Skiing Steamboat

After some awesome ski trips in Europe, we decided it was time for another one, this time in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Hannah and Andrew met us in Denver for a long weekend of skiing and fun. None of us had been to Steamboat before, and although it's a 3+ hour drive from Denver, it was well worth it, and the drive gave us a chance to catch up. We stayed in a cozy Airbnb near the ski resort, which was a perfect location: close to skiing and a free bus took us downtown when we wanted.


We had bought ski tickets for Saturday ahead of time, as there is a considerable discount to buy online (and they are quite pricey compared to Europe prices). We woke up to huge flakes of snow, which made for an interesting day of skiing. It was great because we had so much fresh powder and everything was beautiful! However, because they hadn't had any fresh snow in the past 10 days, it brought everyone out to the ski hill that day. It was pretty busy, and with the fresh powder, it created "fake" moguls on many of the runs from so many people cutting back and forth. That combined with decreasing visibility throughout the day made for some challenging ski conditions. It was still a blast, and the runs were pretty awesome. I felt like I held my own for not skiing in 3 years!

Sunday turned out to be a beautiful "blue bird" day, but we hadn't bought lift tickets for that day. We debated buying the afternoon tickets, but after much back and forth ultimately decided it wasn't worth the additional hefty price for a few hours of skiing. Instead, we enjoying wandering the ski village and downtown, stopping in a few shops here and there. There was also a winter carnival in town, so we're were able to watch a bit of a ski jumping competition going on. And check out a local brewery.

To round out the day, we took a 20 minute drive outside of town to Strawberry Park Hot Springs,
which was an awesome experience. Natural pools of hot springs to relax in surrounded by snow covered rocks and trees. Definitely a unique experience. The pools were varying temperatures; the hottest one was only tolerable for a few minutes at a time. The others were much more relaxing!
  
We enjoyed several delicious meals out downtown, Mazzolas for probably the best pizza any of us have ever eaten, and Salt and Lime for some yummy yummy tacos (and a few margs)! We also cooked a delicious steak dinner and breakfasts in our condo, but sadly we failed to take any pictures of these meals or any of the games and wine nights that followed. I guess that means we were having too much fun enjoying each other's company instead. 

Steamboat is a beautiful city, with some great skiing, great views, and so much to do! We loved that it still retained the western feel of an old Colorado city. I imagine we will be back here in the future!