Steamboat Springs

Now that I got my 1 beachy post out of the way, it's time to get back to the mountains. So this year Ali and I got the Rocky Mountain Super Pass Plus, which gives us 3 days at Steamboat Springs. Steamboat has always been a place I've wanted to go since I've heard so many good things about. So we went!

Unlike the Crested Butte drive, getting to Steamboat was very easy and we didn't have any weather issues or 50+ mph winds through some of the flatter areas. You get a nice mix of steeper peaks and rolling mountains which makes it a pretty scenic drive.

Once we got to Steamboat, we drove through the main section of town where the larger stores and resorts were and headed to the smaller "old school" downtown section. There is a little family owned hotel called Nordic Lodge towards the end of the strip, which is where we stayed. It was pretty low key but had exactly what we wanted, a hot tub and breakfast. Overall I'd definitely recommend staying here since it's a 2 min walk to the bus stop which takes you to the lefts in about 10 - 15 min and you can get to the majority of the restaurants within 5 - 7 min walk. It's also nice because it's dog friendly, so we could bring Deuce along with us.

Since we're talking about the town, I'll do a quick breakdown of where we ate/drank/hung out.

• Carl's Tavern - This was the closest thing I could find to a sports bar in the smaller downtown area. They had quite a few larger TVs and nicer bar food.
• Sake2U - The second day we were craving sushi and after speaking to quite a few people, they recommend this place. It's right on the river and off the main strip by a block or 2 which makes it a very laid back place to have a drink and the sushi was really good. They had the outdoor section closed off because of it being cold but during the summer you can sit outside by the river.
• Sambi Canton Restaurant - Sambi is a general Asian style restaurant with Thai, Chinese, and Japanese dishes. We both had the drunken noodles and overall it was pretty good but it didn't have very many vegetables or meet in it. The majority of the dish was noodles so I would highly recommend ordering extra veggies/meats if you get it.
• VFW - There weren't a whole lot of places to play pool, darts, shuffleboard, etc. The VFW was nice because we were the only people in there and we were able to drink and play games pretty cheap.

So besides eating and drinking, we did actually hit the mountain. As I said earlier, it was about a 10 - 15 min bus ride to the gondola which took you to the main section of the mountain. Unlike most mountains where you primarily come down the front side of it and maybe have a back bowl or 2, Steamboat has a lot of unique places where multiple lifts will funnel you down into one location. Once you get the hang of it I really liked it, but there were a few times we had to take multiple lifts to get where we truly wanted to be.

They had a great combination of greens, blues, and blacks so no matter what skill level you are, Steamboat has plenty to offer. Below is a pretty nice picture of the main portion of the town as we were heading down for the day as well as a picture of us on the east side of the mountain and one of the west side.

The first 2 days we were there it was nothing but sunshine and groomed runs. When we got up the third day it had snowed about 3 inches and was still coming down lightly at the bottom of the mountain, however the top of the mountain was a completely different story. The first picture shows a storm front moving through from one of the lower lifts. It doesn't look too bad from down there but as you can see from the second picture, it was slightly windy. We only did 2 runs on the top of the mountain before they closed those lifts down due to windy conditions.

All in all, Steamboat is probably my favorite mountain town/ski resort combination. You still can't beat the small town charm of Crested Butte, but it has a lot to offer with both a larger and small town feel depending on where you are. If I had to pick, it was my favorite mountain we hit all year.

Scuba Diving in Roatan

Since my last few posts have been about hiking and snowboarding, I figured it was time to mix it up a little bit. Every year, Ali and I try to go on one big scuba trip and this year we decided to go to Roatan. For those of you who don't know, Roatan is a fairly small island just west of Honduras and is part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. It's pretty popular for beaches, cruise ship terminals, and most importantly... diving!

We flew out of Denver on 2/19/17 and hopped through Houston to get there. Overall it was a pretty easy trip but definitely pricier than some of the other more well traveled Caribbean destinations. Once we got there, our resort had a shuttle waiting for us and it was about a 15 - 20 min bus ride to Anthony's Key Resort.

We'll start out talking about the resort. It was very nice and I would highly recommend it to anyone. The huts are broken down by location. There are some on the hillside, a few on the docks, and the majority are on a small island that is less than a minute boat ride away. We stayed on the docks and I believe that's the best location there is. We had a great view of the sunset, the island, and could quickly walk to the main dining area without taking the boat. The first picture below is the view from a two story deck in front of our hut and the second picture is a view of our hut from the small island.

While we're still talking about the resort, we'll get one of the most important things out of the way, how was the food? Overall I was very pleased with the food situation. They had one main dining area where you were had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You got to come as you wanted and there were at least 3 - 4 options for meal. The eating area was up on the hill so there was a very nice view of the water as you can see from the picture below. They also had a bar there as well as a poolside bar on the island which had happy hour every day. It's hard to beat a $6 margarita and a 2 for 1 happy hour deal.

Now that we got that out of the way, it's time to talk about the diving. Anthony's Key Resort is made specifically for divers and/or snorkelers. Since we were diving, each person was assigned a specific boat and dive master for the week where we would mark down how many dives we wanted to do the next day. We normally did an 8:45 am, 10:30 am, and 2:30 pm dive and if you wanted to, they also had night diving. One great thing about the diving here compared to other locations is how close the dive sites are. On average, we were on the boat for less than 7 minutes to get to the various sites and then came back to the resort for our surface interval so we didn't have to stay on the boat the entire time. Another huge benefit is for 2 of the days, the waves were fairly large on the west side of the island, so they bused us over to the east side of the island where the waters were very calm and we got to dive that area. It's nice having a backup plan so windy conditions won't cause you to miss any dives. Also, if you didn't feel like diving that day, you could always jump on one of the snorkeling boats.

I can't say enough about our dive master Marvin and boat captain Jo-Jo. They were very energetic and passionate about their job and it made a huge difference for everyone on the boat. Throughout our dives, we averaged 40 - 60 ft. depth with 110 being our max on a wreck dive. The water was pretty clear averaging around 80 - 90 ft. visibility. While we didn't get to see any sharks, we saw quite a few turtles, rays, grouper, barracuda, etc. Below are a few pictures, but more can be found here.

One quick side note, they also have a dolphin area where you can pay a little extra and hang out with them. While we want to pay for this, we still got some pretty good pictures.

All in all, it was an amazing vacation and I'd highly recommend it to anyone. I'm slightly biased thought since Ali and I got engaged the first night we were there and it was my birthday the next day! Ali didn't say this specifically, but I'm assuming this is what she was thinking when I asked her. I think it means yes or victory!