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Luxury skiing in Beaver Creek

11th February 2011, by Dave Watts

Beaver Creek’s delightfully deserted trails allow warp-speed cruising

Beaver Creek’s delightfully deserted trails allow warp-speed cruising

I love Beaver Creek. They do everything they can here to make skiing a delightful experience. The slopes are wonderfully deserted – I’ve visited around six times over the years and each time there have been very few other people on the slopes; indeed on Wednesday our group of six skiers often had whole trails to itself. The contrast to Europe’s often overcrowded slopes was huge. And it meant that on groomed trails you could really let go and travel at maximum speed, carving turn after turn without any danger of colliding with other skiers or boarders. Bliss.

And you knew which trails were groomed, so which you should head for. Not only were printed maps showing which trails had been groomed available (common in the US but virtually unheard of except in Courchevel and Méribel in the Alps) but also big notice boards with piste maps at the top of most lifts had lights showing which trails had been groomed – something I haven’t seen elsewhere.

They also have armchairs and sofas to relax in at the foot of the slopes, escalators to take you up from the village square to the main lift out and large numbers of ‘hosts’ available to help and advise you on the resort and where to ski. They also have Slow Skiing Zones where slow skiing is strictly enforced – I even saw banners on the piste warning that skier speed was monitored by aircraft and by radar!

But it’s not all mollycoddling and luxury. There are steep ungroomed runs too – we skied the Birds of Prey World Cup downhill course, which was steep and covered in big powdery bumps from top to bottom with a vertical drop of almost 800m. And there were lots of other steep bump runs and great runs though the trees in various sectors. Beaver Creek is not only for beginners and intermediates but also for experts. And whatever your standard you’ll love the deserted slopes.

Next stop: Vail. Watch out for a report from there …

Details

Dave’s visits to Breckenridge, Beaver Creek and Vail were arranged by Crystal Holidays

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