Thanks to an elevation of nearly 13,000 feet, Colorado’s Breckenridge Ski Resort has one of the longest seasons in the country, with lifts running through May. Breck is offering the warmest weather with the longest daylight hours, as well as the best lift pass prices and sales.
Long known for its thriving ski village energy and serious nightlife, over the past few years, Breck’s culinary and cocktail scene has become world class. There are many great times to visit Breck, including spring, summer, and now is a good time to get some skiing in.
You Can Get There
When I picked up my 2024 Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro from the Denver Airport I knew it would stay clean all week. It’s hard to find a vehicle on any Colorado road that isn’t splattered to hell with salted snowmelt during the ski season, so when I loaded it with ski and snowboard bags and headed into the mountains, I savored a last look at the mirror-clean exterior like the crust on a crème brulée. The Terra-colored 4Runner begged for battle scars.
The fact that Breckenridge is just a two hour drive from Denver means you can get there without a flight connection even if you don’t live in a major city. It’s a huge advantage to live in Charleston, SC and be able to fly one leg to go skiing out west. Denverites are also attracted to the area on weekends. So a midweek trip can help avoid the traffic and crowds.
We pulled into the valet at Gravity Haus—our home for the week. Gravity Haus Breckenridge is a modern ski-in-ski-out compound with a serious coffee bar, a solid restaurant and bar with ski lift chair booths, all sitting just a couple minutes’ walk from the Peak Nine chair lift.
There’s a reciprocal club membership you can join that gives you access to discounts at sister properties in Vail, Winter Park, Lake Tahoe, Steamboat, Moab, and Jackson Hole, among other spots as far afield as Costa Rica.
You learn pretty quick that none of the locals use the full name in conversation—always shortening the name of their town to “Breck.” I’m usually hesitant about going on a nickname basis with anything before I’ve earned it, but here you can drop the “enridge” right off the bat.
The restaurant scene in Breck has gotten serious over the past few years, and the nightlife is as chill or as wild as you care to make it—cocktail bars, dive bars, martini bars—and it doesn’t take many rounds at 10,000 feet. The altitude made us dizzy on the first day. Stopping off at Harmony spa for an oxygen treatment on arrival is a way to hack the transition so it’s a lot easier. I began the day in Charleston at sea level, so it was a stark contrast.
My first night’s dinner was at Radicato, an upstairs “Mountain Italian” restaurant on Breck’s main drag owned by chef Matt Vawter, a native son turned culinary bar-raiser for Breck. Born and raised in Summit County—which includes Breckenridge—Vawter cut his teeth as a chef de cuisine in Denver for a James Beard-winning chef before returning home to start his own restaurants—Radicato and its sister restaurant, Rootstalk. Both are increasing the culinary profile in the ski town.
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The whole town has a casual atmosphere. Standouts of the meal were the Cappalletti with Ricotta and Speck and quail stuffed with fennel sausage, with espresso and Tiramisu rounding it out and erasing all memory of the day’s prior airport food.
“How does Breckenridge fit in with the other Vail Resorts—is it the stoner brother with the VW van?” I asked, fishing for a sound bite from my local media liaisons over dinner.
“Nah, more like the middle child who probably deserves a little more attention,” she said. After spending a whole week in the city, I’m inclined to agree.
On our first day, we had heavy snow. Tom Owens was our ski instructor, and he has been working at Breck Mountain since 2006. I haven’t skied or snowboarded more than twice since my snowboarding days outside Seattle in the ‘90s.
For my wife, it’s been a decade since she’s been on skis. The help was crucial, not just to learn where to ski and which slopes to pick, but to refresh muscle memory that had been forgotten and to become familiar with new pains, cracks, and creaks. didn’t exist back then.
Breck was a great place to get back in the groove and figure out where my wife and I were on our learning curves. Breck offers a wide variety of terrain, so that skiers of all levels can enjoy themselves.
There are 3,000 acres of mountains, 187 hiking trails, and 5 peaks. This means you can ski a new peak each day for the next week. If you’re an expert, Breck has some of the best high alpine terrain in the country, but if you’re like me and you want to carve different blues all day, you can do that, too. And at the end of the day, the town is waiting right at the bottom of the trail for your après adventures.
