What it’s like living in Breckenridge (Colorado Springs, Evergreen: best town, sales)

[interloper1138]

Originally Posted by CarsonMathers

Salida... a ton more authenticity.

Authenticity that is disappearing more each day.

[Hipchik]

Originally Posted by Dogmama50

Telluride is barely a local carnival compared to Breck.

You can say that again!

[CarsonMathers]

Originally Posted by interloper1138

Authenticity that is disappearing more each day.

Yes, for sure. I like that Salida hasn't exploded yet.

[brown_dog_us]

Originally Posted by Good Red Road

I try to avoid being a hometown booster, but if you’re looking at Genessee then Evergreen/Conifer should also be on your radar.

Evergreen has scenic mountain living with several parks for hiking and biking, and a small lake with walking paths in the center of town. We’re not as fun as Breck, but we can access the Denver metro in 30 - 45min. It’s very busy in the summer with tourists and day trippers but the winters can be very quiet,...sometimes too quiet.

The schools are fairly decent and high school usually rates in the top ten (for public schools).
Good Luck.

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/CO/s...k.aspx?level=3

https://www.usnews.com/education/bes...hools/colorado

That's what I was thinking. Mountain living, great schools, close to Denver, and closer to skiing.

OP- I have high school age kids and I wouldn't move to Breck. Love to ski there, but living there would be rough. The schools are meh and the tourists would drive me crazy. If you really want a ski town check out Steamboat or Carbondale/Basalt.

[Dogmama50]

If you don't work in a ski town and don't need to ski daily there isn't really a good reason to bother with the issues they have.

Neighbors are transient because many places are only used a couple weeks a year, traffic is bad and filled with people who can't drive in the snow, can't get a bite at a restaurant without a reservation and then you pay resort prices ($25 burgers).

Breck isn't completely isolated, but if you decide to head to Denver you can easily get caught in ski traffic and add hours to your trip.

Heath insurance in Summit, Eagle, Pitkin and Garfield Counties is some of the highest in the county, my neighbors pay $3500 a month for 2 adults and 3 kids and have horrible coverage.

I would choose Evergreen in a heartbeat over Breck. Schools there are considerably better and you have access to the city and mountains. Basalt and Steamboat are both nice but so much more isolated and generally a difficult adjustment for someone who might be use to have Target, Walmart and Costco within 5 minutes.

You really need to visit pretty much now and see what Spring Break is like in Breck and see if it's a place you want to raise your kids.

[Mrs.cowden]

Thanks so much for all the comments!! Lots to discuss! My husband and son will be visiting breck at the end of March. I agree we need to get out there and see if we could actually live in the circus. We initially wanted to live in telluride, but the area will not sustain his work, We wouldn’t mind the isolation, but the amount of people in breck might be another story. We both grew up in a town with 2500 people in the middle of nowhere AR and came to live here after we attended the university of AR. He’s a residential appraiser and I am an artist, so we actually thought a tourist town would be a great fit and breck seems like a place where he could work the front range as well, if needed. It’s also close to Denver to be able to comeback and visit family. We have visited golden and evergreen and they are both really nice. We have also been to aspen/ Carbondale/ Basalt. Albeit, Aspen is out of our price range, we could afford snowmass basalt or Carbondale. Another plus about breck is the home we are looking at has a guest house we could VRBO and has rental history, so there’s income plus a place to stay for friends and fam when they visit. I guess no one really knows what’s right until they make that leap?����*♀️

[TCHP]

My grandparents lived over Hoosier Pass in Alma. I spent a lot of summers staying with them. Growing up in the mountains is unlike anything else and I wouldn't trade any of those experiences. Later in life I had a friend who lived near Silverthorne and I would often visit there throughout the year. Living near the slopes can be considerably different than living on the outskirts of town. Although if you are up the pass off 9, you will be driving through the heart of Breck almost daily.

Some additional thoughts;
-Housing off Highway 9 - see if you can get a google street view to actually determine how far off the Highway it is. Often mountain properties are advertised as "off" something because its the closest discernible landmark. This means it could be within yards and nearly a quarter mile away.
-Living at 9000'+ means a/c and fans typically aren't necessary, even at the height off summer. Shadows come early in the afternoon and the heat from the sun is quickly overcome.
-Locals quickly ID other locals. If you are involved in a school, it will become even more apparent. Local culture is somewhat different from tourist culture. Yes, there will be traffic to deal with and crowds on weekends and during special events. What is worse, crawling traffic along an interstate in a concrete expanse or crawling traffic among pines and mountains? Additionally, you may find that local culture includes discounts that begin to appear as other get to know you and know that you are staying.
-Many mountain towns in CO were once active mining zones. While a lot of effort has been made in sealing these off, it is not 100% complete. Educate you children on the dangers of playing in and around prospect holes, mine openings, and near dilapidated buildings. While not huge commercial activities, be aware that there are still active prospecting permits in the region and some of these folks are very aggressive about protecting their property rights.
-Educate you kids about interaction with wildlife. Not the cute stuff that hops around the bushes outside your house, but the large clawed and fanged predators that can swipe a Golden Retriever off a porch in a heartbeat.
-Internet access and solid connectivity is not always like living in the city, and may not be as solid and stable as what can be found on the flat lands. If remote work is your livelihood, verify systems and support available in the area.
-While art galleries in ski towns may abound, being a local does not assure you getting space to display your work. Attendance of shows and workshops and extensive networking to get your work out there should be something looked at as a Rocky Mtn regional activity that stretches from Montana to New Mexico and is not isolated to one or even a dozen towns. Make sure your side gig is possible at these remote locations. While its great to sell a $12k painting, living in a tourist town is no guarantee that you will sell anything, much less sell with regularity.

