From Jan 24-29 Thanks

You don't say much about budget or what else you want from resort but given your age and skiing experience . . .

If you don't care about resort amenities or ski ambiance go to Copper. A large area just for beginners.

Aspen has Buttermilk, a 400 acre mostly beginner mountain and with a town that offers excellent eats and nightlife. Snowmass also has nice beginner areas too.

Breckenridge has lower Peak 9 that is wide and flat and the fun intermediate area of Peak 7 (except for top area which they've slowly removed the glades but still a bit challenging before the fun area). Downside to Breck is altitude and January cold.

Steamboat is nice but can have way to much snow for beginner. Fun atmosphere but lots of cranes the next 10 years to spoil the view. Slightly more difficult to get to unless you fly direct to Hayden.

Vail. Go your second or third trip. Wonderful atmosphere, great eats, but can be downright difficult for beginner unless you like doing catwalks. Upper Golden Peak is best and you can take lift down to avoid some scary stuff.

Look at Beaver Creek down the road, especially if money is less of problem. Both Vail and BC can be web accessed via snow.com. Other resorts have sites too. Just google. Also, for all CO resorts and brief info check out www.goski.com/search/welcome.html…

Come back with more questions. Plenty of folks here to help.

Not a big fan of Breck, especially for beginners. To many runs that intersect with folks not looking as they merge. Luv2ski is right too that it is cold. Me, I think Vail is great for newbie’s. If you tire of skiing there is so much more to do.

Keystones front mountain is good for beginners though at times I find the ski school to crowded. I'd say the same thing about Copper too. That said the resorts are very close to each other so you could ski a couple of different ones. Budget and any other interests will help give you better advice.

Be aware that learning to ski can be life changing! This from a woman born in Missouri and living in Colorado!

Looking for average price, not rich:) Thanks for the advice so far

Would like to ski 3 days and look around and maybe do the snow mobiles. GGood eats and place would also be good on a avg budget.Thanks for being so helpful

Look into Copper Mountain. Great, if not perfect, for beginners and more reasonable rates than the other close by ski resorts. A huge bonus is Copper is the least crowded of all the Summit and Eagle county resorts. Plus there are plenty of other activities near by... dog sledding, snowmobiling, tubing, good dining and in the center of all the other resorts if you choose to go somewhere else one day. Copper Mountian is a Summit local favorite!

http://www.coppercolorado.com/index.htm

Hi! You are wise to start looking into the ski vacation well in advance.

First of all, try to solidify what you are willing to spend and then prepare to pay more. Our Colorado friends may know the ski mountains, but they get so many local discounts that I doubt they truly realize how expensive most of their resorts are for us out-of state visitors.

Second, take a good look at the timing of your trip. The prices of just about everything are higher or lower depending on the season. The higher the prices, the more crowded the slopes and the more fuller the lesson classes will be - in this case, higher prices don't always mean better services!

My husband and I have started our search and it looks like flight availability and reasonable airfare is going to be an issue. You may want to start by checking out all of the Colorado airports and see if that helps you decide.

Next, we check out and compare the costs of lift tickets and equipment rentals. As adult, first-time skiers, I would also recommend taking a lesson each day. Many of the big Colorado resorts seem to have escalated the "most expensive lift ticket" rivalry in the past few years and like to hide this info, but you can check out last season's rates to get an idea. Also Google for lift ticket discounts.

Lodging, dining and parking is most expensive in the Vail/Beaver Creek and Aspen areas. For the other areas, it really depends on how close you want to be to the slopes.

As to the sking, I've skied all of the major Colorado ski areas as a beginner and whichever one you choose will be fine!

Finally, you may want to consider the smaller Colorado gems. Significantly cheaper prices, smaller crowds and classes, but fewer high-tech amenities. Ski in-ski out lodging may not be available, but there are nearby towns, and many are a reasonable drive from another gem, a major resort or both. Even my teenager prefers the charm and companionship that we find at the smaller resorts in both Colorado and New Mexico. The free Colorado Gems discount card should be available soon.

Good luck!