Technically snowboard trip. Haven't ridden in 5 years but still have all my gear.

Grew up on poverty "mountains" (big hills) in the midwest. Going to do a quick day trip on those this weekend, planning to warmup to the most difficult "black diamond" terrain they have which i can only imagine would be the equivalent of a Blue Cruiser in the Colorado Resorts.

Head out to Colorado in 2 weeks. Doing 3 nights and 2 full days of riding in Breckenridge followed by 2 nights in Vail. Will rep solid advice and recommendations. Taking my gf with me who plans to stay mostly on greens and the occasional blue run.

You think youre better than us?

the runs are very long and more tiring than poverty east coast stuff. I could not do 5 straight days hard, I'd do 2 days go hard, 1 day chill, 2 days go hard.

Vail is awful for snowboarders. Too many catwalks.

I’ve been to Breckenridge a bunch of times.

You go skiing and then there is a small town for restaurants and whatnot

Not much else to it. Might consider taking a lesson first day srs. You have 5 days so one day for an instructor to help you would be worthwhile

Yes.That's what I figured. I assumed this would be a learning to swim by being thrown in the deepend situation, so booked a proper "ski-in/ski-out" resort at Breck so we could rest frequently and easily.
Definitely heard about the catwalks and how much time they can eat up. Plan to get my most productive riding days in breckenridge, with vail being meant to be more of a checkbox moment for my girl and i to explore and see what it's like.

Make sure there's other chicks or newbs so you can park your gf there for the day, meet them for lunch and apres ski. Gotta set this expectation and plan so it doesn't seem like you abandoned her.

Stay on your front foot while riding and get low. I can instantly tell when someone sucks when they are standing tall on the backfoot.

Pace yourself, you're gonna be sore in weird spots if you don't usually ride. Don't blow your load on day one.



GL brah, it's one of the great pleasures in life srs.

Why not go to Winter Park?

Fukking send it

(No seriously Stay on runs you can rip, no sense wearing yourself out looking like an old man struggling, do a couple runs that look fun and tough to break up monotony, but chits more fun when you just rip around the mountain and don’t try to force it)

If you can straight line a 50deg or steeper slope disregard and have fun.

I'd go to Wolf creek if i was you

Enjoy brah! I have no advice to offer. Once I got off the bunny slopes at Camelback and made my way up to the top thinking I’ve got this. After falling 18 times, I sat down on my snowboard like a toddler on a sled and slowly made it back alive, with little kids speeding past me.

Shhhhhh.

I have a buddy driving from Idaho to Wolf Creek tomorrow. He did grow up in Grand Junction though. I want to hit Wolf and Telluride someday but its so hard to drive all the way from Boise. I've never boarded in CO though, Its hard to pass up like 50 other resorts on the way.

OP, Vail LOL, Come on dude, don't do it. $252/day bro? FOOK THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's why I love Idaho, its starting to get expensive though. My season pass to Tamarack was $500 this year. Used to get Brundage every year for $300/year and Bogus for $200/year. Those were the days, and only about 3-5 years ago

Because it's smack dab in the middle of Central Florida. What kind of question is this?

Schweitzer day passes were 40 bucks when I was a kid

After totaling up some of the kids races with mountains that are on ikon (Schweitzer and Crystal) plus a trip down to sun valley over spring break depending on how many free passes I can nab I’m going to just start getting one on top of my local hill season pass for 400.

But it’s a tough call cuz it’s same price as a one day heli trip out of northern cascades.

solid advice. I can see myself being overly excited to be out there day 1 and wanting to lap myself to death. When I was snowboarding actively i was comfortable up to doing basic terrain park boxes and small jumps so i'm not too worried, but at the same time gotta work up that stamina.Hear it's too crowded due to being so Denver-adjacent, also wanted to personally get out and explore some of the household name spots for better or for worse.Never been. Honestly plan on "Blue Cruising" the entire trip. Might jump on a black diamond in Vail if i feel comfortable after the breck runs.
Will have no pride or shame on my game. Gonna ride the greens till my girl feels comfortable riding blues with me. Will drop her off at the room when i want to get an advanced run in.

