by Anna Warwick

Steamboat is a beautiful resort with a great Apres ski atmosphere like no other - it's a real life cowboy town. We spent five days there that flew by like five minutes. As well as my beginner snowboard adventures at the foot of the mountain, and nights spent crashed out at the luxuriously cosy Steamboat Grand Hotel; I thoroughly enjoyed the rich delights of the fabulous Cafe Diva down in Gondola village. I could have eaten everything on the menu.  We also enjoyed havinga boogie to the live music at the pub afterwards!


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Steamboat got it's name from the naturally occurring hot springs that are scattered among the mountains. We took a plunge in the 30 degree C Strawberry Hot Springs to rest our snowboarding and ski-weary bones. What a fabulously relaxing experience to be pink and warm among the quiet, snow white hills and Aspen trees. I wasn’t missing the beaches in Australia one bit.

The highlight of my Steamboat experience was winter horseback riding through the snow covered mountains with Ray Warner, the 72 yr old Steamboat cowboy and ex-Olympian (Steamboat is home to more winter Olympians than any other town in the world – skiing is on their school curriculum) who runs a ranch right up on the Continental Divide.

And we were so lucky to be in town for the night of the Winter Olympians send-off with a choir of Steamboat's children singing the Star Spangled Banner and waving little flags. What an amazing resort and an amazing town. I feel like I could spend a whole winter at Steamboat and still leave wanting more.