Brian and Tracy … Where To Next?

Colorado

Snowboarding in the Rocky Mountains!

Colorado has so much to offer and is at the top of our list to return to!

This trip was taken March 2023.

After my son took up snowboarding as a winter sport, and tried all of the ‘mountains’ in Ohio (joke!), we decided we needed to move on to something a bit more serious… so we took him to the Rocky Mountains!

This was our first time in Colorado and we had 2 main goals: Snowboard at Copper Mountain and Check out some sites in and around Denver.

Check out our full video here:

During this trip we saw:

Copper Mountain Ski Resort

We did a TON of research on which ski resort to pick before landing on Copper Mountain. We are SO glad we picked this resort. We were looking for a few important things:

  • Cost effectiveness – for lodging and lift tickets
  • A high quantity of blue square and green circles
  • A variety of other things to do for those not skiing (myself and my other son)

Copper Mountain had it all. Some of the more famous resorts were SO expensive for lodging and lift tickets. We just couldn’t justify spending that much because my son was 11 years old and just wouldn’t be out there snowboarding enough to get our money worth. They did 2 days of skiing/snowboarding and loved all the variety of lifts and runs. Coming from a small ski area in Ohio, this was like a dream come true.

The lodging was gorgeous – we stayed in Tucker Mountain Lodge. It was a nice 1 bedroom with a living room with pull out couch.

There was also a ton of activities for non skiers. We went tubing (mediocre), to the Ninja Gym (really cool) and to the pool.

Overall, I would highly recommend Copper Mountain to any family (or anyone, really). It was an amazing resort!

SflyProxyVersion 1;
Leadville

While in this area, we had to checkout the highest elevation city in the country! We’d also seen what a cute town this is from Kara and Nate on YouTube 🙂 We drove up there to check it out and walked around a few shops. We visited the National Mining Museum which was kind of interesting. Regarding the elevation, I felt fine while I was up there, but by the time we made it to Copper Mountain, which is not much lower in elevation, we all had headaches from the altitude. It’s no joke!

Golden, Colorado

Before heading out to Copper Mountain, we stayed the night just outside Denver in the town of Golden. It was a cute town and a good stopping point since we were getting into Denver late and didn’t want to drive all the way to the ski resort. We enjoyed a nice dinner, morning coffee and breakfast before heading out!

Red Rocks

We were so excited to get to see Red Rocks in person! Although we wished it had lined up better where we could see a concert there… we will just have to come back another time!

We parked and walked up into the arena and enjoyed the views. It was a quick and easy stop on the way back to Denver.

Dinosaur Ridge

This was one of the coolest stops we made. I wish my kids could have seen this when they were younger and obsessed with dinosaurs. It was so amazing to see the sheer number of footprints in this area. It had a nice walking path (essentially a road) that passed by a ton of different types of footprints and fossils. They added black paint so you could see what you were looking at. Such a cool thing to see! They had a nice little museum that is not too expensive, but very small.

Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge

Within minutes of the airport is this amazing wildlife refuge. Few things that make this place a MUST visit… 1) it’s FREE 2) you can drive through and see all kinds of animals 3) it has a great little museum 4) it has a few walking trails with more animals to see!

We first stopped at the little museum to checkout their exhibits, and then walked a few of the small, short trails near the visitor center. Finally we went out on our drive. The bison were the highlight but we saw meerkats, birds and more!

Denver is a great location to visit. We can’t wait to go back and see more of Denver and of Colorado. We’ve only scratched the surface with all there is to see in that amazing state.