Art, Wine & Cheese in Winter Park, CO

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Chris

winter park wine & cheese festival Wine & Cheese in the Winter Park Village

Saturday July 10, 2010 the Grand Arts, Wine and Cheese Festival will kick off. Starting at 10AM and running through the afternoon until 5PM Wine, art and cheese will be on display Rocky Mountain style.

Stroll through the Village at Winter Park and visit with local Grand County artists as they show off their talents in this one-of-a-kind arts festival. Watch, do, listen and learn in our hands-on interactive “Learning Tents.” Enjoy live music while you explore one-of-a-kind photography, jewelry, paintings, and more. A variety of these artisans will be offering artist demonstrations and hands-on classes during the day.

The wine and cheese festival is in addition to all the other great activities that are available at the Winter Park base. Check out the alpine slide, putt put golf, Trestle Bike Park, climbing wall and may other activities.

The weather has been great up here the last few weeks and there is just so much to do this time of year.

Get on up to Winter Park and play hard and rest easy with Winter Park Lodging Company. And finish it all of with some wine, cheese and art in the Winter Park Village.

Sweet VIP Pass Offer for Free Concerts in Winter Park, CO

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Valarie

VIP Treatment at Winter Park's Free Music Festivals Join us in Winter Park for two FREE outdoor music festivals at Winter Park’s downtown concert venue at Hideaway Park, and when you book with Winter Park Lodging Company, you’ll get VIP passes to the show for all of the people in your group.

The VIP passes allow you to access seating close to the stage, two free drinks (either alcoholic or non-alcoholic), a free commemorative festival t-shirt and a chance to win a backstage pass to Meet & Greet the performers.

It’s that easy. Just book lodging in Winter Park for the festival weekend of your choice (or both), let us know how many people are in your group, and we’ll throw in the VIP passes for the festival. Check out the details for the free Winter Park festivals below!

KYGO HIGH COUNTRY MUSIC FESTIVAL

July 10th, 2010.

We’ve got Chris Cagle, who, since his debut on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles & Tracks in 2000, has produced numerous top-ten hits including “I Breathe in I Breathe Out”, “Chicks Dig It” and “What Kinda Gone”.

Also on the line-up is Texas’s The Josh Abbott Band, the “fastest rising young stars in Texas country,” and Denver’s own up-and-coming star, the Kory Brunson Band.

103.5 THE FOX CLASSIC ROCK MUSIC FESTIVAL

August 7th, 2010

If you love classic 80′s & 90′s rock, then you’ll have a great time in Winter Park this weekend.

The headliner of the event is Night Ranger, whose biggest hits include Sister Christian and Don’t Tell Me You Love Me. Their twin lead guitar and melodious metal has become a genre all their own.

We’ll also have Pat Travers, Lewis & Floorwax and Denver’s own The Groove Hawgs to bring their entertaining rock to the stage. You won’t want to miss this festival of rock n roll!

Highlights from the Blues from the Top Festival in Winter Park

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Valarie

JP Soars at Winter Park Blues from the Top Music Festival

JP Soars and his handmade guitar

It turned out to be another perfect weekend of beautiful weather and outstanding blues performances for the eighth annual Blues from the Top festival in Winter Park, Colorado. This weekend is my personal favorite of all Winter Park music festivals because: 1) it kicks off the summer in Winter Park; and 2) you can dance to the blues music right in front of the stage. You must check it out sometime if you haven’t yet.

The festivities started on Friday night with Curtis Salgado followed by Andy Irvine’s Blues Collective at Music at the Mall at Cooper Creek Square, then moved over to Smokin’ Moes for the official Pre-Festival Jam with jam performances by the festival’s performers. The dance floor at Smokin’ Moes was packed as usual and the musicians were clearly having as much fun as we were!

I missed the show on Saturday, but the highlight (from what I’ve heard) was the Walter Trout performance preceded by the hail strorm that swiftly cleared the park out for about 10 minutes. The cooler air after the storm was welcomed by my festival-goer friends, who came back to enjoy Walter and his band close out Saturday’s show.

Sunday’s show started out with a mimosa from one of the vendors, then my freinds and I settled in our campchairs to take in some sun and music. It wasn’t long though before we were up dancing to the tunes. We had Curtis Salgado, Nick Moss and the Fliptops, Mike Zito, Theresa James, JP Soars and Trampled Under Foot. JP Soars was especially entertaining with his handmade guitar (pictured). His high energy blues, paired with a deep soulful voice, was definitely a lot of fun to dance to.

