First Time Skiers
 

I would like to take my wife and two children (13& 9)skiing in Colorado the week of April 1, 2006.

We have never been skiing before and are looking for a nice,child friendly place to stay & ski. It would also be nice to be fairly close to a major airport.

Would like to spend no more than $225/night and have other activities besides skiing.

Any suggestions on location and hotels, etc?

Thanks,

Jeff

Breckinridge, Winter Park, Keystone. Go to their websites for lodging links.

Stay in Aspen and go to ski school at Buttermilk. Another option would be Snowmass Village, a short shuttle from Aspen. As a beginner, I always like to be near cute towns and other activities because three half days of skiing will be ENOUGH!

Also, check out www.vrbo.com for rates less than the resorts charge for condos. Good maps on the resort website will give you an indication of where the properties are located. Also, what other activities can be found.

The Aspen area probably will be more expensive than your price: Keystone (and Breck) is huge, lots of places to stay, good ski school, and probably better for first timers.

The Limelight Lodge is very affordable, very comfortable, and right in a great Aspen location. Of course, you can pay much more - and we have - but I still like the LL just as much or more.

Beaver Creek is very nice, too.

In April places should be very reasonable. Agree about Buttermilk. Also Vail ski school is excellent and we have always liked to ski there because you can ski greens at the top of the mountain.

Aspen, while incredible for all levels of skiing, is not "fairly close to a major airport" (unless your idea of fairly close is a 5 hour drive). Breckenridge and Keystone are both closer than Vail to Denver and both cater to new skiiers.

First thing: enroll everyone in ski school. Since you don't know how to ski, this will enhance your trip a hundred fold.

Secondly: make sure everyone has plenty of warm dry clothes every single day. Nothing takes the fun out of skiing and adds to the misery than being cold and wet.

You will fall therefore you will get cold and wet. Try and nip this in the bud beforehand by purchasing good ski clothes.

AND, check out lift-ticket/ski school prices--some go way down in the spring, others remain at their originally astronomically high prices.(gulp--we just can't afford to ski Aspen anymore!)

Thanks for all the replys. Sounds like Breckenrigde or Keystone.

Any suggestions on lodging..$225 night?

Thanks!

If you don't have to make your decision immediately, check out the websites of the resorts that interest you (www.snow.com for both Breck and Keystone info). Check out their internet specials. On most of them there is a place to sign up for weekly e-mails that offer special deals on lodging and packages.

Definately do the ski school.

April is a perfect time for beginners. The die hard maniacs are usually tired of skiing by then, or moved on to other spring pursuits. A spring snowstorm can bring great skiing conditions. And the weather isn't harsh. It will probably be warm, and as a beginner you're going to work up a sweat. Dress in layers (so you can peel some off if you get too hot), starting with a synthetic long underware to wick any sweat away from your body.

Hi Harvey,

If you want easy access to skiing from a major airport, look at Salt Lake. 45 minutes gets you to 8 major areas. Lodging rates do go down in April.

www.skiutah.com
www.parkcityinfo.com

Good luck! April skiing is usually wonderful - take your sunscreen.

Tons of websites for Breck and Keystone; you'll have no problems meeting or beating your pricepoint at that time of year! You can probably wait until a little bit before you go, and compare all those deals (and the snow amounts).

I went to Salt Lake City last winter. Loved it! It is also a big celebrity town too!If you go to a local ski shop they should have a check list of how many days you will be ski to how many shirts, gloves & socks to bring. Stayed at the Holiday Inn. Only a 5-10min (free shuttle) to downtown restaurants & ski areas. I hope this helps. Vail is nice too. Expensive$$$

You can fly to Aspen, also. Buttermilk is a great beginner area, and Snowmass is good for beginner/intermediates, too. Check Snowmass for lodging that might be less expensive than Aspen proper.
And I agree you MUST take ski lessons. Otherwise you can get hurt, or get on the wrong trails for beginners. Plus, you pick up the wrong technique to start out with. Then it's a pain to drop the bad habits!

As has been said, there is an airport at Aspen. Aspen is by NO means a beginners ski mountain which is why everyone is suggesting Buttermilk and Snowmass. Ski lessons for everyone. You might look into an all inclusive package for this.

My DH learned to ski at Snowmass and DSs learned at Buttermilk. They are still our favorite ski locations. My kids are more pencil necked geeks than athletes so we were sure to share their personality profile with the ski school to get them paired up with an appropriate instructor for semi private lessons.

Group lessons for absolute beginners are a very good deal at all of the Aspen area resorts and include lift ticket and ski rental.

Aspen is 8 miles away from Snowmass and Buttermilk is right across the street from the airport at Aspen. Great food in all price ranges in Aspen is one of the reasons we love the town so much. Check out www.aspensnowmass.com for lots of lodging and dining info. The website offers a concierge servie and they will be happy to answer your questions. Aspen has a rep for being expensive but it actually has lodging in all price ranges and is a good deal in the spring.

The comment about Aspen not being a beginner's mountain made me laugh--my husband was a ski bum in Aspen (why oh why couldn't he have scraped together a little dough for property?), and years later brought me back to Bell Mountain to ski--for my first time. Ruthie's Run--I left a trail of blue from my (yes) jeans the whole way down.

The weather is starting to get warm in April. While the skiing is generally great in April beware of mountains at lower elevations particulary if a warm spell occurs. Copper and Breckenridge both have base elevations of approximately 9700'. Copper has a great beginners area that is totally isolated from the main ski traffic.

April of 2006?

Steamboat Springs' snow is iffy in the spring, too. It has south-facing slopes to catch the sun. So it gets slushy on warm days, then has chunky frozen slush in the mornings.