Family Ski Vacation in Beaver Creek

Hi, friends! Today I’m so excited to finally share pictures from our family ski vacation in Beaver Creek. Our family ski trip has become somewhat of an annual event that we all look forward to all year long. When I was younger, our destination was mostly Steamboat Springs, but the past couple years we have ventured to Breckenridge instead with a day or two at Beaver Creek. This year for something a little different, we decided to stay in Beaver Creek since it is usually our favorite mountain! And we had such a blast! My parents usually rent a condo within walking distance of the slopes, making skiing each day a breeze. But it also allows us to slow down and relax in the evenings together without the needless rush to get dinner in town with the crowds. My mom even made homemade chili that we brought with us for dinner one night! Yum!

Unfortunately for my mom, she suffered from a pretty serious bout of food poisoning for the first two days of our trip (something she must’ve picked up in Boulder before we arrived in Beaver Creek). So that’s why she doesn’t appear in many of the pictures until the end. But even so, I think she and everyone else ended up having a wonderful time and would definitely stay in Beaver Creek again! So without further ado, let’s get right into this year’s activities!

Day 1 – Beaver Creek

The first day it was just me and Conor at Beaver Creek. My mom and dad were back at the condo recovering from their sickness and Allen was at work (ha! sucker! 😛 ). Every time we go to Beaver Creek I think it’s the best snow I’ve ever skied on, and this trip was no different. I mean, how can it keep getting better year after year? I think the great thing about Beaver Creek is that it’s not overrun with people like a lot of the other Colorado resorts can be, so the snow quality can be a lot better. I also think it had to do with timing it just right with snowfall for the season. It can be really really cold for winter skiing this time of year, but man are the snow conditions worth it!

We skied until about 1pm, when we stopped to take a break inside one of the warm huts slope-side. We both brought our favorite energy bars and munched on some almonds for energy. It was a nice little break before getting back out there and shredding it!

A couple runs into our afternoon slope adventures, the snow began to fall and it was deja vu to the last time I was in Beaver Creek. It doesn’t get much more beautiful than tall evergreen trees with freshly falling snow in the foreground. So, so pretty.

After a full day of skiing we headed back to the condo for a low key night watching movies, chowing down on chicken tortilla soup, and waiting for Allen to arrive after work. There may have even been a late afternoon nap involved too. 😉 The best.

 

Day 2 – Beaver Creek

Day 2 brought with it new snowfall and 2 new skiers–Allen and my Dad! My mom was still down for the count, so we made sure she had plenty of Gatorade and saltine crackers for the day before heading out to the slopes (poor Momma!).

The journey to the slopes was such a pretty one from our condo. We literally stepped right outside our back porch onto a small packed pathway that led straight to a small chair lift that we rode to the top of one of the smaller slopes. There were so many big, beautiful cabins along the way too. #housegoals From the top of the smaller slope, we could then make our way onto the main slopes after a couple of runs. It was really the perfect setup!

Conor, our resident trail blazer, who always had a good grasp on where we were and where we wanted to go. Me, on the other hand, I just followed. Ha! (You should never put me in charge of directions. Never. )

Having serious mountain lodge envy looking at this guy in line at one of the ski lifts. Wow!

Me and my dad!! Love you!

…and the three amigos!

A little after noon, we stopped for some quick bites of our energy bars outside one of the huts. I love that the yellow and green dude is photobombing our cute selfie. He actually had a twin in a matching suit he was skiing with too! I definitely need to know where they got those suits and get me and Allen one. 😉 Maybe in green and purple so we are both happy!

Skiing the slopes with my love! So glad my dad captured this candid shot of us. For those that don’t know, Allen is from Alaska and grew up skiing and ski racing–so he’s freakin’ good (an understatement of course). And while I’ve been skiing since I was 4 years old, he is a much better skier than I am. So I’m always so glad when he “takes it easy” and skies with me. I can usually find him launching jumps all around me as I just try to make it down the mountain in one piece. But he’s just such a fun skier to watch!

These two goofballs…

And perhaps one of the best parts about skiing at Beaver Creek is that promptly at 3:30pm, they serve fresh cookies at the bottom of the slope. Yes. Please.

And that finished up day 2 of skiing. We went back and warmed up my mom’s homemade chili for dinner. I made a bed of pasta to put it on, while the boys just ate it as is with corn chips and cheese on top. We ended up finding and watching The Matrix on television and talking well into the night before heading to bed.

Day 3 – Keystone

Allen, Conor, and I each have the Epic Local Pass and the weekend we were in Beaver Creek just so happened to fall on a blackout date (Saturday). The way the Epic Local Pass works is that you have unlimited days at places like Breckenridge, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin and 10 days (with special restrictions) at places like Vail and Beaver Creek. So the Saturday that we were at Beaver Creek was one of the restricted days, and it gave us a good excuse to try out another mountain nearby. The first place I ever skied (when I was 4 years old) was Keystone and I hadn’t been back since. So that was the natural choice for Day 3 of skiing. My mom finally felt well enough to ski, so her and my dad stayed to ski in Beaver Creek that day.

Not being able to wake up and walk out right onto the slopes, we had to wake up extra early for the ~hour long drive to Keystone and to beat the I-70 traffic (which can literally be the worst!). So we got a little breakfast in us (my dad had brought his homemade sausage-egg casserole yum!) before hitting the road.

Once we got to Keystone it was a little walk to the first lift but we were just all so excited to hit the slopes and get the first run under our belts. As you can see from the pictures below, it was quite frigid.

