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.