I heard good things about wolf's creek, but part of my travel plans have me in denver for the weekend. The breck/vail accomodations i booked are during the week. $150, $250, doesn't matter you're getting gouged regardless. Will plan a proper 2 week stay without obnoxious pricing another time. I just want to experience it because i've been talking about doing it for years now.

Only decided on Vail because it's an hour drive from breck. Wolf's Creek, Crested Butte, etc are SUPER tucked away and require dedicated trips.

Brootal.

Dear Diary,

TLDR on Vail Village: It's for people who have money but have never actually been anywhere nice.

Coming back to this thread to admit I was wrong. I thought people hating on Vail were just broke, but its easily the most overrated destination i've ever been to in my life. Having been to 30+ countries, that whole "vail village" aesthetic doesn't even crack top 50 most memorable places i've been to. It was also surprisingly the most racist lol. All the locals and most seasonal employees that worked there were cool, but I could tell it's a destination "flex" for Texans/Southern-folk and we were ruining it simply for existing lol. Legit just strolling around minding our own business or having dinner in a restaurant, we were getting angry looks from like 30% of people at any given time. It was weird, I didn't know people got heated by simply seeing a brown person (a conservative one at that).

Thing that floored me most is that the village was nothing to write home about at all. Stayed at Arrabelle hotel which was nice. Did that whole "world famous" hot chocolate at the 4seasons and that was pretty fuking delicious i'll give them that, but everything else was expensive just for the sake of being expensive to uphold the exclusivity of their mid-ass resort. For example, 2 plain black coffees and a croissant was $20.



TLDR on the mountain itself: Go if you're a black diamond skiier, OR if you've been off of snowboarding for awhile but are able to take advanced lessons.


I decided to take an "Advanced Snowboarding Group lesson" to kick off the trip and it was the best bang for buck decision i've made in a long time. As stevemckenna brah said "vail sucks for snowboarders" so most don't go there. On a wednesday the mountain appeared 90% skiiers 10% snowboarders no exaggeration. I was the only one that showed up for the advanced boarder lesson so I basically got a day lift ticket and a 27 year old mountainbro to be my private instructor and mountain guide for $300. Took me down the easiest blue run, then progressed to blue runs with trees (I see why people love these), and then eventually my first black diamond. It ate up my legs and I had to restart from wiping out on my ass twice but it was good run. Didn’t even eat **** until the end of the day when I caught an edge on one of those flat green runs. Also the epicMX app for tracking lifts and runs was pretty sick too.

Anyways, I’ll happily never visit that resort again both for the mid-ness and the racism but I progressed a TON with that $300 lesson.

Now i'm just bummed because my enthusiasm for the sport is back but there's like 3 weeks left in the season lol.

been snowboarding my entire life. the saying is....if you can ski the east you can ski the west just fine. can't say the same for the opposite. east coast is more technical. icy. have to have balls. know how to hit adverse conditions. west is all pow.

And I'll be serving your kids fries at the drive thru on your way to your ski trip.

But at least I won't be a prick.

And if you got a problem with that, I
guess we can step outside and deal
with it that way.

fck off the ski resorts are full

When i initially learned 10 years ago, I was going 3 times a week for an entire season. It was a schitty midwestern hill where "pow" was like 2 inches of flurries 5 times a season at best. The rest was garbage manmade stuff that consistently turned into ice at night.

So to your point, i believe i progressed in difficulty really fast at Vail because it seemed easier to ride compared to chunky ice crap i'm familiar with. The black diamond humbled me instantly though. Not only was it steep as balls, that fuker had little rollers in the terrain, and i couldn't manage my carves at speed while simultaneously trying to deal with the rollers. Wiped out twice but it was fun.


And shoutout to the little green beginner trail that sent me face first into the nether realm at the end of my day. Legs were toasted after the black diamond attempt and caught a toeside edge at speed. Absolutely rekt.