Great Riding at Vale

by Matthew
(Santa Cruz, California, USA)

My best vacation in Colorado was a winter break trip where my brother and I got to spend a few days snowboarding at Vale. The snow was amazing, the runs were great, and we even had an awesome time at the lodge at the end of the day.

I have always enjoyed freestyle and back country more than just conventional runs and Vale had both and lots available. The resort was big and we barely had to go on the same runs twice in a day. Not to mention that the day before we got there a whole bunch of fresh powder dumped on all of the runs. My brother and I couldn't have asked for a better time.

We both grew up in Colorado and have gotten to try out a lot of different ski and snowboard resorts. Brekenridge was great, Arapahoe Basin was a lot of fun, and even Keystone was pretty nice.

Colorado definitely has some of the best snowboarding places I’ve found. Of all of them, though, Vale has to be the best. We even managed to convince our cousin to come up for a day, and he is usually pretty miserly and doesn’t like to spend money on things like life tickets. They are a little pricey, but it is worth every penny. I live in California now so it’s not that often that I get to snowboard anywhere that has real runs, but hopefully I’ll be able to go back next winter.