breckenridge

I'm going to be going this weekend. Any suggestions?

Yes, wrap up warm.

IceGhost? Would you be interested to share your experiences that you had in Breckenridge? Would like to hear your story. Thanks in advance.

Don't drink much in the way of alchohol in the first couple of days, :( the resort height is nearly 3000m, and the skiing almost 4000m.

Wear bright colours, so your mates can see you in thee white out conditions. :-)

It's a bit late to help Ice Ghost with his trip but I have been using the Fireside Inn at Breckenridge as a base for skiing in that area for the last 5 years and I would recommend the Inn and Breckenridge to anyone of any skill level from nervous beginner(e.g. my wife)to genuine expert.

The Fireside Inn dormitory accommodation is great for singles ($38 a night) and groups on a tight budget while the Inn also offers quality accommodation for the fussy. It is very international and has a great atmosphere. Andy and Niki, the (English)proprietors, do English and American breakfasts for about $8 but facilities are also provided for DIY eating. Check out their website www.firesideinn.com. There are bus stops outside to both Peak 8 and 9 bases and the Gondola to Peak 7 and 8 is 10 minutes walk. Obviously there is lots of other accommodation.

The ski and ride school instructors are competent, particularly so at the higher levels and the best feature of these is that the classes often start with about 6-8 members in the mornings but equally often half the people go away after lunch leaving the keenest to get almost individual coaching in the afternoons.

Download the piste map for an idea of what the place is like. http://breckenridge.snow.com/info/winter/mtn.maps.asp

The Peak 9 skiing has huge long immaculately groomed and signposted runs with a wide choice of easy greens and a range of blues of varying difficulty levels to facilitate progression to red-equivalent blue/blacks. A great area for beginners and improvers.

Peak 10 forks off Peak 9 via the Falcon lift giving access to groomed Blacks and to ungroomed Double Black diamond runs down a steep open face and on to ungroomed bump runs or through pine or aspen forest down steep hillsides where you can pick your own route down in knee-deep powder.

This arrangement of terrain makes it easy to have very mixed ability groups ski in the same general area but meet up for lunch at the Peak 10 restaurant at the top of the lift for the green runs but which is also at the common run-out from Peak 10. (They do great chili rojo, pizza, cantonese, chowder, etc)

Peak 8 has steeper greens and generally steeper blues and blue-blacks than you get on Peak 9 as well as some quite nice short blacks. It also leads to Peak 7 (also known as Blue Heaven) which is a collection of very long easy blues served by the fast 6-man "Independence" chair. Peak 7 is a great area for safe family skiing.

The Peak 8 "Rocky Mountain" 4-chair lift gives access to the alpine bowls area via a path to the T-bar which can keep running when high winds would shut down a normal lift.

Left from the top of the T-bar you can descend the huge north-facing Horseshoe bowl from a variety of entry points which enable you to start relatively gently and ski ever-steeper sections finally moving round to Competition Bowl and Cucumber Bowl at opposite ends which are about 52 degrees at their steepest pitch. Exit Horseshoe Bowl to skier's left by schussing down into a deep dip and up the other side and you are back above the T-bar line again.

Turning right at the top of the T-bar you can access a range of fairly exposed, windswept and often icy runs back down through a few trees back to the T-bar line but keep going and bear left and you can pick up the bottom section of the Whales Tail bowl and exit hard left into Ore Bucket, which is an ungroomed area of well-spaced small trees with lots of dips and hillocks that is great fun to ski. When you come out at the bottom keep moving hard right via any openings to get back to the base of Peak 8 or else you will end up at the base of Peak 7 instead and unable to get back to the T-bar without going up Independence chair again. Actually that is not entirely a bad thing as it will let you drop into the "Toilet Bowl" a twisting roller coaster run through trees alongside Northstar which puts a premium on fast sharp turns round substantial trees and requires reliable speed control if the guy ahead of you suddenly slows up or crashes!

If you go left from the top of the T-bar and follow the path across the top of Horseshoe bowl you can cut across and down either to the Chair 6 area with multiple single black diamond runs down through widely spaced trees or join the line for the Imperial Express Chair up to the 12,480ft point just below the peak. There are fairly easy bowl runs down to the chair line again from there (watch out for crust and rocks, though) or you can cut back across to the top of the Horseshoe bowl or down to the Vista Haus Restaurant for lunch or a hot chocolate. That is another good meeting place with restrooms and a balcony with a viewing table pointing out all the names of the 14,000 foot peaks opposite.

From the top of the Imperial chair you can also hike up the 65 vertical feet (at what feels like a 45 degree angle but is probably only 60) to ski the Lake Shutes (pretty steep but not very long, the first one is the easiest and the second easiest is at the far end, if you go in from the near side). Snow White at the far end was new in 2008 but it is south facing and it was always a sheet of ice between nasty looking rocks when I was there so I have always funked it so far.

You can also go up over the shoulder of the hill through the gate and traverse along the hillside (do not descend into the rock field by mistake in bad weather) to where it curves around the bowl to the right. Either trek up the hill the other side and come down on CJs or Magic Carpet (both pretty steep especially lower down) or drop over the lip and down Y-chute. Anywhere down there is good but don't stray right into the rock field. Follow on down and along a flattish bit and down another mini-bowl joining the bottom of the Y-chute run-out ...or else traverse hard left through the rock field across to the lower part of CJ's and Magic Carpet.

Some of the nicest steeps and deeps are off the E-chair on the north side of Peak 9. Unfortunately there is no online map of them. You can get to the bottom of E-chair by skiing down from the top of the Peak 8 Colorado Chair via Frosty's Freeway or you can get to the top of E-chair by going right from the top of Mercury Superchair on Peak 9. There is a set of named runs (Mineshaft, Devil's Crotch, Andy's Baby, Liftline, etc) which are fun to do and you can mix and match the bottom sections or cut off left from the run-in to Mineshaft and pile into the trees and pick your own way down to the lift line. You can also get into The Windows (1-7) from the top of the E-chair (marked Expert Skiers only - and they mean it). The Windows chutes down between the trees are a topic for an essay on their own and are fabulous once they fill up with deep powder in January. There is also a hike up from the top of the Mercury Superchair to access the top sections of the Windows chutes, the Back 9 and Twin Chutes but I am not convinced it is worth the (considerable)effort unless there is a considerable stash of untouched powder to exploit. Having snow-white ptarmigan burst out into flight from under the snow about 10 feet in front of you while traversing waist deep powder was an amazing experience but I still think it was one hell of a trek uphill and across rock hard crud to get there!

Finally, there are free buses everywhere in town and also to other nearby ski resorts e.g. Arapahoe Basin, Keystone (with night skiing for those with any energy left!)and Copper Mountain (another great resort). Fireside Inn will book you seats on a round trip bus to Vail and Beaver Creek.

For the superannuated and single there is always the Over the Hill Gang which meets one or two days a week at each of the resorts for guided group skiing with other over-45s of matching ability levels.

I hope some of this brain dump helps - I am happy to answer any questions or make clarifications or expand on anything above.

Hey I found this cool video of Breckenridge. It looks Awesome

http://newsinfusion.com/video_details.php?videoId=251

Try it fried it looks like SPAM to me :lol:

Sorry I didn't mean to come across as spam. I just wanted to add something to my post and I thought the video was cool.