Holiday Weather

Winter Park is an aswersome resort, a lot of fun. The locals / workers are really friendly. I think you will find it hard not to enjoy it.

Recommended Places
Buckets bar (not a night club) is cool, down to earth.On the Rocks is the night club - good to go on one o their special nights. Doc's Roadhouse at the base of the sk iarea is good for an apres ski drink.

If you are going to Winter Park and want a good night out, then make sure that you are staying near Cooper Creek as this is where the best bars and restaurants are. Crystal Ski said that there are over 50 bars in Winter Park - this is not true. After 2 weeks of casual looking, we had managed to find around about 10 - most of which are also restaurants. There is one club called Buckets which is OK really - very midwest saloon style but the pool tables are cheap and the beer is well priced.

Snow conditions were excellent for most of our trip - we had about 2ft powder fall over our third and fourth days which made for some incredible boarding. Sadly, the wind picked up about 2 days later and blew most of it away again, but the sun came out and softened the hard packed base stuff which made it all good again.

Once on the mountain, you have very few choices of route back to base camp - these either involve long flat stretches (bad for boarders and skiers all use their poles) or a reasonably tame blue-black called Hughes which can get a little icy toward the end of the day.

Weather was REALLY cold (-40C at the top of the Timberline lift one day) but that meant there was never too much ice or slush.

We stayed at Chalet Sundance which is EXCELLENT (if you are going this season, then John the Chef and Danni will ensure you have the best time ever - they are so good!). The chalet is well enough equipped and provides a great atmosphere, although it is in the back end of nowhere. It REALLY is a 20-25 minute walk to Safeways (nearest public building). There is a Pizza place, Taco Bell and KFC over the road from Safeways, but the first real restaurants and bars are about a further 30 minutes walk, so ensure you get the bus (stops at 10:30pm but taxis are fairly cheap).

Recommended Places
DeRailer bar at the bottom of the slope is awesome although the portions are a little too big for lunch so it slows your performance... Staff are friendly and the music is good - live bands on Fridays.

Deno's in Cooper Creek is a great bar with a real American Bar feel. Good choice of wines and beers and good food.

Best Steak in town is Untamed which is conveniently close to Randi's "Irish Bar" (serves Boddingtons) and the Buckets Bar nightclub. We never went into The Pub, but it's over the road from here.