This past weekend, my oldest friend, Sarah, tied the knot with her now-husband, Brian, in a beautiful ceremony in Sarasota, FL. Sarah and Brian live in Florida but Sarah grew up in Denver (we met in elementary school in a Denver suburb!) and wanted Colorado to be part of her wedding celebrations so her sister planned the perfect Colorado-style bachelorette party a few weeks earlier in September.
The group of gals met at the Denver airport on Thursday evening from all over the country – Orlando, FL; Ann Arbor, MI; Billings, MT and Denver, CO. The Denver girls picked up the rest of us from the airport and we high-tailed it to The Rio, a downtown Denver staple, for tacos and margaritas to refuel before the trek out to our weekend home, Breckenridge!
Christine, Sarah’s sister, booked a huge mountain house about 5 minutes up the mountain from downtown Vail which was perfect for our group. We spent Thursday night catching up on the couch until, one by one, we retired to our rooms.
Friday morning brought plans of a mellow hike on the ski mountain followed by standup paddleboard yoga. The crisp fall morning air scared the Floridians but we assured them the afternoon would be plenty warm.
We hiked the Sawmill Trail that meandered from the base of the Snowflake lift up to a pretty lake for a 1.5 mile round trip. While the hike was short, we took many stops to snap photos, explore off trail and share stories.
As you can see, the weather warmed up nicely and we shed our layers pretty early into the hike. After finding the lake, we headed back down the mountain to grab some lunch and head to our paddleboard yoga class!
Meta Yoga Studios hosts SUP Yoga on the Breckenridge Lake and the class was perfect for our group. Our instructor asked if we wanted more restorative and stretching or high intensity…we quickly opted for restorative/stretching as this was the first SUP class for the majority of us. Our instructor, Amy, led us through a gentle practice and we were thrilled to not have lost anyone off their board.
After yoga, we headed back up the mountain to our house to relax, drink a beer and get ready for dinner in downtown Breckenridge. Christine picked another staple for dinner and we dined at the Breckenridge Brewery (can’t not stop a brewery when in Colorado!)…and of course we brought our friend, Gregory Pecker, the inflatable penis.
Rather than hit the town, we trekked back up the mountain and spent Friday night enjoying the house. We’d stocked up on beer, wine and liquor in Denver so it was an easy choice to head back and drink what we already had on hand.
Saturday morning was our check-out day in the house so we made breakfast, cleaned up and hit the road for Vail where we planned to do another hike and then check out Vail’s Oktoberfest before our final long trek into Denver.
In Vail, we followed the Berry Picker trail from Vail Village up to a wide open run (looks like a black run called Lindsey’s from the Vail trail map!) where we munched on snacks and broke out a celebratory bottle of wine to share.
We really lucked out as both Breckenridge and Vail were in prime leaf changing season and the mountainsides were littered with glittering yellow aspens. It was so beautiful and we couldn’t stop staring and taking photos. Truthfully, it made my heart happy and sad – happy to be back in ‘my’ state on such a beautiful weekend with great friends but sad to know time was fleeting and I’d have to head home to Pittsburgh – instead of Denver – at the end of the weekend.
Once we packed up our snack garbage and drank the last sips of wine (Leave No Trace, people!), we strolled back down the mountainside, bound for Vail Village’s Oktoberfest celebration!
The party was jam-packed and we were excited to eat pretzels and quench our thirst with boots of German beer. Luckily, we snagged a table for all 9 of us and enjoyed a couple of hours in the festive madness. At one point, (those of us who weren’t driving) played a game where we pass a giant boot of beer around the table while yelling, BOOT! BOOT! BOOT! It was ridiculous and hilarious as we caught the attention of the event photographer and everyone around us was cheering as the bride-to-be finished off the beer.
Prost!
With bellies full of beer, sausage and sauerkraut, we loaded up our caravans and made our way back into Denver for a final night of celebrating in ‘traditional’ bachelorette party style. Christine booked us rooms at the fancy Westin hotel and we settled into two rooms to get ready for the night ahead of us.
Of course we ran into a group of NYC firemen at our first bar!
The rest of the night was spent eating pizza at the fabulous Osteria Marco, playing PacMan at the arcade bar 1Up and dancing at Cowboy Lounge. When we called it a night, we ordered (more) pizza to be delivered to our room to help stave off any hangover in the morning and then crashed hard when our heads hit the pillow.
If you’re an adventurous gal who isn’t into the traditional bachelorette party themes, would highly recommend you consider a weekend in the mountains to celebrate. Breckenridge was perfect as there is ample hiking, food/drink and beautiful views to take in while still being relatively close to Denver (1.5 hour drive). Obviously, the most important part of a bachelorette weekend is celebrating the bride to be but doing it in a cute mountain town? Perfection.