Colorado Living - Rocky Mountain Resorts

Everybody's working for the weekend... not everybody? Just me? That's what I thought. Again, today, Friday, begins my week - an 8 day stretch at work. Yes, you heard. 8 days. Although I like my job, I'm a little burnt out just thinking about those 8 days in a row. And beginning a work week on a Friday just blows isn't exciting.

Last Friday I told you all about why I moved to Colorado, in the first post of many in my new "Colorado Living" series. I decided to make my little Colorado Living series a weekly Friday post. 

Although Colorado wasn't my favorite place to live, we did and saw a lot of cool things while we were there. I'm going to tell you about all of those things. 

First up, snowboarding in the Rockies. 

There are so many ski resorts in Colorado and most of them were an hour drive from our little home in Golden, west of Denver. An hour! A couple were three hours and a few were across the state. 

Colorado offers different ski passes, our first year we bought the Five Mountain Pass. The five mountain pass gave us unlimited access to Breckenridge, Keystone, Arapahoe Basin and 10 days at Vail and Beaver Creek. So many options on just one pass! There are only so many weekends in a season it was hard to spread ourselves across the mountains. 

Out of the five resorts, Keystone became our favorite. I loved the town of Breckenridge. Vail was a little overrated. 

We spent New Years 2010 in Breckenridge.

Breckenridge, CO - New Years 2009/2010

And well, as it happens, I didn't take many pictures of our snowboarding excursions that first year. Either that or I just can't seem to find them.

Beaver Creek 2010

Beaver Creek 2010

Not to worry, I have a lot more pictures of the following year. The next winter in Colorado we decided to mix things up a bit and get the Colorado Pass. The Colorado Pass included unlimited access to Winter Park and Copper Mountain with 10 days in Steamboat. With fewer options, we were able to fully take advantage of all three locations. 

Somehow I don't have many pictures of Winter Park. Copper Mountain became our favorite local resort and Steamboat, three hours away, became our top favorite. 

Copper Mountain 2011

Winter Park 2011

We spent New Years 2010/2011 in Steamboat. The temperatures were subzero!

New Years Eve - Steamboat - 2010/2011

It was 12 below zero when this picture was taken - heading to Steamboat

Steamboat 2011

Another really awesome part of Steamboat was Strawberry Hot Springs, a natural hot spring that was hidden in the mountain. Strawberry Springs is clothing optional after dark! You have to take a pretty crazy road to get there and you can't get though if you don't have 4WD. There is also no power, so if you want to change in the dark, don't bring a flashlight. Luckily my dad keeps me stocked with flashlights so I didn't have that problem. 

Strawberry Hot Springs is one of the coolest places I've been. The fact that Steamboat had just gotten a few feet of snow definitely added to the ambiance. It was also freezing as we walked from the cabins where we changed in just our bathing suits.

We also spent some time in Aspen. Aspen deserves its own post. Next week I'll be talking about the Winter X Games, Aspen Brewery and snowboarding in Aspen for Memorial Day!