Back from 6 days of skiing in Colorado with my son over his spring break. This has become a bit of an annual tradition with us. This year we had the bonus of reconnecting with a friend of mine from college who lives in Colorado and spent Monday skiing with us at Breck and showing us around. 

Day 1 was a half day at A-basin on Sunday. Day 2 was at Breck, skiing with my friend. After some warm-ups in the Peak 7 area we moved over to Peak 6 and the Kensho Superchair:

My son and I at the top of the Kensho Superchair:

From this chair you can access bowl terrain that drops down into lightly-treed areas. You can also hike to access the Six Senses chutes (hike shown behind us in the picture). I did not do this 15-30 minutes hike but my friend did the hike with my son while I stayed with the lift-serviced terrain. We also accessed the above treeline terrain on peaks 7 and 8, which has additional lift-serviced bowl terrain (including a T-Bar that accesses Horseshoe Bowl), and additional hike-to terrain: the Lake Chutes. My friend and my son did this hike while I again stuck with the lift serviced terrain.

Day 3 saw more runs on the peak 7 and 8 above treeline terrain, as well as some runs off of Peak 9 and 10. Peak 10 has a very fun tree area called The Burn. Peak 9 has a nice pod of expert terrain accessed from E-chair. I suspect the single-black terrain accessed by 6-chair would usually be more my speed but the few days of warming weather caused a bit of a freeze/thaw cycle there. The above treeline skiing on Peaks 7 and 8 continued to be beautifully chalky with windblown snow making for very nice turns.

Top of Wacky's in the hike-to Lake Chutes:

My son skiing Wacky's (apologies this photo is rotated)

Day 4 saw us return to A-Basin. We have been there on several trips now and I will never get tired of the view of the East Wall looming over Black Mountain Lodge:

Day 5 we were back at Breck for the 5th consecutive bluebird day. We spent most of the day alternating between runs in horseshoe bowl (which we could loop on the t-bar) and runs in the George's Thumb/Whale's Tail area (which required taking the t-bar and the imperial chair).

Me in horseshoe bowl:

While many of our runs were above treeline, towards the end of the day we would make our way to the lower mountain to finish things up.

View of Peak 7 and Peak 8 from the Independence chair:

For the last day of the trip we were treated to 5 inches of fresh snow, which drifted to boot top in places. It snowed throughout the day and by noon we we were able to find sustained boot top powder in horseshoe bowl. Wind and visibility were issues at the top of the runs but after a few turns things would clear up a bit and whoops of delight could be heard as people attacked the fresh snow. I did eventually make my way over to Chair 6 where the snow was almost as good but visibility was an issue. On my last above treeline run I experienced near whiteout conditions as I got off the lift and needed to wait for brief breaks in the snow and wind to make my way down. Eventually I got low enough to enjoy the excellent snow, and finished the trip off with a few runs on the lower mountain.

While my son and I are very familiar with A-basin, neither of us were familiar with Breck and we greatly benefited from having a local to guide us the first day. It is a big, sprawling mountain that requires planning to make the most out of your day. We also benefited from skiing on weekdays, so crowds were generally manageable. Overall it was a fantastic trip with a little bit of everything - chalky, windblown turns, spring bumps on some of the terrain by Thursday and powder turns the next day.

Photo of Bryce from the flight out west:

From the Lenawee lift at A-Basin. Looks like Elk Mountain in NE Penn is getting some love:

We've been to A-Basin 3 out of the last 4 seasons and for next season I would like to make a return trip. A-Basin will be back on Ikon, so I will probably go that route - that would also let us check out Copper. We may end up in Utah, though - my son wants to do Altabird. Issue for me is that Alta is not on the base version of Ikon. I think my plan is to go with Ikon Base and if we do the Utah option I may just spring for a day at Alta. The breakeven point where Ikon Base + Alta lift tickets = Full Ikon is roughly 2 days at Alta.

wgo wrote:

We've been to A-Basin 3 out of the last 4 seasons and for next season I would like to make a return trip. A-Basin will be back on Ikon, so I will probably go that route - that would also let us check out Copper. We may end up in Utah, though - my son wants to do Altabird. Issue for me is that Alta is not on the base version of Ikon. I think my plan is to go with Ikon Base and if we do the Utah option I may just spring for a day at Alta. The breakeven point where Ikon Base + Alta lift tickets = Full Ikon is roughly 2 days at Alta.

 Does it make any difference that Ikon is a combo Alta/Bird pass?  Meaning possible to ski between the two, assuming Mineral Basin is open.  Snowbird has continued to have free parking on a first-come, first-served basis in a few places.  Alta requires advanced parking reservations Fri-Sun.  I think the fee is $25.

 Yep the Ikon combined Alta/Snowbird pass is a definite plus and something to consider - if I do the Ikon Base + separate Alta tickets option we would need to have separate Snowbird and Alta days. I would just hate to pay the extra $800 for an adult and young adult full Ikon pass and then end up not needing it because we chose the A-basin/Copper trip option.

We do our trips so that we ski weekdays, so I am not worried about the weekend parking reservations.

marzNC wrote:

 Does it make any difference that Ikon is a combo Alta/Bird pass?  Meaning possible to ski between the two, assuming Mineral Basin is open.  Snowbird has continued to have free parking on a first-come, first-served basis in a few places.  Alta requires advanced parking reservations Fri-Sun.  I think the fee is $25.

The price increases for Ikon aren't too much if you can make a decision before September.  I didn't renew for 2024-25.  Got emails later on offering a discount that was lower than the renewal discount, but still noticeable.  Realized later that I could have renewed and then deferred to 2025-26.  Using senior season passes for Alta and Taos worked for a season.  But requires committing to spending more days at those two destination resorts than I want on a regular basis.  Enjoyed having fun at Indy and independent mountains in the west.  Makes a difference that I qualify for senior rates at more places.

wgo wrote:

 Yep the Ikon combined Alta/Snowbird pass is a definite plus and something to consider - if I do the Ikon Base + separate Alta tickets option we would need to have separate Snowbird and Alta days. I would just hate to pay the extra $800 for an adult and young adult full Ikon pass and then end up not needing it because we chose the A-basin/Copper trip option.

We do our trips so that we ski weekdays, so I am not worried about the weekend parking reservations.

marzNC wrote:

 Does it make any difference that Ikon is a combo Alta/Bird pass?  Meaning possible to ski between the two, assuming Mineral Basin is open.  Snowbird has continued to have free parking on a first-come, first-served basis in a few places.  Alta requires advanced parking reservations Fri-Sun.  I think the fee is $25.

Am I reading this right? Pay $99 for an Alta gold card, get 50% off lift tickets?


https://shop.alta.com/products/gold-card-adult

wgo wrote:

Am I reading this right? Pay $99 for an Alta gold card, get 50% off lift tickets?


https://shop.alta.com/products/gold-card-adult

 Yes, the Alta Gold Card can be a very good deal.

My NC friend has been using a Gold Card for her 1-week stay at Alta Lodge for a few years.  It's tied to a credit card and direct-to-lift since Alta has been using RFID since 2008.