Breckenridge

Breckenridge, United States

Rated: 5/5 (from 6 ratings)

Breckenridge

One of Colorado's most popular resorts, with expert skiing up to 12,998 feet if you want to hike up the last two hundred feet. The ski area is spread over 4 peaks. Breckenridge is not purpose-built but an original mining town with 171 listed buildings. Breckenridge is the most popular US destination for European skiers and the second most popular ski resort in the US in terms of skier visits (1.2 million).

Summary

The American ski resort of Breckenridge is in the American Rockies at an altitude of 2,930m.

Breckenridge has direct access to 139 marked pistes, served by a total of 23 ski lifts.

The ski resort itself is at 2,930m, so skiing or boarding back to the resort is usually possible. With ski lifts as high as 3,960m, skiing and snowboarding is assured throughout the season.

Breckenridge Overview

One of Colorado's most popular resorts, with North America's highest skiing since 2005, when the resort opened the world's highest chairlift. The ski area is spread over four peaks. Breckenridge is not purpose-built but an original mining town with 171 listed buildings. It is the most popular US destination for European skiers and is consistantly one of the three most popular ski resorts in the US in terms of skier visits with somewhere around 1.5 million annually. The skiing is served by around two-dozen lifts, including an impressive number of high-speed chairs, and spreads over lift-linked mountains with double-black diamond bowl and chute skiing above.

Off the slopes its a busy and vibrant resort with an excellent range of eating, shopping and other leisure facilities, made all the more pleasant by the backdrop of historic buildings. In 2007 a new gondola opened connecting the resort town to the base of Peak 8. At the end of the day skiers and boarders can ride back via the Skyway Skiway.

The resort's history is a long one - with the Ute Indians knowing it for around 10,000 years as Nah-oon-kara before European settlers discovered Gold in the area in August 1859. It then took less than a week for a town of 360 acres to be established and for more than a thousand miners to arrive.

The Breckenridge Ski Area first opened in 1961 with two chairlifts serving a handful of runs on Peak 8, operated by a timber company, After a Denver businessman set up Breckenridge Ski Corporation in 1966 it was bought and owned by Aspen for almost two decades up to 1988 during which time the resort opened Peaks 9 and 10, introduced snow making and installed the world's first high-speed quad, starting the on-going high speed lift technology revolution in 1981.

Breckenridge broke the 1 million skier visits record in 1988 when the resort was sold by Aspen to a Japanese company. In 1993 Peak 7 opened and a company called Ralston Purina bought Breckenridge from the Japanese owners. This company merged with Vail Resorts in 1997 to form the largest mountain resort company in the US, owning Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone and Beaver Creek

 Notable Ski Runs

The most difficult run is the 'Lake Chutes'.

Skiing

Although Breckenridge's skiable stats of 52% advanced/expert level terrain may seem rather intimidating to the nervous novice (who are only awarded 15% of the area!), a closer look at the map should allay fears. In fact Peak 9, right by the resort itself, has a third of its terrain given over to novice skiers and nearly 50% of the total at most intermediate standard. These easier slopes are served by the Quicksilver high speed six-seater chair.

There are only a few black runs going down over the side to Peak 9 to link with Peaks 8 which has mostly intermediate and advanced runs. Peak 7 boasts a high percentage of bowl skiing. Peak 10 has about two thirds of its terrain graded black, but with some good long intermediate trails. Apart from the double black diamond powder bowls all of Breckenridge's skiing is below the treeline with trails of all standards cut down through the forest.

The opening of the Imperial Express Superchair has not increased the amount of terrain but has made access to the double black terrain off peaks 7 and 8 a lot easier.

For a change of pace the Breckenridge Nordic Centre has 32km of groomed trails with rentals and lessons available. There are also abundant back-country routes.

If Breckenridge's huge area isn't enough for you you'll find the summit Ticket covers the resorts of Keystone, Vail, Arapahoe Basin and Beaver Creek as well. Regular free buses services connect to Keystone and A. Basin and a daily minibus service connects the resort to Vail.

There are a variety of pistes to suit all levels of skier ability, from Beginner to Expert.

Snowboarding

Breckenridge was the first major Colorado resort to accept snowboarders, way back in 1985, then going against the snowboarder-unfriendly trend of top resorts in North America (almost all of which have since eaten humble pie!).

The first ever World Snowboard Championships were staged in the resort that same season featuring snowboarding pioneers like Jake Burton, Tom Sims, Craig Kelly and Shaun Palmer.

There are great back-country boarding opportunities and the town's snowboard speciality shops and boarder friendly bars and cafés help add to the appeal of the place. National and international demos and competitions are of course organised too.

Breckenridge's altitude, snow making capabilities and state of the art pipe cutting equipment means that it invariably has at least one half-pipe open by late November, making it one of the world's first resorts each season to get full 'boarding facilities up and running - and the season last six months.

Aprés Ski

As you would expect Breckenridge has a big range of bars and night spots, with more than 100 establishments in all. The vast choice means that there should be something for everyone, with, for example, virtually every imaginable musical genre being performed or at least broadcast in one establishment somewhere in the resort.

For a lively time Downstairs at Eric's is always popular with more than 100 beers available from more than 25 countries, and a dozen satellite linked TVs for sports coverage through to 2am. A walk along the Main Street will provide a good choice of bars.