Bluebird Skies: Winter Beauty in Keystone

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We just returned from Colorado exactly 24 hours ago, and I’m not even exaggerating when I say Keystone is one of the prettiest mountains I’ve ever visited.

Its ethereal beauty is only further punctuated by bluebird skies, a perfect high sun and mounds of powdered sugar.

With acres worth of well-groomed trails and plenty of off-slope activities to boot, Keystone may be Colorado’s most underrated ski resort.

We’ve spent a lot of time on mountains this winter—Heavenly, Northstar, Kirkwood, Sierra and now Keystone—and it blows my mind how each one can be so unique, from the treeline to the shape of the slope to the backdrop.

With acres worth of well-groomed trails and plenty of off-slope activities to boot, Keystone may be Colorado’s most underrated ski resort.

The ski area is huge, too: With more than 3,000 acres of terrain, there are 135 trails to cover. How’s a girl to choose? In fact, if you made it all the way to the far peak, you’d be miles away from the River Run base!

With acres worth of well-groomed trails and plenty of off-slope activities to boot, Keystone may be Colorado’s most underrated ski resort.

Even better: Not only was the weather gorgeous and the ski possibilities endless (we didn’t even come near covering the whole mountain in our three days there), but we’d often go down a long, peaceful groomer and not see a single soul.

With acres worth of well-groomed trails and plenty of off-slope activities to boot, Keystone may be Colorado’s most underrated ski resort.

There’s much to say about our time in Colorado…stay tuned for more tales from the slopes next week!

With acres worth of well-groomed trails and plenty of off-slope activities to boot, Keystone may be Colorado’s most underrated ski resort.

Have you been to Keystone before? Were you as blown away by its beauty as we were?

With acres worth of well-groomed trails and plenty of off-slope activities to boot, Keystone may be Colorado’s most underrated ski resort.

COMMENTS
  • April 1, 2011

    I love how all the pictures seem “curved”. Like … you’re looking at everything thing in a snow globe. Gorgeous!

    FYI – going to New York in July. Do you have any tips on things I absolutely have to see and things that I can give a miss? Would love to hear your opinion.

    • April 1, 2011
      Kristin

      It’s the fish-eye angle of the camera. Love that little thing!

      New York, hrmm. All my recommendations have to do with food! Something touristy that I always found really fun was to do the Movie Locations tour; you ride a bus all over the city, stopping at a lot of sites for famous movies. Also, you should sign up online to see if you can get tickets to the Letterman Show–Scott and I did that once and it was really fun. You can enter online to be in the ticket lottery. You can also try to get into the studio audience of some of the morning shows like Good Morning America or Regis & Kelly, and anyone can stand outside and watch the Today Show.

      Also! You have to visit the bakeries/cupcakeries if you like sweets: Sugar Sweet Sunshine, Milk & Cookies, Butter Lane, Momfoku Milk Bar, and the famous Magnolia Bakery, of course. Yum. I’m jealous you’re headed that way!

  • April 1, 2011

    Beautiful!! I’m liking the sound of relocating to Colorado (if/when we get back to the US after our rtw trip) even more and more now.

    • April 1, 2011
      Kristin

      I would support that decision! Colorado has actual seasons unlike, say, San Francisco =)

  • April 1, 2011

    Gor. Geous. Just lovely.

    There are few things more peaceful and exhilarating than skiing down a silent run and not seeing a single person. It’s so beautiful.

  • April 1, 2011

    When we were in Orlando last weekend, we saw someone with one of those GoPro cameras (I didn’t know what it was at the time) strapped to their chest and they were using it for pictures on the roller coasters…so fun! Your pictures are great and the snow is so beautiful!

    • April 1, 2011
      Kristin

      Oooh I’ll have to use ours next time we go to Disney World or Land–that thought hadn’t even occurred to me! We bought the GoPro a year ago when I’d never even seen them before, and this winter they were absolutely everywhere. Even the ski equipment shops at a lot of the slopes were carrying them. Such a genius, durable invention.

  • April 1, 2011

    Every time I’ve been to Keystone — and I should preface to say we usually stay in Dillon or Frisco and drive there and to Breckenridge and Vail — some sort of crazy weather or thing has happened. Usually it’s freakishly bad weather. One time my mom’s boot broke in half — seriously. One time there were so many people, you couldn’t move on the mountain. So I can’t say my experiences were anywhere as good as yours! But I know so many people who love it, that I know I’m just the freakish exception. (I do love when you get to the top of the peaks and can see Breckenridge if it’s not too cloudy).

