Girl in red: Breckenridge. Current GF: Northstar.

I thought you simply couldn’t beat Northstar and Lake Tahoe for snowboarding… until I went to Breck.

Over New Years I went snowboarding for a few days and the sheer size of the epic mountains absolutely floored me.

I also fell in love with the surrounding town, with colorful cute little buildings and shops — a total dupe for Santa’s Village!

There were two most noticeable differences between Breckenridge and Lake Tahoe besides the massive size of Breckenridge (the highest peak is almost 13,000 feet!).

One: the temperature.

When we drove up to Breck, the gauge in the car said -4. Yes, MINUS four! Thankfully it was a bit warmer when we were on the mountain the next day, but it was really cold (barely two digits in the mornings and just about the high teens in the day). I’m used to Tahoe weather, which is usually a warmish 30s.

The other difference was the snow. It’s dry, light snow in Colorado. It was so dry that it was hard to get past the flat parts of the mountain while on my board.

Tahoe’s snow is more moist, which means it’s easy to slide through the flat parts. It’s more slippery, while the snow at Breck was less forgiving. It also made a lot of noise underneath my board.

I loved Breck. Even though there were massive lines forming around the lifts, the mountain itself was empty. I suppose it’s because there are 5 mountains with almost 200 trails and 34 lifts. Wow.

Not only was the scenery simply stunning, but the wide open trails and variety of trees were also interesting.

One of the restaurants on the mountain served ramen!