Breckenridge, Colorado - March 2004

"Drink lots of water. Wear lots of sunscreen." Truer words never spoken. Downtown Breckenridge sits 9600 feet above sea level, a good thousand feet higher than Vail Village and smack in the altitude sickness and sunburn zones. Dehydration is a one-way ticket to illness and after our nephew spent a night in a Breckenridge oxygen tent last season we've been a little leery of staying here. Climbing I-70 out of Denver into the mountains we already felt light-headed; at a Safeway in Idaho Springs we loaded up on Aquafina and a desperate mess of sundries like beef jerky, Pop-Tarts and Scotch tape - confusion is an early sign of trouble.

We went so far as to get a couple of Camelbak hydration backpacks - the Snopak skiier models - and while the brand-new reservoirs made the water taste funny they kept us healthy the whole trip, and when strapped over our ski gear they gave us that groovy X-Wing fighter pilot look.

We stayed at the Tannhauser condominums - it was the owner who gave us the advice about water and sunblock. The building is in a great location just across Main Street from the Quicksilver 6-chair megalift serving Peak 9, but like a lot of the ski lodges we've stayed in it's showing its age (a hard 25 years or so). Melanie thought the place smelled funny and we both discovered that the shower hurt. It looked like the previous guests pitched a few innings of guacamole baseball in one of the rooms. Still, the fireplace worked and the location was prime.

We'll be referring to this trail map I ripped off the Breckenridge website.

Peak 9 We could ski Peak 9 all day. And we did, the first day anyway. Most of the runs are intermediate, with some more challenging blue-blacks to the north side and a few easier runs to the south that are good for warming up in the morning and closing out the day when the legs get weary.

At the end of the first day we saw a few boarders stomp into the bar with faces beet-purple below the goggle line. Remember those backyard parabolic solar cookers? I imagine a snow-covered back bowl can cook a person pretty well at midday. Wear lots of sunscreen.

The groomers are out 24 hours a day. We could see their headlights percolating over the side of the mountain all night and skiied across their frozen tracks in the morning but for whatever reason they just can't seem to get the whole job done overnight. Riding the Quicksilver chair up from the base the second day we floated over three diesel groomers idling deep in the trees. Remember that scene in Battle of the Bulge where Henry Fonda has the pilot cut the engine so he could hear the tank engines idling below? It was just like that!

Peak 7 On the second day we traversed across the ridge of Peak 8 directly to the new blue runs at Peak 7. The intermediate section below the bowls opened just a couple of years ago and it's a favorite of moderate skiiers like ourselves... though it's probably best to hit it earlier in the season. By the end of March they're rapidly running out of snow and the approach to the lift gets that used diaper look. Monte Cristo is a nice long trail. Unfortunately by the time we slogged our way through the softening mush a couple of times we got tired and started the falling-over phase of our trip.

Around Town There's a great high-end art gallery across from the Tannhauser (we're still looking for artwork for the new kitchen) and some decent restaurants along Main Street. Hearthstone offers a great wine list and some sophisticated entrees; for a place that seems to specialize in fish I think they cook the stuff too long but the sauces are fantastic. The brewpub up the street has great food and beer but they leave America's Funniest Home Videos on in the dining room with the sound off, which encourages all kids in the place to bark out play-by-plays to their parents. This is a restaurant foul. The Chinese restaurant in the center of town has decent hot & sour soup and those loopy rum drinks. Don't get too creative placing your order when you're tired and your head's already spinning from the altitude - "A zombie apiece" is no way to order two mixed drinks. Trust us on this one.

No, you're the zombie.

Peak 10 By our last day we'd screwed up our courage enough to tackle blue-black Peak 10. This is Melanie's sister Michele's favorite. Michele likes to ski fast straight down. The little dry-erase board by the lift said something like "NO INTERMEDIATE RUNS!" I said something like "We don't want to leave any peak a mystery, right?" Melanie said something like maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. It's pretty steep. It's pretty tall. It just don't quit when you're clinging to the treeline, grinding off all your speed as boarders whiz past down the middle. The photo crew had set up a little action shot zone - you wave to signal that you want your picture taken on the way down, then the photographer snaps a few turns and shouts out the film roll number as you slide past at the bottom. I didn't wave, and at the end I wished I had. An action shot would be fun. I made us go up again. I think Melanie's still mad at me for that. Note - you can't get photo prints for anything less that $32. You can order them online, but you're not allowed to scrape photos from the website. Whether or not we order the photos (and we're suckers for this kind of thing, so we'll probably end up getting them) we left no peak un...turned... this trip.

So we've been to two Colorado resorts now in our brief skiing career. Vail is insane - we still need to conquer the back bowls - but Breckenridge has Peaks 9 and 10 and there were some black runs above Peak 7 that I think I'll be ready to tackle in another year. Vail, Breckenridge. Vail, Breckenridge. I could flip a coin between the two and be happy whichever way it landed.

That said, taking off from Denver International (AKA West Kansas) is not as picturesque as flying out of Eagle County.

Home