Not all Birds Fly South for the Winter

While most “normal” RVers choose to spend winters in warm states like Florida and Arizona, we prefer winters in the snow. So for the 3rd year in a row we headed out to Breckenridge, Colorado just after New Years and spent over 3 months enjoying snow, cold weather and skiing. By the way, it’s a little strange to be writing about winter in June, but whatever! I’m a little behind. 😉

The reason we always head to Breckenridge is because we like to stay at Tiger Run RV Resort which is near four different ski areas that are included on the Epic Season Pass we get (Breck, Keystone, Vail and Beaver Creek). It’s nice to have some variety with the 4 ski areas when we’re staying for 3+ months. However, I’ve been looking into other ski areas for next year because Tiger Run significantly raised their monthly rates.

Last year we rented a ski-in/ski-out condo to celebrate Chris’s 50th birthday. If you read my post from last year (Back to Breck), you might remember the ski mountains shut down just a few days later due to COVID. That was quite disappointing, but this year more than made up for the early end to last year’s ski season. This past February we rented the same condo and my sister and her husband came out to stay with us.

While they visited we tried out cross-country skiing for the first time. It was fun, but I still prefer downhill skiing.

Whenever we ski at Keystone, we take the very scenic drive over Swan Mountain to get there. I’ve always wanted to stop and take pictures on the drive, but since we’re always heading to Keystone to ski, I would have ski boots on which are not comfortable for walking around and sightseeing. Since Chris is a photographer, I knew he and Cheryl would love to take this scenic drive and stop at the viewpoints. It turns out it’s called Sapphire Point and Cheryl already had it on her bucket list of places to see!

My favorite thing we did this year was to spend a few days at a ski-in/ski-out hotel at Vail for my birthday in March. It definitely redeemed the disappointing birthday I had last year when the ski resorts chose that day to shut down for the season. One thing that made the time in Vail especially fun was we got the most snow of the season while we were there. Skiing on fresh powder is the best!

We stayed at Lion Square Lodge and really enjoyed the pool and hot tub after skiing.

The last time we went to Vail in 2019 we didn’t like it that much. That’s because we made the mistake of going on a Saturday on the last weekend they were open in April. It was hot, the snow was slushy and many trails were already closed for the season. In addition it was super crowded. This time we did Vail right and enjoyed it immensely!

We also enjoyed 2 more ski-in/ski-out hotels this winter. One was at Grand Timber Lodge where we got a good deal to stay for Easter.

The other one was Grand Colorado. Last year we had a Dream Vacation Week certificate for a week long stay there, but it was canceled due to COVID. Thankfully we were able to re-schedule it for this year and it was amazing!

The hot tubs at Grand Colorado were incredible, especially this infinity hot tub overlooking the ski lifts.

As you can see, we really enjoy staying right on the mountain. Tiger Run RV Resort is only a 10 minute drive from the Breckenridge ski area, but there is nothing like staying right on the mountain.

It really was a fabulous season, and such a blessing after the way last year turned out. I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures sledding at Carter Park and Frisco sledding park.