Family Style
Whether your family’s action meter revs to eleven, idles at chill, or falls on all points in between, there’s something in Summit County to suit everybody’s pace.
CHILL OUT
Not everyone who visits the mountains wants to spend their days going up and down them in some fashion—at least not all day. Sometimes, especially when it’s extra chilly, you just want to chill. Summit’s menu includes tried-and-true ski-town favorites blended with creative options for light-adrenaline fare both indoors and out.
Beach’n Egg
HuntFueled by warm weather (hopefully), Arapahoe Basin’s annual Easter egg hunt on skis marks the beginning of more sunny days to come at the Basin’s Beach with a visit from the big bunny himself. Open to nonskiing hunters, as well.
April 8, 2012 Arapahoe Basin 888-272-7246 arapahoebasin.com
The Outlets at Silverthorne
Let’s face it: shopping is as much a part of the vacation as the photos. Silverthorne says, live it up, because the discounts beckon. Don’t miss the much-ballyhooed Tuesday Morning,
whose recent arrival was the talk of the town. Silverthorne 866-746-7686 outletsatsilverthorne.com
Ready, Paint,Fire
Nothing says “family” and “nostalgia” like handmade pottery. Mugs, plates, and as-yet-to-be-identified forms take shape at Breckenridge’s favorite do-it-yourself pottery studio.
Breckenridge 970-453-5765 readypaintfirebreck.com
Mountaintop Children’s Museum
If you’re 10 or younger (or in charge of someone who is), kick off your shoes to crawl into an artificial bear cave, fish for plastic trout, and examine skulls and scat. Ewww! Yet cool. Don costumes for improvised kids’ theater, conduct lab experiments mom has banned from the kitchen, or sit in the pilot’s seat of a mini Flight for Life helicopter. Kids’ Night Out (Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays) becomes parents’ night out once they drop the kids off for mountains of fun.
Breckenridge 970-453-7878 mtntopmuseum.org
Silverthorne Recreation Center
Besides being a fully rigged workout facility, replete with yoga and fitness classes, dance classes for parents and children, a basketball court, an indoor track, racquetball courts, and an Olympic-length pool, the Silverthorne Recreation Center is also equipped with a giant twist slide in its pool area ... not easy to find those in winter. Across the parking lot is Rainbow Park, with its own playground and one of the best sledding hills in the area. Down the road, North Pond, across the street from Silverthorne Elementary School, freezes up to form the perfect little rink for some impromptu skating or a family hockey match.
Silverthorne 970-262-7300 silverthorne.org
The Cage at Copper
The Cage is a retail store that also invites lounging around on bean bags watching adrenaline videos, as well as playing ping pong and video games ... like a modern version of the archaic arcades from many a junior-high memory. Because when your adrenaline runs out, there’s usually enough left to watch action sports or challenge your friends to some foosball. For kids with legs that just won’t quit, the Cage also features a skateboarding mini-bowl. If they don’t want to drop in and prefer to get in touch with their artistic side, they can also design and paint their own skateboard deck.
Copper Mountain Resort 866-841-2481 coppercolorado.com
Breckenridge Historical Tours
Breckenridge’s history is long and lurid. Let the experts take you on one of a variety of tours, including walking tours, a haunted tour, snowshoe tours, a saloon tour with distillery tasting, and tours to local mines. What better way to get a sense of Breckenridge, then and now?
Breckenridge 970-453-9767 breckheritage.com
Chocolate Village
Mouthwatering but made for eye candy only, the village is built from 2,500 pounds of chocolate and includes a fully operating mini gondola and a life-size white chocolate Christmas tree. If you find yourself in Keystone from mid-December through New Year’s, nothing will fill you with a sense of holiday magic—and an urge to pig out—like this detailed and delicious village.
Keystone Resort 970-496-4386 keystoneresort.com
Also on tap on a regular schedule are the Aloha Lunch Skate, cookie decorating, Disco Tubing at night (reservations required at 970-496-4386), fireworks, Glow Bug Skate Night at Keystone’s outdoor rink, and Ripperoo’s Village Parade, as well as ice skating instructors for the beginningest of beginners, ages 4 to 8. Check online for each event’s regular schedule, or learn more about Kidtopia Family Weeks (December 27 through January 3, January 13–16, February 4–5, February 17–20, March 10–14, March 17–21). Keystone Resort 970-496-4386 keystoneresort.com/activities/kidtopia
NOT TOO SLOW, NOT TOO FAST
How do you keep the family together when adrenaline levels pull everyone in different directions? Summit County sports several venues that showcase its beautiful natural setting at any speed.