[Norrov]

You should really check out Golden.

Close to Denver, foothills for great hiking and a short trip to winter park/Key/Love for skiing. I think your family would enjoy life there since there’s a lot more to do.

Conifer and Bailey are nice towns too, but boring IMO.

Best of luck!

Edit: I agree with Steamboat if you don’t mind living 3-4 hours away from Denver. The tourists aren’t too crazy there, but it’s a nice resort town.

[Mike Weber]

After 7 fun years living in Summit County, we moved to the Front Range to raise our kids. While my observations are specific to Summit County, I would imagine that there are many similarities to other mountain resort towns. Our move was several years ago, so some things may have changed since we left.

The good:

The scenery was fantastic. The summers were glorious. It was nice to be able to sneak out for a few runs before work or at lunch on a powder day. It was great to be able to ski on uncrowded days. We would often go to Denver to shop or to spend the weekend, and always made sure we were headed down the hill as ski traffic was coming up and vice-versa. Sitting in our living room in front of the fire on Sunday afternoon and hearing traffic reports of road problems was sure better than sitting in a traffic jam. Full-time locals were friendly and laid back most of the time, and the community of full-time locals felt pretty close. My property value appreciated quickly. I loved watching the weather, seeing snow pile up quickly, seeing snow on the 4th of July, hearing the thunder rumble up and down the valleys, etc. We are very outdoorsy and the opportunities for outdoor recreation were nearly limitless. We loved to paddle on Lake Dillon, hike, camp, ski, snowshoe, mountain bike, and road bike.

The bad:

The transient nature of the area was one of the reasons we moved away. We made many great friends during our years there, but frequently they would decide that high country living wasn't for them and move away quickly. It was kind of a "pass-through" or temporary situation for many folks who wanted to try it for a while and then moved on to their "real lives" so it was difficult to make close friends.

Before we built our house in an area that was primarily permanent residents, we lived in areas that had vacation rentals mixed in. It was not uncommon to have the property next door full of partying tourists on any night of the week, which was annoying when having to be up early for work or having a kid with an early bedtime. Those guests could be found cutting shrubbery in the yard and neighborhood common areas in order to make a cozy fire in the fireplace.

I know certain influences are going to be there for kids no matter where you live, but we felt at the time that the resort party nature was having more of an effect on kids there than we wanted, so we moved somewhere with less resort influence.

We found prices to be higher on just about everything, though locals discounts can be found on many things. We could compare our grocery receipt item to item from the grocery store in Frisco to the same brand store in Denver and would find that everything was about $.30-.35 higher per item in Summit.

The traffic began to get to me near the end of our stint up there. Mountain topography often means fewer options to get from one place to another, so careful planning of drivetimes was required so as to not conflict with ski traffic and actually be able to get somewhere in a reasonable amount of time.

My business was service industry related, so I found after a while that it wasn't as fun to be working while everyone else was playing. Tourism is the lifeblood of the economy and I was beginning to resent those who were providing our paychecks.

As much as I have always liked snow, I got my share of 100+ day (and one 200+ day) ski seasons before moving. I became more of a cyclist than a skier and found that the winters became too long for me. I found myself going to Denver or Moab every weekend during mud season just to see grass and dirt and be able to wear shorts before June.

We are solidly middle class and it felt like there was not much of a middle class when we moved away. I knew lift operators, waiters, bartenders, ski instructors, etc working 2-3 jobs to survive and living 4-6 people to a small condo at the same time as I daily drove by multi-million dollar homes that sat unused 50 weeks out of the year.

Conclusion:

Would I move back to Summit County again? Yes, but probably only for summer and autumn.

[MountainEarth]

When I was in my 20s I really wanted to live in Breck or Frisco. Now that I'm in my late 40s, I'm really glad I don't. Check out Woodland Park. 8500 feet on the north slope of Pikes Peak yet just 18 miles from downtown Colorado Springs. We get far less snow in winter than Breck or the other ski towns yet it's just as beautiful (especially Summer & Fall) your housing dollars will go 3x as far, and we're not especially touristy (like Evergreen, we're more bedroom community than tourist trap).