    • April 1, 2011
      Kristin

      That’s too bad! I’m usually the one who invites bad luck to follow me, so I was happy that (brief stomach flu aside), we had great luck and good weather! Sounds like you need to get back there and change your experience =)

  • April 1, 2011

    I’ve only skied at Heavenly Valley and this looks equally delightful.

  • April 1, 2011

    I miss Keystone! I grew up in Denver and every winter my family would spend a week at Keystone and a week at Breckenridge. Nothing beats skiing the Colorado Rockies!

    • April 1, 2011
      Kristin

      Agreed. Can’t believe I’ve gone so many years without skiing in the Rockies! Now that that’s changed, we want to do this every year =)

  • April 1, 2011

    Great pictures! Glad you guys had good snow!

    • April 1, 2011
      Kristin

      The best! Two feet of fresh snowfall in the three days we were there…and it was almost April!

  • April 1, 2011

    Breathtaking photos! I can feel the clean mountain air.

  • April 1, 2011

    I was also amazed when I was in Vail in late-Jan., a busy time, by how we’d get entire runs all to ourselves. Big mountains, little crowds. Wish I could get in one more trip this season. Alas… And it looks you got the absolute perfect conditions. Score!

    • April 2, 2011
      Kristin

      It was REALLY cold two of the three days–high of 20 or so, and it was two days shy of April!–but this one blue sky day was absolutely perfect.

      Me, you, SVV, Chris, Vail/Breck/Keystone next year. You down?

      • April 3, 2011

        For sure, that would be awesome. Let’s do it.

  • April 1, 2011

    AW, YOU WERE HERE!

    • April 2, 2011
      Kristin

      Are you back in Denver? Thought you were either still in Boulder or traveling?? We’ll be in Boulder end of May! Will you be there then??

  • April 1, 2011

    what extraordinary photos, esp that first one. WOW!! i’m disabled, never have skiied – thanks for the glimpse into it!

    • April 2, 2011
      Kristin

      That’s too bad. I’m actually posting a video next week I took from my ski pole, so it will give you a true perspective/feeling of what it’s like to go flying down the mountain! =)

  • April 1, 2011

    I’ve never been to key stone but i love the pictures. Did you take the first one with a wide angle? I love it and need me one of those!

    • April 2, 2011
      Kristin

      They’re all taken with a GoPro. The GoPro is a tiny little sports camera with no LCD screen (so you’re shooting blind) and a fixed lens, at a 172 degree angle so it gets almost the full picture and it’s always wide angle. We’re obsessed with it!

  • April 2, 2011

    Ahh makes me want to get a fish-eye but I am already traveling with 3 lenses, I must resist!

    • April 2, 2011
      Kristin

      Haha, tell me about it! It’s actually a separate camera–we travel with no fewer than five cameras usually (all Canons–XTi, T1i, G11, SD870–and a GoPro), as well as a number of lenses and it gets to be TOO MUCH. But I do love the fish eye so!

  • April 2, 2011

    Wow, that first photo is phenomenal! I’m not a huge fan of the snow so I’ve more or less avoided Colorado, but I enjoy “visiting” through photos. 😛

    • April 2, 2011
      Kristin

      The funny thing is that I LOVE snow but I HATE the cold. Odd, right? =)

  • April 2, 2011

    Gorgeous pictures!!! I have read many blog posts from various bloggers about Keystone of late. Make me curious and probably have to look into that place the next chance we want to have a ski trip. 🙂

    • April 3, 2011
      Kristin

      Me, too! I even saw Chris Elliott blog about it this morning, ha! That was part of the reason I wanted to go so bad–seeing so many other people’s photos and videos of the resort. Prior to this past week, I’d never skied anywhere out West that wasn’t in California!

  • April 5, 2011

    nice pictures

  • April 5, 2011

    my GOODNESS that is a blue sky!

  • April 6, 2011

    One word for you JEALOUS! My wife and I have been trying to make it fo COlorado to go skiing for the past year and it doesnt look like we are going to make it this year either.

  • April 7, 2011

    wow, the pictures are lovely. we have many great mountains and ski areas here in switzerland, but I guess it is still so different from the US, were you simply have so much more space then over here!
    amazing!

  • April 10, 2011

    Colorado – love it. My brother and sister-in-law live in Vail and when my family is home from Pakistan they live in Denver, and I think it’s best state in the country. 🙂

  • July 26, 2011

    That first shot blew my mind! So amazing!!

  • December 8, 2011
    Brenda

    hi! Great post and great photos. I’m looking for Keystone blog posts to feature on our site. If you’re interested, drop me a line at Brenda (at) Dwellable (.com).

    thanks!
    Brenda

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