Despite how these pictures may look, Keystone was packed! So packed in fact that I was ready to call it a day 1/2 way through. Luckily on our way back to the front side of the mountain we found some areas that were much less crowded and so decided to keep skiing. It’s hard going from a place like Beaver Creek, where there aren’t many people, to Keystone where it can feel like you are a salmon swimming upstream (and we’re all skiing downhill…so…yeah). And to be fair to Keystone, the reason Saturday was a restricted day at Beaver Creek is because it was anticipated to be one of the busiest ski days of the year. So it could have just been overly crowded for that reason.

Luckily, we did find open slopes eventually (on the front side in fact, go figure) and ended up having a great time skiing together!

Allen doing a sick jump to the side of me. That guy is so good!

Can you spot the Allen above? This was right before he dropped in.

Allen: “Want me to make it look like it’s snowing?”

Kristin: “Yes!! Let me take your picture!”

Allen: *Shakes tree branch above him*

*Big snow pile plops on Allen and looks like it came straight from that tree, not “snow”.*

Kristin: *Uncontrollable laughter ensues* (and it’s all captured on camera below)

We fell in love with the ski lift above. It took us to some of the best snow we found all day. Deep stuff that looked like it hadn’t been touched! Challenging but oh so rewarding.

I found this pretty red house at the bottom of one of our runs too. I loved the bright pop of color against the crisp white snowy background. And as you can see, no one in sight!

Meanwhile back in Beaver Creek…my mom and dad had a picture taken while they were out skiing. Aren’t they just the cutest?! They did a much better job coordinating their outfits than me and Allen did. Matching game strong. Love them!

Once back in town after a full day of skiing (in Keystone), we decided to grab a bite to eat before heading back to our condo in Beaver Creek.

We stopped at a small little pizza place {Pizza On The Run} and couldn’t wait to dig in to our warm meals. Every time I pull out my phone to take pictures of our food, I can see the pain in the boy’s eyes as they just want to devour it and I’m standing in their way. Ha! Sorry, not sorry? (At least Conor is smiling. 🙂 )

After dinner, we walked around town exploring for a bit. I have a *slight* moose obsession, so when I found this cute moose cutout, I just had to take a picture, right?!

To our happy surprise, we also found a Mary’s Mountain Cookies in Keystone and I treated Allen and Conor to a cookie (or cookie-cookie dough-cookie sandwich in Allen’s case).

As you can see…they didn’t enjoy them one bit!

After our cookies, we headed out and back onto the road to Beaver Creek.

The sunset was stunning this evening too, which made the drive back much more enjoyable.

Once we got back, my parents were out exploring Beaver Creek Village (my mom had finally started to feel better). So we grabbed some towels from our room and headed down to the hot tub to soak our sore muscles and enjoy each other’s company in the snowy scenery. The hot, bubbling water mixed with the frigid night air is one of the strangest combinations. But it’s one that I’ve come to love on a ski vacation. So. Good.

It was the perfect ending to a day well-spent skiing in a new locale.

Day 4 – Beaver Creek Village

Day 4 marked the end of our trip. Noooo! Hahaha. My mom wanted to get in as much skiing as possible, so she hit the Beaver Creek slopes early while the rest of us packed up our belongings and loaded the cars. Afterwards, Allen, Conor, and I headed into Beaver Creek to shoot a couple looks for the blog (seen here and here) and of course to just have fun exploring the town. We usually go out to at least one nice dinner during our family vacations, but because my mom had food poisoning, it just wasn’t in the cards for us this trip. So instead we did a little exploring on the morning of our last day.

The views walking into the village from our condo were…so beautiful and peaceful.

I had Conor go and stand near this giant icicle just to show how ginormous it was! Woah. Don’t want to be standing under that at the wrong time! No sir-ee.

A few pictures of my outfit from our walk around the Village. You can see the full post here. I felt so cozy in these chunky knits!

Afterwards, I wanted to grab a coffee for the ~2 hour drive home, so we stopped inside Rimini. They actually had the most amazing looking gelato and had it not been so early, I may have totally gone for that instead. But priorities, right? Warm, sweet caffeine is what I needed this particular every morning.

…and I mean, those cookies! Yum! I’ll have one of each please.

I love seeing soft snow pillows like these after a fresh snow fall. So, so pretty. My favorite!

Coffee in hand, we headed back to Boulder, our hearts happy from a perfect weekend of skiing with our favorite people.

Once I got home and we unpacked our belongings, I took a couple hours to do some reading for research #gradstudentlift. But later that evening, Allen and I took my parents out for some good ol’ fashioned BBQ at one of our most frequented spots in Louisville–Lulu’s! It was so much fun sharing a favorite of ours with them. Sometimes I forget that now I live so far away, we don’t get to share as many of these places/moments with them. So these moments and memories have become some of my most cherished, even as generic and ordinary as a casual dinner may seem.

Afterwards we took them to Glacier Homemade Ice Cream in Boulder for more sweet treats. Even though we were full, we enjoyed every. last. bite!

Overall we had such a fun trip. And while it may have not gone exactly how we had planned it (I’m so sorry you were sick, mom!), I think everyone really enjoyed themselves and loved spending time together. Because at the end of the day, that’s really what a family vacation is all about, right?!

What about you? Have you been on a family vacation that you loved recently?

You might also like…What I Wore To Explore Beaver Creek and Our Last Family Ski Vacation in Breckenridge.