DPS delivered our DPS Pro Skis to us on the first day. But after a couple of hours, I knew that I needed to work on my boots. Even if you don’t buy skis, having a pair of your own boots to travel with is a complete game changer. Even a wrinkled pair of socks or a long cuff from your underwear can make for a painful mountain day. And ski boots are meant to be worked on if you want to get them just right—heat-molding them to get a perfect fit.
I went to Christy’s Sports just a few steps from Gravity Haus to get some boot work on my Salomon BOA boots. BOA fit systems are cables that tighten with a dial instead of only buckles, and it’s far superior to buckles for the range of adjustability.
They’ve been popular in snowboarding boots for years, but now are migrating with great success into ski boots. I quickly learned after a day on the slopes that a good boot fitter is as valuable as a good tailor, and Dan Lee, one of Christy’s Sports best, spent hours dialing in and re-forming our boots to get them just right.
We were headed to Breckenridge Distillery for dinner and a tasting after a day of skiing. When we arrived, a blizzard greeted us. You want a 4Runner Pro if you’re in a snowy village with heavy snow. I highly recommend the short walk from the town center to the distillery.
The Doctor and Distiller
Breckenridge Distillery was founded by Bryan Nolt. Nolt began the project as a personal passion, but it soon took over. He still works as a hospital radiologist for a few weeks of the year.
He took us to a distillery for a taste and showed us a wide range of products, from the flagship bourbon to aquavit or chili-infused vodka. A boyish early fifties, Nolt has a hand in everything from what’s in the mash bill to what’s in the mashed potatoes at the distillery’s restaurant. The restaurant serves up tomahawk beef, fried hen dinner for two as well as cocktails that are served under a cloud of smoke evoking bourbon-barrels.
There’s also a whiskey club, the Dark Arts Society, on the premises—complete with a private dining room and whiskey lockers. Members can pay $12,500 to join for five years. They get access to a private dining room as well as a brass plaque lock box. There’s currently a wait list for the club that’s longer than the city is high.
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Breckenridge Distillery’s bourbon is excellent, and made with local water, but the biggest surprise was how good some of their other spirits are, given that they’re known for their whiskey.
My Scandinavian brother-in-law, who joined us for dinner, said Nolt’s aquavit was the best he’d ever had. Nolt’s aquavit was the best he had ever tasted.
He pointed to a still on our tour and said, “I’m working on a Gin and Juice project with Snoop Dogg with that right now.” He left us with a few roadie bottles and a standing invitation for a fly fishing trip.
Dog Day Afternoon
We jumped in the 4Runner after a morning of skiing on perfect snow that had fallen the day before and drove just outside the town to Good Times Adventures for dog sledding. The powder was thick and the private reserve, unlike the mountain itself, was left pristine. Only a few snowmobile and sled tracks were visible.
The setting was like a Jack London story. Good Times has the largest purebred kennel of Siberian Huskies in the lower 48 states—163 dogs that are born here, pulled through their prime, and then adopted out after retirement. They consume 48,000 lbs of dog food per year, and 3,000 lbs of raw meat.
Eight-dog sled crews are assembled by the guides like officers picking soldiers for a mission—eight dogs on a gangline towing each sled. The guides are able to tell which pups will be good at each of the four positions in the line. Each litter is named with a theme, and our lead dogs were born under the sign of Sushi—siblings Toro and Miso led our pack.
The guide pulled the snowmobile sled, pulling four people in turn. Driving it is exhilarating, but it’s not foolproof. It’s important to keep your balance, put both of your feet on the brake, and hop off if the hill is steep. You can see the body-sized divots in the deep powder on the sharp turns left by previous riders, alluding to how easily you can tip the sled if you don’t lean properly.
That night for dinner, I had no idea what to expect when we slipped into a small elevator in The Carlin—a restaurant in the European pub tradition with luxury rooms upstairs—and rode to the basement space called The Tavern Underground at The Carlin. The elevator door opened onto a subterranean restaurant and cocktail bar you’d expect to find in New York or London.
The actual bar dominates the space with a presence that tells you they’re serious about cocktails, but the booth tables set into alcoves encourage long meals and conversation. It was the place I had the fewest expectations of, but it grabbed me most.
