The big winner from this big snowstorm is Echo Mountain near Evergreen with 55 inches in 48 hours.

If you’re looking for another convenient bus in the Denver metro area to get up to Loveland, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin: check out the Front Range Ski Bus. With pickup locations at Sports Authority (Arapahoe and I-25), Union Station, and the Wooly Mammoth lot and trips every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday this might be just the ticket. Adult tickets start at $39.

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Vail is reporting 11 inches in 24 hours. Not a bad little Friday to play hooky…

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Waking up on Sunday morning in Silverthorne lead me to see the best thing I’ve seen all season: nearly a foot of new snow. We figured traffic would be light with everyone taking it easy on the highway. Boy were we wrong. We arrived in Avon around 9:30 and people were parked on every side road up, on US 6, and every lot was full (obviously). The drivers said this was the most they’ve had to park all season. I guess everyone got the memo…

After parking on US 6 we made our way up to the Landing and sped up the Lower Beaver Creek Mountain Express Lift (next to the Westin gondola) and made it up to Bachelor Gulf in a jiffy.

There was fresh snow everywhere. It took zero effort to find untouched snow all over the mountain. It was more crowded than usual in the morning but it was clear by lunch everyone was just in from town (and ready to get back to beat traffic). We had a great day all over: from Strawberry Park to Centennial to the Rose Bowl and everywhere in between.

Obviously, it was the best snow we’ve seen this season.

Posted from Avon, Colorado, United States.

We had a great Saturday at Breckenridge. The T-Bar had only been open for a few days so we took the opportunity to milk it as much as possible. As expected, the snow was crusty at the top and we found all kinds of rocks and goodies. But… once you get down to the trees you have fresh snow all to yourself. It was great.

The lines were long early on so we did five runs in the afternoon (and got the Mr. T EpicMix pin). After lunch the clouds moved in and out and it was clear a storm was on its way. Of course, nearly 10 inches fell after the lifts shut down.

Posted from Breckenridge, Colorado, United States.

All the recent snow means Vail has opened up some of Sun Up Bowl and China Bowl today. Portions of Blue Sky Basin open tomorrow. It’s going to be a good weekend!

Lots of new snow since yesterday! Double digit highlights: Vail, Aspen, Buttermilk, Crested Butte, Steamboat, Wolf Creek.

After the storm rolled through on Saturday and overnight, all the resorts around I-70 had a good 5-9 inches reported. The keyword is reported because in I had a hard time finding the 5 inches we were hoping for for at Breckenridge (and we were on Peak 10 by 9:15 PM, it didn’t all melt away).

That said, the issue is mainly this: powder on top of nothing means less powder. If there was a solid, consistent base of snow then we all would have had awesome powder days. Instead, the new snow is filling in the gaps and, in some places, sitting on top of dirt, rocks, and trees. Plus, the front side (where there is a nice foundation) gets groomed overnight so there’s only a handful of runs with truly fresh snow to bounce around on,

All that aside, it was a beautiful bluebird day with snow dusted trees; picturesque really. We had a great day skiing Peak 10, hitting patches of untouched snow through ought and practicing on soft moguls. Since it was a Sunday, Peak 8 and 9 were largely quiet after lunch and the lines at the bottom had already died down to just a handful of people. You can’t argue with that on a weekend but, just like being able to grab a table a lunch, it’s a sign that a lot of people are skipping out on the slopes lately.

We stuck around town at the end of the day and visited the long-time favorite Breckenridge Brewery for some dinner and Broncos. Since we left around 6 we were down to Denver in an hour or so. As GoI70 always says: leave after 6, home by 8.

Check out the gallery for more…

Posted from Breckenridge, Colorado, United States.

We took a bit of a break and hadn’t been up for nearly a month due to work, holidays, sickness and.. well, the fact there has been absolutely no new snow along the I-70 corridor (Vail, Beaver Creek, Summit County).

We decided to make a weekend out of it and headed up to Keystone on Saturday. It was as you’d expect: some new man-made snow on the front with plenty of bare spots and grass (yes grass!) poking through in the back.

Sadly, the crowds are great for getting a table at any of the restaurants. We never had to wait or wander to find 4 or 5 open seats together.

As the big storm rolled by in the afternoon (around 2 it started coming down) most people had cleared out but there was already 1-2 inches of fresh snow on top of everything. This made for an enjoyable afternoon but meant hell for the commute to and from the mountains.

Luckily we stayed in the high country for the night but the new snow meant the 1-2 hour drive into Denver took 4-5 hours for most. I’m torn between having good commutes and no snow versus lots of new snow and not having to sit in the car for two feature length movies. Not really, I want the snow, but sheesh!

Check out the photo gallery for more…

Posted from Dillon, Colorado, United States.

The opportunity to pursue the Games is an endeavor worth taking very seriously,” Hickenlooper said. “We’ve asked this exploratory committee to explore all issues relevant to Denver potentially submitting a bid to the USOC. Those issues include making certain any bid would be financially sound and will help economic growth in the state. We would also want to find ways to showcase Colorado as the healthiest state in the nation for work and play no matter of a bid’s outcome.

Remember how we almost had the games in 1976? (No? Me neither…)

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There is no doubt in my mind that the place to be this weekend is Breckenridge. Just take a look at everything going on. It’s bound to be a great time. Happy Birthday, Breckenridge!

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Also exciting: Mary Jane is now open at Winter Park for the 2011/2012 season starting today (December 16). Super Gauge Express, Galloping Goose and Pony Express will be running.

Nice! It looks like Copper Mountain’s new Union Creek High Speed Quad is open for the season (with lots of other improvements to the West Village).

Saturday was a great day to be on the mountain: perfect temperatures, not too crowded, and some decent “early season” conditions.

Rachel and I headed up to Beaver Creek early in the morning and hopped on one of the first chairs at Centennial (#6).

When we got to the top we grabbed a quick EpicMix pin by having our photo taken at the top of the chair. These “green suit” photographers are everywhere which is so handy. I rarely have to take my phone out to take a good looking photo of myself on the slopes.

Saturday marked the first day the Rose Bowl was open. This was great because we were early enough to get a few good powder runs in (and I could test my new Rossignol S3′s). It also meant we could try out the brand-new high-speed quad Chair #4. The lift was so new that there wasn’t enough snow to get up to the loading platform (you had to ski uphill) and they didn’t even have queue lines up (it made for some interesting traffic jamming).

Overall the weather was perfect, a great blue sky day with plenty of runs open to never feel like you were in a crowd. Worth noting: there is still plenty of snowmaking going on (not much real snow lately) so I expect a lot of the front of Beaver Creek will continue to open in the coming weeks.

Traffic on the way home was as expected (we left around 4:30). We didn’t hit anything until Silver Plume which was remedied with a quick pizza stop.

Posted from Avon, Colorado, United States.