Ice skating
When it comes to recreational ice skating, Keystone carries the torch. Not only is it home to a five-acre lake that transforms into a kaleidoscope of gliders in winter (as well as impromptu hockey and broomball games), but a smaller pond opens in River Run this season. When it comes to holiday cheer, however, the bustle of Keystone’s outdoor rink can’t be beat.
Copper Mountain’s outdoor pond invites skaters, too—it’s free if you have your own skates—while Breckenridge’s Stephen C. West Ice Arena offers indoor skating, including lessons if you want them.
Copper Mountain 866-841-2481 coppercolorado.com
Stephen C. West Ice Arena Breckenridge 970-547-9974 townofbreckenridge.com
Keystone Lake & River Run 970-496-4386 keystoneresort.com
Sleigh rides
Horse-drawn sleigh rides through a Victorian town, across a field of snow, or through the woods past old mine ruins are the quintessence of Colorado living. A romantic outing for couples (chilly air encourages snuggling under cozy blankets), sleigh rides become amusement park rides when the whole family is involved—anytime you throw an animal into the mix, there is a certain air of excitement. Bundle up and set out for a nighttime ride paired with sumptuous suppers. Stables in Breckenridge, Frisco, Keystone, and Copper Mountain will help pick the right trip for you—with or without a cowboy.
Breckenridge Stables 970-453-4438 breckstables.com
Breckenridge Sleigh Rides 970-453-0222 brecksleighrides.com
Copper Mountain Stables 970-968-2232 coppercolorado.com
Frisco Peninsula 970-668-5547 townoffrisco.com
Keystone Resort Stables 970-496-4386 keystoneresort.com
Two Below Zero Sleigh Rides 800-571-6853 dinnersleighrides.com
Nordic Sleigh Rides Breckenridge 970-453-2005 nordicsleighrides.com
Dogsledding
Horses aren’t the only animals that pull you around in these parts; dogs get into the action as well. You can mush a dog team—yes, you—at one of several outfitters whose huskies are happy to gallop ahead with your sled in tow. Who knows: perhaps you’ll sign up for the Iditarod next winter. Good Times Adventures Dogsledding and Snowmobiling 800-477-0144 goodtimesadventures.com
Alpine Adventures Leadville 719-486-9899 alpineadventuresinc.com
If skinny skis strike you as new and wobbly, any of Summit’s Nordic centers can set you up with equipment rentals and lessons before setting you loose to explore the dozens of miles of trails each center offers.
For an ambitious classic Nordic or snowshoe outing, the Peaks Trail, anchored on one end near the base of Peak 8 in Breckenridge, will take you nine miles through gorgeous pine forests, up and down hills along the woodsy base of the Ten Mile Range, all the way to Frisco.
Not minimalist enough, you say? Well, if you can walk, you can strap on a pair of snowshoes—also for rent at Summit’s Nordic centers—and clomp around separate trails designed for snowshoers. Copper Mountain has free guided tours, including snowshoes and poles, covering the history of the area and its wildlife.
Gold Run Nordic Center 970-547-7889 townofbreckenridge.com
Copper Mountain Nordic Center 866-841-2481 coppercolorado.com
Frisco Nordic Center 970-668-0866 frisconordic.com
Keystone Nordic Center 970-547-7889 keystoneresort.com
HIGH OCTANE THRILLS
The “been there, done that” crowd couldn’t find a better place to Dew it up than Summit County. When it comes to extreme, Colorado’s rooftop serves up options for the most outrageous in your group, while up-and-coming hotshots can train safely alongside.
Parks and pipes
There’s a reason Breckenridge is recognized as a freestyle mecca, with five terrain parks that accommodate everyone from beginners (with lower tabletops and rails and smaller jumps) to cutting-edge riders at the Freeway Super Park (with monolithic jumps and a pipe christened by Shaun White and the world’s top riders). After hosting the Snowboarding Grand Prix, Copper Mountain is also home to a massive superpipe (with twenty-two-foot walls), as well as the Woodward Park for those who graduate from the barn. Copper has three other jibbing locations, including a Kidz Terrain Park, built with the pint-size in mind. Keystone corrals all of its jibbers into one large arena, the Area 51 Park, where the features are conveniently divided into beginner (Freda’s Incubator), Intermediate (Park Lane), and Advanced (Main Street). Hosting several big rail competitions in late spring, Arapahoe Basin is also home to two parks: the Treeline—at well above 12,000 feet, the highest advanced park in North America—and the lighter High Divide Park, suited to up-and-coming jibbers.
