Southwest Colorado For Christmas

I have the week of Christmas off of work and thinking about spending it at one of the ski resorts. I was originally thinking Telluride but there’s not many options left for places to stay that aren’t crazy expensive. Durango has more options but I’m quickly thinking this might get too pricey. We want to snowboard and would like to try whatever other winter activities they offer.
We have never done Colorado in the winter time.

Any advice? Favorite resort? Any hidden gems for hotels or activities?

Thanks.

Glenwood, Sunlight resort? Relax in the hot springs after a long day on the slopes.

I haven’t heard of Sunlight. I’ll look it up.

If you end up in Glenwood, I've heard good things about the Hotel Denver. Our favorite restaurant in Glenwood is the Pullman, Juicy Lucy's is also great.

Telluride is bad, dude. It's like a little mini Park City, clogged with touristas and Instagram heros and other victims of the too-much-money-club, and it'll be worse during ski season. Go anywhere but there.

I’m with this guy ^^^
I’ve been to Telluride once and we just drove around yelling “write in Bush, write in Bush” because it was just a few months before G-Dubya finished his second term and Obama and McCain were running against each other. Whilst walking around a guy tried to show me “a presentation about the environment.” He had a big poster on an easel and everything… on the sidewalk. There was a huge outdoor bluegrass festival going on too. It’s a very hippie dippie place.

Pictures from Telluride a few years ago. The only thing there that I liked.

X2 for Glenwood Springs. It’s one of our favorite places to spend time. Many good hotels, restaurants and hot springs.

I much prefer Telluride in the Summer. Durango is an awesome town too, but ive never been in the winter. Lots to do there.

Durango has Purgatory, and Pegosa Springs has Wolf Creek.

Wolf Creek is sweet and rarely crowded. Really awesome gladed out old growth forest runs off the top.

I realize having the time off work, makes it attractive to try to do a ski vacation over Christmas break. But that’s a really difficult time to get return on investment just because of the crowds and cost associated with travel and hotels. You’re not going to find a ski resort that’s not packed. You’re not going to find hotels near ski resort that that’s not going to be probably the most expensive week of the winter.

I always have that week off work also and I typically ski 50+ days a year. It seems like there’s always so many people getting injured and hit. Lift lines are insane and the snow is just absolutely ski out by 11 AM. I skip it all together during that time and normally take my kids on a different vacation. Last year we road tripped to Astoria, Oregon.

For what it would cost to take a family of four skiing three days over Christmas break would easily cover an Ikon Pass for all four members with spring prices for next season.

That said if you’re set on doing it, I would avoid Glenwood Springs or anywhere off of 70. Wolf Creek would be my choice. Plus it sounds like they got hammered with snow already and are planning on opening tomorrow? So they likely will have some of the best snow anyways.

Yeah, I started researching wolf springs a bit when Cody mentioned it earlier. It will probably be the one. I’m totally not set on this trip. I’d like to do something though. CA is out for me and my wife doesn’t want to do UT. Organ is too far to drive this time and we just did New Mexico.

Siverton Mountain