Four Resorts, Three Days, Two Kids, One Good Time
The Aspen/Snowmass family of resorts includes Aspen, Snowmass, Buttermilk and Highlands. On the first day we skied at Buttermilk with the kids. The locals say that Buttermilk is the learning mountain, but I dont recall ever being in a school this fun or beautiful.
Buttermilk is truly a kids mountain with great winding, whoop-de-doo, little trails through the woods. The favorite was this one called Mr. Bill.
The lift operators were preparing to build a sculpture. (Wonder if snow carving talent is a job requirement?)
Finding Fort Frog was a coup. My kids were so excited to find this mini version of western Main Street I thought their heads would explode.
While Buttermilk has a smooth, soft-sounding name, the mountain has a tough side to it. Kind of like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you cant be sugary sweet and innocent and host the X Games without being a little rough around the edges.
After lunch we met X Games athlete and Warren Miller Dynasty featured athlete Scotty Meyer. He was in town for an event and was kind enough to talk to us about his mono ski with which my kids were fascinated.
The next day we dropped the kids off at the Treehouse at Snowmass. If you have not checked out this facility you will be amazed at the level of detail put into the design and operation of it.
The Treehouse has been open for two seasons and houses all the kids programs for Snowmass. It literally looks like a treehouse inside and out.
Like Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory, kids are somewhat hypnotized by the Treehouse aura and are lured towards it. Its great because they don’t even realize you are saying goodbye they are so entranced by their surroundings.
So like any skiing obsessed parents, we dropped off the kiddos and headed out to get our own at Highlands. This was my first visit to Highlands in a while and we timed it on the day of the Inferno Ten. 
This is a race to see who is the fastest to hike up the ridge of Highlands Bowl and then ski/ride the bowl.
I heard the professionals were completing it in less than 25 minutes.
Once the race was finished and the bowl was open to the public we headed up to check it out.
That’s when we found out there is a free snowcat that will offer a ride partway up the bowl.
Not knowing much about it we hopped on, only to find out it takes you up the easiest part of the hike and only about a quarter of the way maybe less. But it’s always fun to ride a cat.
I was sucking wind too bad to take any photos until I reached the top and could catch my breath. But then the view was breath taking too!
Highlands Bowl was great and Im glad I checked that one off the bucket list for this year.
The next morning we got up early and headed to Aspen Mountain sans kiddos. We were in one of the first gondolas and it happened to be one of the few red ones I think it is good luck if you get a red one. We did two fast groomers top to bottom and headed over to Snowmass to catch up with the rest of our skiers.
Snowmass as always was fantastic. Spend the day there and then made the drive home exhausted.
