Christmas in Summit County

After a pretty magic week cutting up the slopes of Steamboat Springs, we headed back towards Denver to Summit County. The last time I’d visited Summit County was when I was a teenager and spent a week at Breckenridge with my parents and a group of family friends from Australia. In addition to Breckenridge, Summit County is home to Keystone, A-Basin, Loveland and Copper Mountain, none of which I’d skied before. Our Ikon passes enabled us to ski at Arapahoe Basin and Copper Mountain.

After our snafu with the lodging in Keystone (first paragraph here), we eventually secured accommodation in the Wildernest area of Silverthorne, smack in the middle of A-Basin and Copper Mountain. Grandpa Greg flew in from California on Christmas Eve, great to have him join us for Christmas and a few days of skiing.

Santa did indeed find us in Colorado for Christmas, depositing an array of generous gifts on Greg and the Valtenbergs family for the occasion. The kids were up at 5AM with some tall stories about Lisa telling them they could wake at such an ungodly hour on vacation. I sent them back to bed until 6AM, although I’m pretty sure no more sleep was had by either of them! I made Di’s bagels for breakfast – Christmas isn’t Christmas without homemade bagels – and we all enjoyed opening presents before hitting the slopes at Arapahoe Basin.

Greg ordered the weather perfectly for his three days skiing with us, it was blue skies as far as the eye could see for his first day on the slopes at A-Basin, a magic way to spend Christmas. A-Basin is colloquially known as “The Legend” by locals due to its extreme terrain and massive above-tree-line bowls. It is a sight to behold, the photos here don’t do it justice. The base is at 10780 feet/3286 meters, with the top of the ski area stretching to a lung-burning 13050 feet/3978 meters. Greg had his ski legs under him immediately, and the five of us enjoyed some Christmas hot laps on the groomers during the morning. The snow quality was exceptional, the lack of snowmaking and elevation of the resort keeping the packed powder crisp and ice-free.

Eating lunch outside wasn’t an issue given the magic blue skies we had on Christmas, we grabbed a table outside the ski patrol hut at the top of the Lenawee lift, soaking in 360 degree views of the Rockies while we munched on our sandwiches. A very memorable way to enjoy Christmas!

For Greg’s second and third days skiing with us we took him to explore Copper Mountain. Copper is much more commercialized that A-Basin, the latter maintaining a lot of its family-owned, down-to-earth feel. But that didn’t detract from our days there, as Copper boasts an exceptional array of terrain and super-fast chairs. The length of the runs and chairs at Copper was astonishing: Lisa’s favorite was a 1.7 mile long thigh burner called Collage which went the length of the Super Bee lift on the advanced side of the mountain. Copper is very well setup for families, as the three separate areas are generally organized into beginner, intermediate and advanced terrain from west to east. I can see why Copper is Dave Stuart’s favorite place to ski: endless groomers and fast lifts.

It was a little overcast for Greg’s last day at Copper with us, and the temps dropped again to levels we experienced at Steamboat: -19ºC/-2ºF when we hit the slopes on December 27. It was excellent snow again that morning, but the lunch stop was a very cold one and Lisa, Max and Greg ventured in for some hot drinks (with alcohol for the adults!) to warm up in the early afternoon. Lilia surprised me by asking to stay out – a request I’m never going to deny – and we put in a few more long runs up and down Super Bee while the rest of the team warmed up inside.

We bid Greg farewell after his three days skiing with us, it was great for him to be able to join us for Christmas and show us all that he’s still got it in him at 71. I can only hope I’m still skiing as well as he can when I’m that age! We hit A-Basin again on December 28, enjoying the upper bowl off Lenawee lift for most of the morning. Snow was great but it was overcast and cold, check out the icicles on Lisa’s goggles in the last shot below!

We spent our last two days in Summit County back at Copper, the second-to-last providing about 10 inches of fluffy pow accompanied by lots of grins from the kids. It was again very cold – I got frostnip on my pinkie toe – but the kids charged all day. The only real drawback of Copper on a powder day compared to places like A-Basin and Steamboat is the lack of tree skiing, but the immense size of the place had us finding stashes of untracked snow until into the afternoon. Max floored me by asking to ski with me back to get the truck at the end of the day, usually that wouldn’t be an issue, but I told him that he’d have to ski a steep, black run more than a mile long on tired legs and that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. He was adamant that he was up to it (I wonder who he gets that from…) and skied it like a champ, only once over the handlebars on the way down. A great day.

No better way to cap off two weeks of Colorado slopes than with blue skies at Copper on our last day. Temps were again frigid and the frostnip on my toe from the day prior was a little annoying, but we found some good trees off Timberline chair in the morning. Lisa and I celebrated the trip with a Hot Toddy and Bloody Mary respectively at one of the outdoor bars in Center Village at lunch, a bit of a rarity for me as alcohol when skiing usually turns my ski legs to jelly.

On the last run of our last day Lisa and Max raced each other on Copper’s public-use course (pic above). Max was a little unsure of how the starting gate worked so Lisa got the jump on him, but by the finish line the little man took it by a hair. Kid is scary fast. Max said he thinks he may have skipped a gate, but I didn’t see it.

Such a fun couple of weeks, I’m so glad it all came together in spite of COVID restrictions. It would have been nice to experience all the craft distilleries, breweries and restaurants Summit County has to offer instead of eating in each night, but I guess we’ll have to save that for another time post-COVID!