Skiing near Denver with an Epic Pass
I visited Denver for the first time outside of layovers in March. I went with 3 other friends to make the most of our Epic passes.
I live in San Francisco, so I get the Tahoe Local Epic Pass (Epic is a group of ski resorts). The Tahoe Local Pass means that you can ski unlimited days in Tahoe (certain passes have black out days), but only either a specific amount of days or no days at all for other resorts. Epic has a lot of resorts throughout the country (with some even international) so get a pass that makes the most sense for you!
With the Tahoe Local Pass you get 5 included day passes to Colorado resorts including Vail, Breakenridge and Keystone!
We wanted to use all 5 days, so we made a ~week long trip over to Denver. Unable to take that much PTO, but being fortunate enough to have flexible remote jobs, we all planned to work from Denver for 3 days as well to make the most of the trip. Here was our calendar:
Thursday night: fly to Denver
Friday - Sunday: ski
Monday - Wednesday: work, work, work
Thursday - Friday: ski
Saturday: Enjoy Denver
Sunday: Fly back to SF!
A lot of people were surprised we were staying in Denver and skiing at Epic. We went to Keystone, Breakenridge, and Vail and the drive to all of them was only ever about ~1.5hr. One night, it was closer to 3hr, but that was because the weather turned pretty bad and the highway was super backed up. Denver is also a lot more cost effective than staying near the ski resorts (we were able to find a full house on Airbnb in Denver for $70 / night!).
In Colorado, Epic offers access to Vail, Breakenridge, Keystone, Beaver Creak, Crested Butte, and Telluride. We skied at the first 3!
Justin and I looking cute at Keystone! Pretty sure you can see Breakenridge behind us, that is how close the resorts are! (~10 min)
Friday - Saturday: Keystone
We started off skiing at Keystone on Friday and Thursday. Keystone was a great time and what I would consider the most beginner friendly—they are most well known for their 3 mile green circle run called School Marm. This was a great run to start and end the day on! Keystone also has some great hike-up-ski-down runs, but we did not do these this time around.
I also found this resort to be the easiest to navigate as all the runs are on one side of the mountain and can be on one map. My only complaint is that I didn’t find the park well marked—they used 1 flag for a jump (it was really bright when we hit the park and we could barely see where the jumps were!)
A great thing about Keystone is the night skiing! This is the only Epic Resort of the three we went to that offered night skiing. Most Fridays - Sundays keystone keeps their main gondola open after the 4PM close time for anyone who wants to continue their day under the stars! Night skiing at Keystone goes from 4PM to 8PM (we never did this, but if you go to two resorts in one day, that still only counts as 1 day used on your epic pass — remember, we only got 5 days in CO with our pass — so you could ski at Break one day and go to Keystone for night skiing if it works. They’re close!)
I enjoyed going a few times, but I would definitely recommend bringing completely clear goggles because it was difficult to see with the tint that I had. There were also sections that weren’t fully lit up which made me a bit nervous. This was all on beginner terrain so It wasn’t terrible, but I did not like the sensation of not knowing if there was a giant ice snow ball that I was about to catch an edge on!
For food, we usually bring lunch, but we did stop by The Crepe Stand on our first morning for deliciously filling breakfast crepes! Need a hot cocoa after a day in the cold? I would recommend swinging by Rotolos Crafts and Crusts for possibly the best hot cocoa I have ever had!
The drive to and from keystone can be a bit hazardous if it is snowing or slick has there is a long section of steep switchbacks (one of the reasons it took us 3 hours one night to get back). If you are renting a car, make sure it is well equipped for this kind of terrain (AWD + Snow Tires).
Night skiing at Keystone!
Sunday: Breakenrdige
I think I liked the village more than the resort, that’s bad of me, right? The Breakenridge village is so cute and the definition of a bougie mountain village. While it was for sure more expensive than I’d want to spend money on, It’s great to walk around for a morning or evening. We got breakfast at Cofa Cafe on our Breakenridge day which was not in the actual village but was super tasty and less resort inflated.
Unfortunately, we visited Breakenridge on a windy day which meant a lot of the back bowls were closed. I still really liked the skiing. I spent most of my time at Pioneer Crossing which had a lot of long blues. Breakenridge has a T-bar that brings you to a bunch of double black bowls / trees. I did not feel comfortable on that terrain or that device (I had never seen a T-bar before) but Justin and Will attempted to go up the T-bar and couldn’t even make it to the run as Will wiped out on the T-bar!
To be fair, Will was not the only one. About 1 in 5 people did not make it up the steep start to the T-bar!
I hope I can go back to Breakenridge on a day where I can enjoy more of the runs!
I didn’t realize they were legendary, but apparently they are!
Thursday: Vail
It’s not that big of a surprise, but Vail was definitely a highlight. The mountain was amazing and it was a great experience to ski in bowls. The mountain layout for Vail was much more difficult to follow in my opinion. There are four more areas to Vail: The Front Side (this is where we started), game creek, the back bowls (this is where we spent the most time skiing), and the blue sky basin (I am pretty sure this is a different mountain peak but we never made it here.
At Vail, I rode my first T-bar. I didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to sit down on the T-bar so I am thankful that Will and Justin went at Breakenridge so that I could.
Vail was the only resort we had to pay for parking at. We were unable to find free parking but it is possible that it was just filled by the time we got there.
(Side note: we went to Vail on Justin’s birthday and he got this cute pin! You don’t have to do anything other than be born that day and they will give you a pin when they scan your lift pass!)
Happy birthday to Justin!
Friday: XC at Break
Okay, so this was not on the Epic Pass, but on Friday, Justin and I met up with our friend Allie to try XC skiing. None of us had ever been before and it was super fun! We went through the Breakenridge Nordic Center and they were great. They helped us get the right ski rentals and had a great instructor. After the course, we were able to XC ski the course until they closed (4PM). If you have time and have never been, I would definitely recommend checking this out. I’ve found a new winter hobby! For the course (~1.5 hr), rentals, and day pass, the total was about ~$100/person, not too bad when a a lift ticket at any downhill ski resort is ~$200/person!
Beautiful XC skiing!
