From Son Gary

I went to 4 different ski resorts in 4 days. Perfect plan for a guy who likes to explore different places and see what they have to offer! I left immediately after my half day of school Friday and drove clear to Denver and thanks to the time change was in bed by 10:30pm. I got up early enough to ski a full day at Keystone prior to finding the Leadville Hostel where I stayed. www.leadvillehostel.com

I give the hostel a thumbs up! You can bring your own food and keep it in their huge commercial fridge and fix good meals for yourself in their kitchen. The bathroom is clean and the showers blast the water. The beds are comfortable and despite 17 boy scouts there the first night it was always quiet at night. They have commercial washers and dryers available to wash up clothes and not bring a ton with you. They have two big TV's to watch Direct TV channels. Internet is available to use for a charge and a nice pool table for $0.50 a game. For a charge of $18 per night you can't beat it anywhere. They've been doing this a long time and they have their system down pat.

They are a little low on snow at Keystone and I scratched up my skis on their open runs. 2nd ski day I went to Breckenridge and it has a little more snow on the hill than Keystone. It was very crowded which I think is normal for them but they also had a big event competition going on. Despite the crowd I only waited once for a real long time in a singles line.

I met a volunteer ski patrol guy in the Hostel who has done that job for nearly 30 years at Ski Cooper. He gave me a free pass and talked me into trying his ski place. Ski Cooper was a huge surprise to me! I thought it was fairly small from Internet research and he told me they only had 2 lifts and they are slow. He was right that the lifts are slow and that was the only drawback. The runs are all over a mile long. The green runs are tough. They are steeper than Steamboat blue runs. They do not blow ANY artificial snow there but they don't have to because they get lots of natural stuff. They had the most snow of any of the 4 places I went on this trip. It was the only resort where I skied some powder on the trip. There are lots of beautiful glade runs. I will definitely go back to the Hostel and back to Ski Cooper on other Colorado trips.

My last ski day was only planned for a half day prior to running out of town to beat a snow storm in the Mountains and an ice storm in Kansas. I picked the right place for a short day. I started skiing at 9:20am and by 10:30 am I had skied every single open run at Arapahoe Basin. It was a very fun trip of exploration.
My other possible trips for the season are Feb 12 - 14 and March 11 - 14 if anybody decides to tag along.