Our bartender, Chase, brought a cocktail inspired by peach cobbler and named after his grandmother. It was garnished with smoldering sticks of cinnamon. For an after-dinner drink, our bartender, Chase, brought a peach-cobbler-inspired cocktail lovingly named after his grandmother, with a toasted marshmallow and a homemade tiny shortbread cookie for garnish.
This cocktail was perfect for my wife, who always jokes that she would rather drink her dessert than look at the menu. Restaurants in resort towns are known for not delivering on their promises. When a restaurant exceeds expectations, it stands out.
Battjes Crazy
We headed to Keystone Resort for our final ski day. It was only 20 minutes away. Keystone is known for its more relaxed, family-friendly vibe, compared to Vail and Breck. But a new lift to Bergman Bowl, which opened this year, has added over 500 acres to the resort’s ski terrain. There’s also a new luxe hotel and club, the Kindred, under construction within feet of the main gondola. The Keystone vibe is relaxed, fun, and unpretentious—a vibe embodied by our instructor for the day.
Ski School instructor Tieg Battjes showed up at our coffeeshop meetup point with a pair of bamboo ski poles and an attitude like we were on an inside-joke level before we’d even shaken hands. He’s been skiing since he was two and has been instructing for 14 years at Keystone. He was like an sober John Belushi circa Animal House, with Mr. Miyagi’s relentless eye for details. Nothing missed his gaze, and every hundred yards you’d get a detailed report of every improvement or flaw you were too busy skiing to be conscious of.
After a lifetime of snowboarding, I switched to skiing when I became tired of sitting and buckling/unbuckling the bindings on chair lifts. When I found out about Burton’s new Step-On bindings, I was ready to go back to boarding. Burton really has fixed my snowboarding problem. All the old thrills came back sans the old hassles, and I could’ve carved alone all day.
Tieg is a great ski instructor, so I took advantage of him. After sitting on my toe-side knees listening to him spew gold and changing lifelong poor ski habits in front of me in real time, I swapped the Burton Custom for a pair of Line Blade Optic skis so I could soak up his wisdom. Keystone provided a change of scenery and was only a short drive away from Breck. Tieg also convinced us it wouldn’t be the last time we skied there.
Until Next Time
Hearthstone was our last dinner. Unlike the forward-looking spots we’d been too, Hearthstone is a bit of old Colorado housed in a circa 1883 family-home-turned-restaurant that still feels a bit like a late 1800’s house. Floral wallpaper, granola-crusted elk and blackberry-crusted elk reminded us that miners had settled the area before skiers took it over.
On our final morning in Breck, after loading our monstrous ski bags, gear, and luggage into the back of our chariot—now completely smothered in Colorado sludge—we grabbed espressos from the coffee bar at Gravity Haus.
According to smartwatches, when I returned to Denver International Airport after four full days of activity, I was 60% adjusted to altitude. Our memories were paid for with sore muscles, and we needed Advil more than usual. As we pulled into the long term parking lot, we noticed that the 4Runner TRD Pro hardly resembled our showroom-pretty, SUV. All of us had earned badges in Breckenridge and were ready to repeat the experience.
Breckenridge Pro Tips
- Breck has a lot of free public transportation options, including a gondola, busses, and ski-to-town trails, so once you get there you don’t need a vehicle to get around easily.
- Pack only one jacket, one pair of pants and avoid changing your clothes every day. Choose half-leg versions of long underwear in order to prevent any wrinkles or pinching inside your ski boot.
- Place hand warmers in any pocket that you can find. Never forget to zip all pockets before descending the slopes, or you’ll end up with snowballs where you’d least suspect.
- Along with oxygen treatments, hydration packs and water in your water will help you avoid altitude sickness.
- Ask locals for recommendations, and not on yelp.
- Keep your hands out of the ski pole loops while boarding a lift. I’m telling you to trust me.
- Get the Epic Ultimate pass and you can go to 42 resorts. The Epic Ultimate pass also gives you a 20% discount on food, rentals, hotels and other services at the resort. It’s a great deal. Breck has a “Turn in Your Ticket” program, which means if you skied on a day ticket this season or if you purchase a day ticket this spring at Breck, you can apply up to $100 of that towards the purchase of your 2024-25 season pass.
