#1 Cooler Town
Breckenridge, Colorado has every little thing you're looking for in a ski town: high-end restaurants as nicely as local dives dance clubs as well as casual hang outs lodging for every spending budget boutique shopping, and of course, amazing skiing! And it's all in a centralized location so in contrast to Vail with its dizzying bus lines, you can walk from your condo to the restaurants to the shops. Vail is so spread out and pretentious that it is lost the charm of a quaint mountain town that Breckenridge maintains. Founded as a mining town in the 1800's, Breckenridge has preserved the Victorian buildings and the charm that makes it more than just a superior ski mountain.
Tip: rather of paying a premium on ski-in/ski-out lodging, locate a condo on Principal Street, exactly where you can walk to all the bars, restaurants and shops. The shuttles take you to the chairlifts, so you really don't need to have to pay the high prices to sleep correct by the slopes. You'll have much more fun and you'll save funds by staying in town.
#2 Less costly (and Absolutely free Parking!!)
Breckenridge is owned by Vail Resorts so you will only save a few dollars on the actual lift ticket. The price of an all-day ticket throughout peak season at Breckenridge is $86, which is about $6 much less than what you'll pay at Vail. Even so, when you take into account the price differences in lodging, food, equipment rentals, and lessons, it begins adding up to a pretty enormous discrepancy. Plus, let's not forget the large difference in parking among the two resorts.
At Vail, you are regarded as lucky if you wake up early adequate to pay $20 to park all day in a lot exactly where you'll be shuttled to the lifts. But the unlucky ones who pressed snooze a couple of too countless occasions may well acquire themselves paying just as a lot to park along a street, and then carrying out the graceful skiers' walk (boarders: do not think you don't appear equally clumsy carrying your gear) to the shuttle cease just before eventually creating it to the slopes. Still, at Breckenridge, there's essentially such a thing as totally free parking!
Tip: park in the Gold Rush Lot - the south one (there are two Gold Rush lots, but park in the one that is further south). It's no cost parking and you only have to walk across North Park Avenue to get to Tailings Lot, exactly where you can jump on the gondola. The option is to pay $ten to park in Tailings Lot, itself, or wait for a shuttle to take you to the base of Peak 8 or Peak 9. Don't pay the $ten to park in Miners Lot - it is not a lot closer to the gondola than the southern Gold Rush lot.
#3 Closer to Denver
Whether you are a Denverite or you're flying into Denver International Airport from out of state, you will have no option but to join the herds of ski rack-carrying SUV's slowly making their way up I-70. And the much less time you invest on the icy, uphill, jam-packed freeway, the much better. So this is why Breckenridge's closer proximity to Denver makes it #3 on the top five causes it's superior than Vail: you get off I-70 a wonderful 30 - 40 minutes sooner when coming from Denver.
Tip: if you are from out of state, check out flights arriving into Colorado Springs instead of Denver International Airport. You may well be in a position to get a less expensive flight, and then you can drive to Breckenridge via hwy 285, instead of I-70. Though parts of the highway have only 1 lane, it is a scenic drive with some very good restaurants along the way in Bailey and Fairplay (aka South Park - yes, the 1 and only!). Even so, beware of the speed traps in the modest towns of Alma and Fairplay. When they say 30mph, they mean 25!
#4 Loved ones Friendly
Whereas Vail attracts the skier/rider who is intermediate or a small above, Breckenridge provides a small something for everybody. It has additional green runs for beginners and Texans (sorry Texans - we really like you!), but it also has the highest chairlift in North America and one of the steepest mogul runs in North America: Devil's Crotch. For the adrenaline junky, Breckenridge has 9 terrain parks covering 25 acres. Then again, I'm not completely biased I'll admit that Vail's back bowls are sweet.
For a few glorious minutes you can float above the powder without having seeing one other skier or rider in the wide open bowls. But all great points should finish and the trails to the chairlifts can be long and flat, which is in particular brutal on the knuckle draggers (that is riders' speak for "snowboarders"). Tip: Strategy for at least one day in your trip when you are not skiing, and take the children sledding at Carter Park. Your body will thank you for the day off, and your youngsters will have a blast on the quickly sledding hill, which has a long run off at the bottom. If you brought Fido along, you can bring him to Carter Park, as nicely, considering that there is a dog park fenced off. Carter Park is located adjacent to the elementary school, at the south end of High Street.
#5 Highest Chairlift in North America
In the #two reason why Breckenridge is superior than Vail, I mentioned that Breckenridge has the highest chairlift in North America. But that is such an vital point that it not only deserves its own paragraph, but it is actually the #1 reason to go to Breckenridge rather of Vail!
The Imperial Express SuperChair drops you off at an oxygen-thin elevation of 12,840ft above sea level. The runs up there are not for the faint of heart! I'll warn you that the wind can get kicking at that altitude, but if that scares you away, you most likely do not have the testicular fortitude to deal with those runs anyway. So put on your helmet and get prepared for some speed mainly because from the highest lift in North America, there's only one way to go: down.
Once you have conquered the runs off the Imperial Express SuperChair, everything else will appear like the hills of North Carolina and you will have earned bragging rights when talking about your ski trip back home.
Tip: to get to the Imperial Express SuperChair from the best of the Rocky Mountain SuperChair, take the T-bar (it's not as scary as it looks), and follow either the Nut Trail or the Lone Wolf to the Imperial Express SuperChair. If you're beginning from Peak 9, take the Peak 8 SuperConnect. Ski down Frosty's Freeway till you come to Chair 6. From the leading of Peak 8, you basically ski to Chair 6.
