from keystone/breck.  Keystone, Breck, Copper, A basin, Vail, and Beaver Creek are all within about 30 minutes of each other.  So unless you want to do tons of driving I would pick 4 from those.  You can do a cat trip with Vail cats.  However the cat trip we took at Steamboat last year was epic.  

Staying in Silverthorne/Frisco area seems to be a good home base.  There are several mountains within a decent driving distance and lodging is inexpensive.  I keep trying to find ways to make Steamboat a destination, but it's just a long drive!  If we only had more time.  I think that we'll be taking advantage of the next airfare sale for a second trip, hopefully, this season.

Steamboat = 10K acres covered by cats.

Originally posted by PICKLES Never realized Colorado had so many mountains to ride.  The hardest thing is choosing where to go to maximize 4 full days of riding.  My choices (for now) are the following: Steamboat (considering cat tours) Vail Breckenridge/Keystone (both in one day) To be decided. Where would you go and in what order?

I would go to Steamboat first then Vail and then Brek.  Just going from furthest out to closest in to Denver.  Also I would go to the cat riding the first day.

Lodging, check!  I'm psyched because my coworker is letting us use her timeshare in Steamboat for as long as we want, all for the bargain price of $275 flat.  We plan to do Vail first and head to Steamboat afterward.  Then work our way back toward Denver, hitting up Breck/Keystone.  With lodging out of the way, car rentals = an arm and a leg.

Cat tours for the days we want to do them are sold out/fully booked.  Hopefully, it changes by the time we get there. (Sure).  I'm guessing the SIA Snow Show and Winter X-Games going on during our vacation has something to do with the extremely overpriced car rentals.

In any case... good times are guaranteed!

Originally posted by Stryker Originally posted by PICKLES Never realized Colorado had so many mountains to ride.  The hardest thing is choosing where to go to maximize 4 full days of riding.  My choices (for now) are the following: Steamboat (considering cat tours) Vail Breckenridge/Keystone (both in one day) To be decided. Where would you go and in what order? I would go to Steamboat first then Vail and then Brek.  Just going from furthest out to closest in to Denver.  Also I would go to the cat riding the first day.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing initially.  Drive out and work our way back.  Cat's out for Steamboat (sucks), but another plan has been set in motion.  Now we're looking into visiting Durango Mountain Resort specifically for cat tours.  At $250 per day/person, it's decent.

damn envious..

Last year we did Breck, Keystone, Beaver Creek and Vail..
Fuckin awsome.. too bad I was out of shape like a mo... still am...
damn altitude killed me....

Originally posted by mech9t5 Originally posted by VTBear damn envious.. Last year we did Breck, Keystone, Beaver Creek and Vail.. Fuckin awsome.. too bad I was out of shape like a mo... still am... damn altitude killed me.... Altitude?  They aren't that high up in CO.   I was in Chile and the resorts there are 10,000 ft and up.  CO is probably around 8000 ft.  I am a fat ass and I didn't have any problem in Chile.

Breck's base is 9600 feet - it's summit is 12,998 feet... so maybe Chili would be higher in certain situations because the Andes have a higher elevation than the Rocky's doesn't take away from the fact that these are pretty high elevations... Altitude sickness can affect a person when you are above 8K feet.

Anyway... with that little factoid out of the way... when I go, I've always stayed in Breck because I found cheaper lodging there... but I enjoy riding in Vail the best.  Either way, I'm never dissapointed.  When I've gone to Steamboat, I stayed exclusively in Steamboat for a number of days.... then in Breck for a number of days.  Try and spend more days riding and less driving =)

You will definitely have fun regardless of where you chose to go!