Colorado Trip!

Kim and I just got back from 4 days in CO. We stayed in Frisco (in the middle of Summit County on Lake Dillon) and made it out to Arapahoe Basin, Copper Mountain, and Vail. We had pretty crazy weather out there - snow and really strong winds every day. The downside to that is that there aren't many good pictures. The upside is that we had a continuos supply of fresh snow to ski on, ultimately adding up to a powder day at Vail with 17" of fresh powder (according to the news report, anyway). It was just the right amount of snow to feel really cool without being difficult to control. Speaking of Vail, whoever designed their runs was out of their mind. It's the only resort I've ever seen where every run switches difficulty levels at least once. There are several greens that become blacks (or doubles), lots of blues that turn to blacks, etc. This was all good and fun, but if you were a beginner you could get yourself in a bad spot in a big hurry. Arapahoe was very cool. It has an emphasis on advanced terrain, it's not particularly crowded, and the lift ticket costs about 1/3 less than the other resorts. We had a great time there. Copper was still my favorite, though. Long (really long) tree-lined runs, lots of good gladed skiing, fast lifts, short lines, and a huge variety of terrain. I'd go back there any time.

If you want lodging/food advice, we stayed at a nice little hotel called the Alpine Inn. The decor was dated, but the place was immaculate, the service friendly, and the hot tub was awesome. It was also really cheap. Highly recommended. For food, we had great Mexican food at Carlos Miguel's (or something like that). The place had a really cool feel and the service was great. We also ate at the Boat Yard, which has huge portions, so-so service, and our Calzone had a gigantic paper clip baked into it! Not kidding. It was one of the 2.5" ones, too. See the picture. Unfortunately, we didn't discover the paper clip until we were eating the leftovers at home. If you go, you might want to avoid that place.

We also checked out the Kite Park on Lake Dillon, which was pretty much just a coned-off launch area and two small jumps on the South end of the lake. Wouldn't you know, the one morning we try to go kiting was the only morning with abolutely no wind. The picture was taken during the one "gust" we got, which was all of about 5mph.

Despite paper clips in the food and issues with both too much and too little wind, we had a great time. Kim got her first real powder day and I found out that I can still ski after not being out west for 5 years. Great trip.