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Summit County, Colorado
 
SUMMIT COUNTY, COLORADO Submit a Tale here | More Tales
We pulled into the driveway of the chalet-style hostel and knew we were in the right place. A Pepsi vending machine older than me stood guard by the door. This was my first hostelling experience.

Summit county Colorado is home to numerous alpine communities and between Christmas and the New Year the whole county goes into full-throttle tourist gouging mode. I had been there a month earlier and everything had doubled in price. Well food remained about the same price but I was not exaggerating about the increase in price of lift tickets and housing. I knew this before I ever started the trip but with limited time between semesters in college, I wasn't able to be choosy about my vacation time.

We walked into the hostel and stood in line behind some Japanese students, a European female at the front of the line was trying to start a tab with the hostel and get a ride home from work. I tried to listen to what the Japanese girls were saying but my ears were still blown-out from the change in altitude and a wicked head cold. Someone at the hostel had hung up a huge photograph of the Grateful Dead and an individual photograph of each band member. A hand painted plaque read: there are no strangers only friends we haven't met yet. This is the type of thing you expect to find in Colorado but never get to see in the ski resorts full of hipsters from Texas.

When we got to our room I spoke with the Japanese students who were in line in front of us but my Japanese must have been pretty bad because everything I said to them they answered in English. We instantly made friends with them and they had the same story: college kids trying to get some good riding in over the break.

That night we went to Breckenridge to hear a live band play and only caught the opening act because (to my surprise) the hostel had a midnight curfew. At another bar we met a bouncer that wasn't the typical meathead bouncer type who told me where I could find a clean toilet. "Some girls go in there and sit down after two or three guys have puked out their brains, man those gals are tough I wouldn't mess with them." He told us he was there to have a good time and we all honestly believed him.

Some resorts have their employees' home towns printed on the name tag. I never saw the letters CO on a name tag. After talking to plenty of resort employees and people on lifts I don't think I met one person from Colorado when I was in Colorado. Everyone working at the resorts was from somwhere else and hadn't come there to make a fortune but had come to Colorado to have a good time in the snow.

When we left the hostel, when we returned and every time we were in the lobby there was some guy sitting in front of the fire playing his acoustic guitar. I wonder if he had a room? The hostel didn't seem to mind that we brought in and slept in our sleeping bags. (I read this is not standard hostel policy)

The snowboarding was great but the lines at all the popular places were too long so we headed off the beaten path to Winter Park and Arapahoe Basin. Araphahoe Basin was pretty cool and definitely the best deal. You can get three lift tickets there for the same price as one elsewhere and the lines were not bad either. People were tailgating instead of talking about their portfolios, and I felt comfortable. I rode the lift with some guy wearing telemarking skis and it turns out he was from my home state and knew some friends of mine.

I felt the real Colorado when we did "the Mile" at Vail and wound up 14 miles from any chair lift. "The Mile" is a trail through fresh snow on the backside of one of Vail's bowls and ends up in Gilman, CO. We just saw a trail and assumed it would end up at a chairlift. The trail starts out descending through huge fields of fresh powder then funnels down into a trail about 3 feet wide that zig-zags through miles of flat forest. I would never do "the mile" with a snowboard again, it is too flat and the trail is too narrow to slow down at all. The next bus coming through Gilman wasn't coming for two hours so we sat down at a small friendly diner and everyone who saw us clad in snowboard apparel knew exactly why we were there and where we had been. "How's the mile?" everyone would yell, one guy's window was broken so he opened his door while turning the corner at 30mph to find out how "the Mile" was. We caught the bus and it was driven by a man from Ireland who said he loved to ski, and had been there for less than a week.

The final day in Summit County was spent at Winter Park a good drive off the interstate but well worth it. Winter Park was my favorite place, because it had the facilities equal to all the other resorts I had been to, however it was too far off the beaten path to be overcrowded. Actually it was gray and snowing that day and had been blue and sunny the previous days. I found out where everyone was when we went in for lunch and had to sit on the floor. I was happy to sit on the floor and eat as long as the slopes were empty and fresh with snow. My first experience with a hostel was great, and I plan on staying at more in the future.

pboyd@purdue.edu