Pretty much everyone I know already knows this, and if you watch my flickr feed you'll have seen the pictures, but I figured I might as well quickly mention that I went skiing in Breckenridge for a couple days over the holiday and then spent new year's in Denver.

The plan was to spend the night of the 28th in Denver and drive to Breck early in the morning, but there was a huge storm just about to hit and I decided (actually Stephanie at the Denver City Center Marriott advised) that were was probably a good chance we would be stuck in Denver if we stayed so we headed to Breck that night. Luckily I had already picked up the rental car and Stephanie saved the day by spending a good 20 minutes on the phone pulling every string she could to secure me a room in Breckenridge, even though they were officially completely sold out. THAT was some serious customer service!

The drive to Breck actually took about 3 times as long as it's supposed to, and we saw no less than 6 people pee on the side of the road in front of us while we were waiting in a line of traffic that could only be described as stop-and-then-stop-some-more. So that was entertaining, and we eventually got there and had two awesome days of skiing. Stayed in the Marriott Mountainside, which kinda used up the Marriott customer serivce points they gained in Denver by almost losing my sport coat and not actually successfully dry cleaning it despite having it for 3 days. Not really a big deal though. I definitely paid for the privilege of staying there this time; no amount of marriott points could secure that room the week of Christmas. I think it was totally worth it though. Here's a pic of the hotel and it's proximity to the hill (the lift is like 10 yards to the right).

The snow in Breck was quite good, and the weather treated us well. The lines the first day were actually not that bad considering the season. I think the storm helped us there as many people couldn't get out of Denver (suckers!). The second day was sunny and warm and beautiful. The runs were well-groomed, although somewhat icy in places. I spent most of my time on Peak 10 where it's all expert runs, which helps to keep the lift lines down. The skiing there was sweet and overall I was quite impressed with Breckenridge. I'd rank it below Vail but above Park City Utah, though I've only been to each of them once and therefore my opinion might not be worth much.

I'm really hoping to get another round of skiing in sometime this season, but I don't know how likely it is. Work should take me to Vancouver at least once this year, but I'm not sure when. If it's early enough, I'll try out Whistler.

New Year's eve was great. Went to the Denver Orchestra's "A Night in Vienna" concert, which was very good. The Boettcher theater is really nice. Then we watched Denver's fireworks show at 9pm standing directly underneath, which was cool.

Take a look at my Breckenridge flickr set for more shots. I went back to using my FujiFilm Z2 for the shots while I'm on the mountain because it's small and easier to carry with me, and it's about half the price of my new Canon so I'm risking less. For some reason, I also took my imate smartflip up the hill with me, and while it enabled me to answer some email and upload some flickr pics from the lift, I also managed to break the external screen somewhere along the way. Caution to the people who own the smartflip: Be careful with the external screen, I think it's gets brittle when the phone gets cold. That sucks, but I'm back to using my jasjar as a primary phone now that I'm traveling again anyway.

technorati tags:breckenridge, skiing, smartflip