There were a lot of vendors to peruse between acts, plus good food like BBQ, Fried Catfish and Mexican. I loved the authentic $3 tamale and the mint chocolate chip ice cream for desert. The continual lathering of sunscreen was necessary with all the wonderfully bright sunshine, with no afternoon thunderstorm or hardly a cloud in sight. The Australian hat vendor sure must have made a killing, although be warned, he doesn’t take bargaining jokes lightly.

Ah, just another fun summer weekend in Winter Park, with plenty more to come. Next up is the Free Hi Country Music Festival, the Winter Park Jazz Festival, the Free Fox Classic Rock Festival and the Crankworx Colorado Mountain Bike Festival. The summer was just kicked off wonderfully by the Blues from the Top Music Fest.

Opie Gone Bad in Winter Park, CO

Posted on June 28, 2010 by Chris

Winter Park free music Thursday Winter Park, Colo Free Music Thursdays

The Winter Park Free Music Thursdays started last week and continues this week with Boa & Thde Constrictors.

Next week the guest is Opie Gone Bad. These guys are a big name to have up here in Winter Park for a free show. With some of the bigger names in music getting ticket prices in the $300 range this is a breath of fresh air.

On Thursday July 8th you can get on up to Winter Park, CO bringing your favorite picnic meal, wine or other adult beverage and sit in the beautiful Hideaway Park Amphitheater and see Opie Gone Bad for only the price of gas, food and booze. That sounds like a screaming deal and a darn good time.

Music outside in Winter Park can not be beat. There is a long tradition od great music up here in WP. The American Music Festival was an annual event here for long time and played host to some of the biggest names in music including Dave Matthews, Toad the Wet Sprocket and Warren Zevon just to name a few.

If you are looking to see some music and want to get out of the heat and crowds down in the cities check out Winter Park’s free music Thursdays.

Winter Park Lodging Company is running a third night free special right now so come on up to the cool air of Winter Park for three nights and only pay for two. Make you plans now for some great music up in the Rocky Mountains.

Winter Park, CO Summer Fun

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Chris

summer in winter park colorado

Summer in Winter Park, Colorado

Today is the first day of summer officially and that means it is hot, very hot down in the low lands and dreamy beautiful up here in the Rocky Mountains. The time to head to Winter Park is now to enjoy the beauty of Colorado without the crowds.

Here is the weather for Denver June 21st to June 24th:

89°F

Current: Cloudy
Wind: W at 4 mph
Humidity: 80%

Mon

89°F | 60°F

Tue

91°F | 61°F

Wed

81°F | 60°F

Thu

89°F | 64°F

63°F | °C

Current: Cloudy
Wind: W at 4 mph
Humidity: 80%

Mon

89°F | 60°F

Tue

91°F | 61°F

Wed

81°F | 60°F

Thu

89°F | 64°F

And here is the weather for Winter Park, CO.

65°F

Current: Sunny
Wind: SW at 3 mph
Humidity: 44%

Mon

71°F | 42°F

Tue

73°F | 42°F

Wed

66°F | 43°F

Thu

73°F | 47°F

As I said time to get out of the heat!

Lots of events and activities in WP this time of year also. The Eighth Annual Winter Park Blues Fest starts this Thursday with the best lineup ever for this rockin’ show.

There is also the Winter Park Chocolate Festival this weekend on June 26th. Taste some great chocolate with some wine and have a great time in the Rockies.

And for the kids there are all the events and activities in the Winter Park Village and base area:

COCA-COLA® FAMILY MOVIE NIGHT
Fridays, June 25 – September 3 The Village at Winter Park presents Outdoor Movie Night! We will be showing a great selection of family and kid-friendly movies every Friday evening from June 25 – Labor Day Weekend. Movies will be held outdoors on the lawn next to the Discovery Center and are free to the public. A limited number of chairs are provided. All movies will begin just after sunset. Times may vary week to week.

CIRQUE du SATURDAYS
Saturdays, July 3 - September 4

It’s a circus in the mountains every Saturday in the Village at Winter Park! Kids will enjoy the fun and festive atmosphere as they walk with troubadours, unicyclists, stiltwalkers, jugglers, and more in the Village from 10am – 2pm. Don’t forget to pause long enough for free face-painting and caricatures. All events are free and fun! Come one, come all! Don’t miss out on the chance to join the circus!

KIDS’ NIGHT OUT
Saturdays, July 3 – August 21

This fun, activity-filled evening is for 4-12 year olds. This program is loaded with indoor and outdoor activities and it includes dinner and s’mores by the firepit! Kids’ Night Out is a worry-free night out for Mom & Dad and a convenient alternative to at-home babysitting. Kids’ Night Out is held at the Discovery Center in the Village at Winter Park on Saturday evenings from 5:30pm – 9:00pm starting July 3rd and running through August 21. Kids’ Night Out is a FREE childcare service offered to parents on the condition that $30 per child is spent in any commercial outlet at the resort during the hours that your children are in the program. We do require original receipts to verify the expenditure. If less than $30 per child is spent, parents will be charged the difference. Kids Night Out includes: Dinner from Doc’s Roadhouse and Outdoor Activities / Indoor Activities - games, crafts, movies.

