We got lucky and got a cold spell at the end of the season which enabled us to spend a weekend at Montage Mountain in March. Montage is similar in size to Snowshoe and while it doesn’t have a hotel or village at the resort they had a sound stage with the Spin Doctors and the Verve Pipe.
They also had all these picnic tables and canvas tents at the top of the hill for tailgating. Interesting setup. Montage also claims to have the steepest run in the Mid-Atlantic.
A 10-foot wide by 30-foot long swimming pool was cut out of one of the blue runs for people to try skiing across. That was fun to watch! One out of every 10 people would make it.
We rented a house at Timberline and ski’d Canaan Valley for a long President’s Day weekend with Uncle Gillette, Mason, and our friends Ryan and his dad Paul.
The house was called “Ranger Station” and it had a parks of America theme to it. Apparently the dogs name was “Ranger”. We enjoyed reading about National Park’s each night prior to bed.
We were originally scheduled to go to Blue Knob in PA for our Christmas break ski trip, but it became apparent that they were not going to be open in time. At the last minute I had to change our plans to go to Snowshoe and I couldn’t get a room for all the days, so we skied one day at Timberline, stayed in Elkton overnight, and then headed to Snowshoe.
Parker swam in the pool Monday night after Timberline, and Skylar and I were barely awake.
We had a great time skiing, and the our room at Snowshoe (which somehow I don’t have pictures of) suited us well as they had a giant internet enabled tv in the main room and we brought the bed into that room so we could all sleep together at night.
The slopes were about 65% open and there was enough challenging terrain to be fun. The sunset was beautiful on the ride home and Skylar wanted to snap some pics of it, but the phone camera doesn’t quite do it justice.
Our flight to Denver departed from Dulles at 5:45am, so we were up at 4:00am and out of the house shortly thereafter. Parker and Skylar were troopers and traveling was smooth sailing.
I slept most of the way while everyone else watched movies or played on their tablets. We arrived in Denver at 8:00am, got some breakfast (crepe place at the airport was phenomenal – especially for airport food), and proceeded to Josh and Sharon’s house.
We spent the day hanging out and walking their dogs in Stapleton (a highlight for Skylar and Parker) – beautiful trails and parks right in their neighborhood. Monday morning we got up right away and hit the road. On the way to Keystone we passed Loveland and decided to make a pitstop for our first day of skiing.
Loveland has great trails, lots of terrain for kids, but no bars on the lift which freaked me out (the daddy-bar served to keep Parker, 4 years old, and Skylar safely in their seats).
We skied a 1/2 day and then departed for Keystone where we arrived in time to settle in, fix dinner, and get some sleep. The next couple days we skied Keystone and discovered some fun kid zones to ski through (forts for snowball fights, ski-through houses, and other fun structures).
Monday after skiing we relaxed for a couple hours in the outdoor pool and hot tub while it snowed. Tuesday we found the terrain parks and we watched skiers and snowboarders perform massive stunts on huge ramps and half-pipes. Skylar caught some air going over a jump 😉
Thursday we departed Keystone and skied Loveland again for a full 4 hours before returning to Denver. Parker and Skylar learned how to tuck to go super-speed. We almost decided to go back to Dorado for Friday, but it would have been a bit stressful to get up early, drive an hour to ski and then get back in time for our 6:30 flight. We found some cool shops downtown (the highlight of Susan’s trip) and picked up some new gear for next ski season.
See you next year Sharon, Josh, Hank, Cody, Collin, Bryce, and Colorado!
We went to Wintergreen for our last East Coast ski trip of the year. I would definitely go back! The resort and village is much nicer than anything within 2 hours of D.C.
We loved the coffee and bakery shop in our lobby, there were multiple restaurants on site at the top of the mountain (with decent food), and there is a massive brewery only 3 miles away.
I found a ski tutorial video on YouTube Fri night that mentioned “Wedgies” for kids Parkers age. We bought them the next morning and after a whole season of hanging on to daddy – he was off and on his own doing great!
That made the entire ski experience awesome for everyone. The kids also loved going through the terrain parks.
