Musings: January 2019

Back in June of 2018, I found availability for American Airlines flight redemption's to Aspen over the holidays. Normally that is pretty rare -- especially for 4 seats -- and the flights are typically expensive, so we used up our last AA miles for this trip. However, it should be noted that AA isn't a great carrier for flying into Sardy Field as they don't work with Skycaps, and if there are issues (which there were!) they don't have the sheer volume of flights that United runs to fix things if there are problems. AA is a 2nd tier carrier at this airport. Still it was a high value use for AA miles, and overall worth doing, even if I'm not so sure I'd repeat that (versus using other bigger airports).
Our inbound flight had weather issues, and all carriers ended up cancelling flights on our day of travel into Aspen. So after waiting at LAX for hours (thankfully we had the Korean lounge access as well as Priority Pass which made lunch at PF Chang's free) we were eventually told to come back the next day. After the flight was cancelled, I used the AA phone app to dynamically re-book us into the first direct flight early the next morning. That was much better than waiting in line to speak with an agent, or deal with their customer service reps over the phone. While I did that, J got us a hotel room, which were in scarce supply at 5 pm on New Years Eve. Fortunately the Best Western in Manhattan Beach gave us the last room, and had a big enough evening buffet that it served as dinner too. The next morning we went back to the airport and flew to Aspen. Our luggage took an extra 75 min to unload from the plane, which was frustrating after the last days worth of travel aggravation. Fortunately our hotel's car service was patient, and waited for us.
We stayed at the Snowmass Mtn. Chalet for the first half of the trip and it was an excellent hotel. The location is totally slope side, ski in and ski out; it's really better than any other place I've stayed in that regard. We would ski out after breakfast, and ski home for lunch. It even had an elevator, which is a rarity in older properties (which tend to have the best locations). We would sit in the lobby and play board games after the day, enjoying their cocoa machine. Both breakfast and lunch here were good, and a great plus for a family/group.
Snowmass has developed a lot in just the last 8 months since we were last there. Construction is booming, and new facilities keep popping up. The on mountain experience is full service, even if not yet to Vail standards. But it does not have the crowds, nor lines, of their I70 competitors. And in some ways, the ski experience at Snowmass is different/better. The Big Burn area - an area cleared by an old forest fire - is a vast expanse of open terrain that wind/weather permitting is a unique experience there. I do find the area more confusing to navigate, and ended up looking at maps more than one would expect. It's a place where if you miss some key turn / trail you can end up far away from where you intended. Snow conditions were excellent at Snowmass, since they had a storm the day of our intended arrival.
We weren't adventurous with our dining choices, and stayed near the Snowmass mall and Base Village to for dinners. We tried a burger place (Big Hoss) which was ok. I realize I'd been here in 2006, after I noticed there are still offering their after ski happy hour beer special. (6 Coronas for $12 or something like that). We also had Mexican (Venga Venga) which was pretty good actually, and then pizza / Italian (Slice) down in the village (a very short gondola ride). Food is standard ski town stuff here, and generally priced ok (a surprise to me). If you were coming from a big city like NYC or SF, you wouldn't think anything was a rip off.
The great thing about Snowmass is -- assuming you stay there -- how much ski time you have and how little travel/schlepping around there is. This is why we wanted to be right there. Last time we were here we had a big condo very close by, but we still had to get on the village shuttle. That was great, but if one of the kids wants to quit early in the day, or if somebody wants to switch from gloves to mittens, it's much easier to do if one is slope side. Of course the trade off is space, and often -- amenities.
Losing our first day at Snowmass stung, and compressed our ski time. I used 3 days of my IKON pass allotment here at Snowmass, with M skiing every day with me, and her sister joining us for 2 of the 3 days, or at least the mornings. And after they were done for the day, I could go up higher on the mountain by myself. The IKON pass worked flawlessly here.
After our time in Snowmass we packed up and transferred everything to the Molly Gibson Lodge in downtown Aspen. This is another great hotel, apparently favored by the private pilots who have to wait in Aspen til their charters are ready to leave. (The tiny airfield handles a large amount of private aviation versus commercial) The hotel doesn't look like much from the outside, but its nice on the inside. Our deluxe room was huge, with a gigantic tub and shower in the bathroom, a fireplace (which we never lit) and a big hot tub and pool downstairs. We used those a bit at least. It also had a full breakfast and - unusually - a very heavy afternoon buffet. That was like a British chalet 'afternoon tea' kind of offering. It's unusual to find a hotel that offers free beer & wine (commercial stuff) but they had that too.
After we got settled in we took a day off from skiing and went shopping downtown, and the kids went Ice Skating. The ice rink is surrounded by a cafe, which was the only abusive merchant I encountered on the trip. The town has all the high end art galleries and haut couture boutiques, but it still has lots of real regular restaurants and bars that average people can enjoy. We had a great dinner at a burger/beer kind of place (Rhynos) that might have been $50-60 or so all in, which is surprising. Of course there are lots of fancy places, and during the holidays, even getting a table at night is difficult. We were able to book a table at a Savoyard place (French Alpine Bistro) which was excellent, and a differentiated experience worth the effort & money.. The kids had a fondue and a raclette, almost overdosing on nutty Savoyard cheese. We also had pan Asian takeout (Bangkok Bowl) recommended by the hotel another night, and went to a Chinese place (Ollies) one time. Downtown is very walk-able so we just strolled everywhere, enjoying the window shopping, sometimes lured in by the gelato purveyors.
The girls went skiing with me at Buttermilk, which is the mildest of Aspen's ski areas. They loved it, and we had a whole day of fresh powder coming down while we were outside. It was tiring for them (and me) since you have to ski differently, and everything is slower, and quieter. The bus for this mountain was right outside our door, both pickup and drop off. The kids particularly liked this mountain and its expansive trails. The next day I went up by myself to the main Aspen mountain, Ajax. It's been a long time since I was here - 13 years - and its as steep as I remember. I took the gondola to the top and skied the runs up there, downloading home on the Silver Queen, rather than fighting the hordes down Spar Gulch, and that last sharp stretch near the base. The snow was great here, and there was hardly anyone around, but it was cold up there. I had lots of leftovers for my lunch up there.
Coming home, I was worried about a repeat of the inbound luggage issues at the airport, so we got there early. But we were there almost too early. The airport is so close that one doesn't have to be as hyper as they are in big cities. Still I rationalized that it's not a big deal to surf the internet from the airport rather than the hotel. We had a quick connection in LAX, but still squeezed in a pit stop again at the Korean lounge in Tom Bradley Intl. Terminal, and had a quick lunch, then returned home with a great Uber from our home airport. The kids did try inflight GoGo wifi on one of the flights but didn't seem to care about it that much. I have a couple dozen of those passes, but even I am not sure when I'd use them up, since normally I sleep or read on these shorter flights.
It feels like I've finally finished putting away all our gear which gets scattered all over the house after these trips. And as far as I can tell, we didn't lose anything. Normally gloves and socks have a way of escaping their suitcase cages on our adventures. Our new packing procedures of making 'ski people' seems to help. This is where every piece of gear is laid out like a little person before being put away.