PHOTO: © YMCA OF THE ROCKIES

From the moment they could walk, I’ve hauled my Florida kids, ages 5 and 6, to the snowy mountains of Colorado and popped them into ski school to help plant a passion for a pastime we hope someday to enjoy together on blue runs around the world.

But what people often don’t tell you when it comes to ski vacations with very young kids: They’re hardly a vacation.

There’s the rushing to make it to ski school in the early morning, the pressure to maximize the pricey lift tickets, the mittens and gloves that constantly go astray, tiny feet to contort into boots that never seem big enough and only so much patience from the little ones for pizza and French fries that aren’t the real deal (and always served cold).

So on a recent getaway to the Rocky Mountains, I decided to take a slower travel tack for our annual family winter vacation by visiting a mountain town known for pretty much every other snowy mountain pursuit except resort-style skiing.

The last time I visited Estes Park, the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park and just 90 minutes from Denver, I was a kid myself.

Back then we piled into the family station wagon and my parents drove us west from the East Coast for a summer vacation at YMCA of the Rockies. There were forged some of my formative travel memories: the cozy cabin with bunk beds we stayed in and a thrilling trail ride on a horse named Cochise that ended with a sudden thunderstorm that terrified my mother.

Wanting to share the place with my own children — but with a wintry spin — I booked us into a two-bedroom cabin called Sully at YMCA of the Rockies. Surrounded by powdery vistas, it came complete with a real wood-burning fireplace and boasted those bunk beds I knew they’d love as much as I had.

PHOTO: © YMCA OF THE ROCKIES

Surrounded by Rocky Mountain National Park on three sides, the resort traces its roots to humble beginnings as a summer school outpost for the Christian-based YMCA. By the 1960s it boomed as a summer vacation destination. Today the 860-acre property with more than 250 private wooded cabins and nine lodge buildings retains a humble feel while offering a spread of activities for families that would put any all-inclusive resort to shame. Among the included offerings on the day we arrived were a “bear talk,” origami lessons, an animal detective course, a how-to on fire-building and a knot-tying class.

On our first morning we were up early in the darkness, jetlagged from our trip from the East Coast. We kept the kids entertained waiting for the sun to come up with hot cocoa and marshmallows fireside and a loaner game of Chutes and Ladders checked out from the Y’s game room. A lack of TVs in the cabins is a good excuse to go old school when it comes to having fun here.

And as soon as dawn broke, they bolted outside in their snowsuits to dive into the snowdrifts surrounding the cabin, making snow angels, shoveling the walkway, landing snow flurries on their tongues and doing everything else they can’t do in the great outdoors back home in Tampa.

At the YMCA’s sledding hill, across from a small ice-skating pond on the property, we joined a family visiting from Puerto Vallarta to whoop it up all the way down the hill before trudging back up in the snow and doing it all over again. My ruddy-cheeked son asked at one point where the chair lift was. I explained to him this wasn’t that kind of a resort, and he followed me gamely back up the hill.

For a different kind of downhill thrill, we drove across town to Mustang Mountain Coaster, Colorado’s newest mountain coaster, opened in 2021. After a two-minute slow ascent to the top of the hill aboard sleds big enough for an adult and child to ride together, we screamed along more than 2,000 feet of steel track at 25 mph, thrilling to the drops, turns and views of the massive frozen reservoir, Estes Lake, in the heart of town. Then we proceeded to do the same four more times.

© TERRY WARD

Dizzy at this point from altitude and rush and desperate to lure the kids back into the car, I told them I had a good ghost story (always does the trick). I shared some tales about the spirited Stanley Hotel, an Estes Park fixture first opened in 1909 as a health retreat for tuberculosis sufferers and rumored to be haunted. We stopped by the lobby for a look, where my son declared it ghost-free. On the way back to the car, my daughter, always one to bring a little drama, told us she heard piano music playing in the lobby even though there was nobody seated at the bench.

Our ice-skating attempt at Trout Haven — a stocked pond you can fish in, too — was thwarted by bumpy ice and figure skates that proved far harder to stay stable atop than the hockey skates we wear back home. We decided to try ice fishing instead as a friendly high schooler carried an auger to a shelter over the frozen pond to drill a hole through the thick ice. Our lines weren’t down for more than 10 seconds before a shimmering rainbow trout took the bait. That it was big enough for dinner made the experience even better.

On our way back to the cabin we detoured for a drive into Rocky Mountain National Park, where the ranger advised us to drive the shorter park loop despite our all-wheel-drive rental car since snow was coming down heavily. The highlight came when two enormous elk ambled across the snowy road in front of us, shaking their snowy hindquarters right by the car window as they walked by, much to the kids’ delight.

While there’s no ski resort in Estes Park itself, a mere hour’s drive takes one to Eldora in neighboring Boulder County. I’d always heard about this favorite Front Range ski resort for daytrippers from Denver (just 47 miles away), but I usually bypassed it in favor of heading deeper into the Rockies to bigger-name mountains.

On a weekday visit to the resort boasting 680 acres of skiable terrain and 1,600 feet of vertical drop, there were no lift lines at all. I spent part of the day with the kids in private lessons and took advantage of the chance to get back on a snowboard after several years devoted to skiing. The conditions were perfectly powdery, and I was glad to see I still had it when it came to boarding … or, at least, I could keep up with the kids.

Later, back in the resort’s delightfully old-school base mountain lodge, we all split a $5 brownie nearly the size of my daughter’s head. “This is the best ski vacation ever,” she proclaimed, and we raised our hot chocolates to toast.

With the mix of all the non-ski fun we’d enjoyed over three days, I couldn’t agree more. It felt like a true winter vacation, with all the time in the world to enjoy.