Snowmobile tours
If you feel the need for speed and possibly a little scenery mixed in, there’s a snowmobile out there with your name on it. Tours in Breckenridge take you past old mining ruins, while Copper Mountain tours ascend high onto ridges, where your revving engine echoes off the peaks of the Ten Mile Range.
Good Times Adventures Breckenridge 800-477-0144 goodtimesadventures.com
White Mountain snowmobile tours 970-668-5323 whitemountainsnowmobiletours.com
Hard Boot Carving
For carvers, a.k.a. “hard boot snowboarders,” the sport is not about speed, but you’d never know it to watch. In search of maximum g’s, carvers strap on to specialized snowboards and lay it down at Summit’s resorts—almost literally. In the throes of a turn, carvers appear to be lying against the ground.
Summit sees more and more converts to the sport every year, perhaps in part because Bomber Industries bindings has its hub in Silverthorne (call first—they might be out carving), both selling the bindings it manufactures and helping outfit people with all of the gear they need to start rocketing around the mountain. They don’t offer lessons, but they will help you find hard-boot instructors.
Bomber Industries 970-513-7733 bomberonline.com
Tubing
When you’ve got edges, it doesn’t matter how steep the terrain is. Theoretically, you can control your route down. When it comes to firing down the mountain on a big rubber ring, however, all you can really do is pray. Maybe look for a lower pitch—all of Summit’s tubing hills have a variety. For more thrills, steep lanes sometimes feature rollers that might get you and your bouncy ride airborne.
Copper Mountain Resort 866-841-2481 coppercolorado.com
Keystone Resort 970-496-4386 keystoneresort.com
Frisco Adventure Park 970-668-2558 townoffrisco.com
Gold Runner Alpine Coaster
If speed is what you’re after, the fastest sled in town (without a motor) is the Gold Runner coaster at Breckenridge, open all winter. Let loose on the hand brake and go full throttle, imagining you’re a World War II flying ace—but with more layers. Don’t forget, the wind bites at light speed.
Breckenridge 970-453-5000 breckenridge.com
Frisco Peninsula
The Frisco Peninsula was long a hub for Nordic skiers who sought out its groomed, forested trails ... until its pines were devastated by the beetle kill epidemic, and the spit was cleared of nearly all of its trees.
Tragedy turned to opportunity, though, as the town further developed the peninsula into an Adventure Park, a home for jibbers who, as luck would have it, are always in search of another place to throw down. Frisco’s new jib park comes complete with a surface lift for ascension-averse riders returning to session the jumps and rails yet again. The peninsula is also home to a bunny hill for beginners. Ever efficient, the town transforms the area into a bike park in summer.
The magic carpet lift at the Adventure Park also serves a new multilane tubing hill and a beginner ski slope. During the park’s inaugural season last winter, five tubing lanes with various pitches, drops, and rolls delivered light to heavy adrenaline charges; this winter, just to keep the charge rolling, there will be seven.
A brand-new day lodge at the peninsula serves beer, liquor, soup, hot dogs, and an array of other snacks at affordable prices.
Frisco Peninsula 970-668-5547 townoffrisco.com
facility complete with foam pits for landings that are far softer than the ground in the terrain park.“It’s a place where both the parents and kids can find common ground—or air, in this case,” says Copper Mountain’s David Roth.
Housed in a giant barn, Woodward is filled with all of the materials necessary to get really good at doing tricks, or at least not hurt yourself trying. There are three foam pits, the biggest of which is the landing for a 43-degree, 35-foot ramp of synthetic snow, where X Games athletes perfect their double cork 1080 spins and amateurs attempt to go upside down or round-and-round for the first time. There are also a full-size skateboarding pool, a street trick area full of ramps and jumps, quarter pipes, and a cliff drop for a simulated big-mountain experience.
Prior to hitting the ramps and drops, Woodward visitors usually get comfortable with being airborne on trampolines (using Burton-engineered tramp boards) and on a squishy, fully equipped gymnastics floor.
866-841-2481 coppercolorado.com