Reservations: Please reserve your child’s space by 3pm on Saturday. Call Winter Park Guest Services at 800.729.7907 to reserve your child’s space. Enrollment is limited and is on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Now that is a deal free day/night care while the parents head out for a drinks and dinner.

Summer is here and the now is the time to make your plan to head up to the mountains. Let Winter Park Lodging Company make your getaway fun, economical and relaxing.

Winter Park, CO Chocolate Festival

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Chris

Colorado Summer Food Festivals

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate …. who doesn’t like chocolate? What is your favorite chocolate? Well lets try some of the best before we make that call.

Winter Park Resort is putting on a summer food festival that is all about the love of chocolate.

Winter Park CO Chocolate Festival

June 26th 2010

A treat for the Winter Park vacationers and a destination for chocolate lovers around the state! Everyone loves chocolate! The Winter Park Chocolate Festival will include chocolate samples and fine chocolates for sale from a wide variety of regional vendors. Special guests and a full-day’s event schedule round out the fun!

There is even a wine pairing with chocolate session. Now that is right up my alley – wine and chocolate.

Saturday the 26th

10am - Winter Park Chocolate Festival opens!

11 am – Pudding Eating Contest!

Rounds for kids and adults! The catch – no hands!

12 noon – Denise Nickerson on Stage!

Star of the original Willy Wonka film talks about ”My Life as the Blueberry Girl”

1 pm – Truffle Competition Awards Presentation

2 pm – Truffle Demo with Chef Trusan

3pm – Chocolate and Wine-Pairing demo with The Chocolate Therapist, Julie Pech

3 – 5 pm – Wine Tasting

5pm – Festival closes.

Sounds like a great way to to enjoy some tasty treats and in Colorado Rockies.

What is your favorite chocolate? The favorite in our home at the moment is the Lindt dark chocolate with sea salt . Sounds odd but man it is delicious especially with red wine.

Outdoor Gear Swap in Winter Park, CO

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Valarie

Don’t miss the 2nd annual Fraser Valley Community Gear Swap benefitting Habitat for Humanity on Saturday & Sunday, June 19th and 20th. Come out between 9am & 5pm to the Epic Mountain Sports parking lot at the Park Place Shopping Center (with Conoco and Movie Theater).

Sell your used skis, snowboards, bikes, kayaks, golf clubs, tents & camping gear or any other sporting equipment you no longer need, or pick up a new addition for your outdoor gear collection.

To sell your stuff, drop off your gear on Friday afternoon between 4pm and 6pm or on Saturday morning between 7am and 9am. You name your price, fill out a sale form and keep 100% of the proceeds from your gear. If you don’t want to take that old stuff back to your garage, you can donate it to the Habitat for Humanity.

Plus, all Park Place Shopping Center stores will donate 5% of Saturday sales to the Habitat Humanity. Take advantage of the big sale at Epic Mountain Sports and specials at Rise & Shine Bakery, and feel good about helping out the community.

For more info, call Epic Mountain Sports at 970-726-2868.

More on Weddings in Winter Park!

Posted on May 27, 2010 by sam

As more and more engaged couples catch on to the appeal and popularity of our quaint and beautiful town, it seems that new businesses that cater to weddings in Winter Park keep popping up. Recently I’ve stumbled upon a couple of well kept secret gems that I’m happy to be able to share with everyone.

First, wedding cakes! Evelyn Stowers has been in the business of making delicious and elegant wedding cakes for 44 years. In fact, the first wedding cake she ever created was for her own wedding (they’re still happily married, likely due to her sweet personality and the cakes she’s always whipping up in their kitchen). Evelyn showed me a binder filled with hundreds of cakes she’s created over the years, and I have to say that I melted completely into giddy girl mode! She has fun and gorgeous ideas for decoration, and after almost half a century of baking, you better believe she’s got more than a couple delicious cake recipes on hand. So ff you don’t feel like hunting down a big banner to post on your car that says “wedding cake on board” while you drive up our curvy mountain pass, then send Mrs. Stowers an email at evelynstowers@yahoo.com. She’ll be happy to hear from you!

Second, and a little more unique, is Ear 2 Ear photo booths. A couple of locals, Jeff Skinner and John Vella, have found great success with their small business of delivering, setting up, and operating photo booths at all kinds of events, including weddings. And yes, you’re thinking of the right photo booths: the same ones you laugh like crazy in at carnivals with your best friends. Photo booths are a creative and fun addition at any event; we think it’s worth your time to check it out! You can read about all the details and see some sample photos at www.ear2earphotobooths.com , then give Jeff and John a call at 970 509 9778.

