2021 Ski Monarch

We moved our 2020 ski plan to 2021 and skied Monarch this year. The pleasant surprise was the 11.5-hour drive. Saturday morning we left home at 8am and arrived at our Poncha Springs house around 6:45pm MST. We brought our lunch with us, ate in the car and cooked dinner at our rental house. It was such an easy drive comparing to our summer's 15+ hours drive. 

We were at Poncha Springs Dec 18 evening to Dec 27 morning. We had total of 8 full days to ski and explore, a perfect length for our family ski vacation as we observed. We skied Dec 19 to Dec 21 on Monarch. Snow condition was not ideal during the first few days of our stay. Only three lifts and half of the mountain were open. Since both kids skipped last year, the lack of snow didn't bother them while they refreshed their ski memory. 

We ate our lunches outside in those three days because of Omicron had started its domination. By the time I carried the warm food to outside patio, it was already cold. We never had a chance to warm up. Later on, we developed the system to bring home baked bread and eat in our car. It was much warmer plan in the case of no indoor dining. 

Norah did a lot of magic carpet skiing. In one run, she started singing 12 days of Christmas with a ski instructor. She liked this instructor so much that she would wait at each time to ski with B-rad. B-rad grew up in Vermont and moved to Colorado in his twenties. His son also teaches at Monarch. Over the few days, Norah constantly looked for him at the bunny hill. We signed her up for a 2-hour lesson with him. 

On December 22, we decided to take a break from skiing. Snow condition hadn't improved but a snow storm was heading our way in a couple of days. Our host highly recommended St Elmo. It's an abandoned mining town. We took our cameras and went for a stroll. We got there at just the right time before it got crowded with visitors and no longer felt abandoned. 

We passed the Colorado Trail when we headed to St Elmo. On our way back, we hiked a few miles of the Colorado Trail from the Chalk Creek Trailhead. Most of the trail was not snow covered and easy to hike. 

On December 23, we drove to Ski Cooper since it was free admission with our Monarch Pass. We are happy to add an extra mountain to the list of our ski mountains. Ski Cooper is a flatter mountain and it fit our family perfectly on that day. The four of us skied together most of the time since there was no hard trails for the boys to wander off. We also liked to check out Buena Vista downtown on our way to and back from Cooper. 

I had planned to soak a few times since we were close to two hot springs. 5 minutes to Salida indoor hot spring; 25 minutes to Mt Princeton hot springs. However, the Covid situation discouraged me to go indoor and to possible contact with people in changing rooms. Our location was ideal on this trip and our house was clean and cozy. We would not hesitate to come back to this arrangement again. Annie 720-309-6279

After the snow storm from the afternoon of Dec 23 and throughout the night, Monarch got much more snow. When we drove to the Monarch Pass on Dec 24 morning, we found the long line of cars waiting just pass the junction. The pass was closed. The normal 20 minutes drive took us about 2 hours. It is much colder on the mountain too. Norah had to stop early as she became too cold and too tired.

Christmas day was a good ski day for all of us. Norah enjoyed skiing with B-rad. Will and I took turns skiing with Jackson. Each of us got a few runs by ourselves. Blue sky greeted us most of the day. 

Dec 26 was our last ski day. It was frigidly cold. Snow was coming down in big flakes and wind was howling. Only Garfield lift, Panorama Lift and Magic Carpet were open. Lift operators were saying the wind was blowing the lift like a Ferris Wheel. Both kids weren't dressed for the day. Will had to drive us home after two hours of skiing. I took them to the playground outside of the house. It was even too cold to be on a playground. We did a lot of Monopoly Deal instead. 

Drive home was now a routine for us. We got home in about 11 hours 45 minutes. Another successful ski trip in our bags!