And as always, if you have any questions about other great services in the area or are interested in lodging, give Winter Park Lodging Company a call at 877-329-1383. We’re always happy to hear from you!

Winter Park, Colorado Beer Festival

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Chris

Colorado Mountain Beer Festival

The first annual Winter Park, CO beer festival has been announced and will be taking place in Hideaway Park in downtown Winter Park, Colo on Saturday August 14, 2010. This is Winter Parks first foray into the beer festival world but we are thinking that the Winter Park Beer Festival will be bigger and badder than the Great American Beer Festival in no time.

The Winter Park Beer Festival will be a celebration of beer, music and mountains, can you have any of these without the others?, in the beautiful environs of Winter Park, CO. There will be over 25 breweries represented doing beer tastings and selling merchandise with local and national bands to keep all entertained. There will also be vendors in Hideaway Park selling all that you will need to make this a fun and friendly day of beer drinking. We are hoping that the three young ladies to the left will be attending to help peddle some of the suds.

Breweries that can be expected to be attending, but in no way guaranteed to be, include New Belgium Brewery, Odell’s Brewery, Coors, Budweiser, Great Divide Brewery, Oscar Blues Brewery, Sierra Nevada Brewery, Left Hand Brewery, Grand Lake Brewery, Deschutes Brewing and Flying Dog Brewery. There should be some great beers by some of the best brewers in the nation.

As for music, the lineup should be fun with lots of good beer drinking tunes. Here is who will be playing:

JJ Grey and MOFRO

“intriguing and fortuitous… Grey’s a songwriter with a sharp wit and a knack for skewering the hypocrites, jive politicians and carpetbaggers who litter the landscape. The MOFRO vibe travels freely among swamp funk, blues, rock and soul, and does so with a certain down-and-dirty swagger that’s as real as it is appealing.”

Filthy Children

This funk/jazz/rock septet serves up a funkinetic frenzy of fresh, original, mind moving music; reminiscent of such groove giants as Soulive, Greyboy Allstars, John Scofield, and Deep Banana Blackout. Filthy Children deliver action packed funk that’s sure to be “a big fat kick in the groove”

Cowboy Dave

Hillbilly yuckster by day, Saturday-morning-cartoon hero by night, Cowboy Dave and his band of honky-tonk all-stars are poised to put the western back in country and western. Known to many as the deadpanned FortyTwenty frontman and fiddle player, Cowboy Dave Wilson has spent the better part of this decade honing his craft throughout the honky-tonks of the Midwest and South.

Sounds like some good grooves to get a good beer drink going up in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. This festival being on a Saturday lets you come up and enjoy a Free Ride Friday in Trestle Bike Park then the beer festival on Saturday and maybe some cross country/ single track mountain biking on Sunday before you return home.

I forgot to mention that the Winter Park Beer Festival benefits a truly worthy cause in the National Sports Center for the Disabled. I do not know of a better cause to give to and to do it all by drinking some beer and listening to some music in the Colorado mountains, now that is one heck of a weekend.

So come on out and celebrate summer with some beer and music!

Crankworx to return to Winter Park for 2010

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Amy

Crankworx Bike Festival

WOOHOOOOOOOOOO…..

Once again, we will be treated to a great display of athleticism and a touch of the crazies, as we enjoy 4 days in the sun at Crankworx.

The downhill mountain bike event is scheduled for July 29- August 1, 2010, at Winter Park Resort. Super riders like Semenuk, Basagoitia, McCaul, and Berrecloth, will inspire beginners and pros alike to get out there and jump on a mountain bike. All base events are FREE! (A lift ticket will be required to watch any on-mountain sections of races.)

Crankworx Colorado is one of the largest gravity-fueled mountain bike festivals in the United States. Come up and check out the action! During four intense days, spectators are awed by some of the world’s best mountain bike athletes battling it out for over $35,000 in prizes. Some of the biggest names in mountain biking will be on site. Don’t miss the mountain biking event of the summer; make your plans now. You won’t regret it.

Thursday, July 29- Dual Slalom and Slopestyle Qualifiers
Friday, July 30- Super Downhill and Best Trick
Saturday, July 31- Cross Country and Slopestyle Finals
Sunday, August 1- UCI/PRO GRT Downhill

Give us a call to book a great Crankworx condo right at the base so you can avoid the hastle of driving and parking!

Winter Park Lodging Company – 877.329.1383

Don’t miss the mountain bike festival of the summer right here in Winter Park, Colorado.