My husband and I were hosting a Spanish exchange student who is living in Denver with my sister-in-law, while their family were out of town. The last thing that my sister-in-law said to Carolina was " Make sure Jane and Peter take you tubing". Years ago we had celebrated Easter with a large number of relatives at the Adventure Point tubing hill at Keystone. It is an event that is fondly remembered, particularly by the two relatives who were five and seventy-five at the time and went down with a twist in a circle of tubes.
As we now live in Frisco and this is only the second winter for the Frisco tubing hill, we decided it was time to give our local hill a try. Guests must check in about a half hour ahead of your booked time at the newly built Day Lodge to fill out the obligatory waiver (it was pretty painless), and also pay for and pick up your tickets. The Day Lodge is very nice with comfortable chairs and a snack bar for before or after your tubing. If you have folks who do not want to tube it is a great place for them to hang out. The snack bar serves pizza, hot dogs, sodas, beer, wine and Schnapps.
Inside the Day Lodge
Day Lodge from the bottom of the hill
The hill is generally open Thursdays through Mondays (closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays). Monday and Thursday times are 11:00 am to 6:00 pm and Friday through Sunday the hill is open 11:00 am to 8:00 pm. Tubing times start every 15 minutes, but the hill is closed between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm for grooming. During the holidays and from 3/10/12 to 3/25/12 the hill is open seven days a week from 11:00 am to 8:00pm. A one hour tubing session is $25 and there are discounts for locals. On the second Sunday of the month there is a special called a 4 Pack. For $55 you receive 16 individual tubing tickets to use how you would like, four slices of pizza and four sodas - a great deal for a group of four people.
Once you have received your tubing tickets you head to the yurt at the bottom of the hill to watch probably one of the best safety videos I have ever seen, especially if you like penguins. The video was produced by a local company, Mountain Graphix www.mtngraphix.com, and really gets its point across in a very fun way. Kids and parents will both love watching the video.
Yurt for Safety Video
After watching the video, we proceeded to pick up our tubes from a large pile outside the yurt and headed to the magic carpet that takes you to the top of the tubing hill. The carpet was very easy to access and there was an attendant to help you onto it and to show you how to hold your tube. Again at the top there was someone to assist with the dismount.
Once at the top you are able to choose from a number of tubing lanes, with different degrees of difficulty. A tubing attendant will instruct you on the correct way to ride in your tube. They will also ask you how fast you would like to descend and whether you want to go straight or with a twist. I chose to go straight as the hill will turn you anyway as you go down.
You are also able to go down the hill with up to three tubes hooked together. You all lay down in your own tube and then hold the safety strap of the person's tube next to you. A ride like this is totally awesome for a group and great for parents with younger children who might be nervous about going by themselves. Children do have to ride in their own tube and be 36 inches tall. Right in front of us as we filmed the following video was a father with his young child, who definitely was not sure about going down the run. When hooked to the father's tube he really enjoyed himself. I would not be surprised if he was descending by himself by the end of the hour. By the way, the tube chutes in Frisco are really long and give you a great ride. They might not be as steep as some hills, but the length means that your ride is a truly wonderful experience. It is a blast to go at night as the runs have iced up and are faster than during the day. However it has been so sunny and warm here in Summit County, that it would also be really cool to tube on a bright bluebird day. I think you will be able to see from the video how much fun our girl from Madrid was having. What a story to tell her parents when she returns home and what an outstanding memory from her time in Summit County.
It is easiest to reach the Frisco Adventure Park by car from Highway 9, turning at the traffic light the other way from Summit Medical Center Hospital. However you are also able to take the Summit Stage http://bit.ly/zxb8tr to the Frisco County Commons and walk to the Day Lodge.
So if you are visiting Summit County, make sure that tubing at the Frisco Adventure Park is part of your plan and call High Country Activities at 970-389-8214 to book your one-of-a-kind adventure.
High Country Activities is a full service concierge service for the towns of Frisco, Dillon and Silverthorne as well as Summit County, Colorado. www.highcountryactivities.com
Owner, Jane Shafroth, grew up in England and came to Colorado for graduate school at the University of Colorado and has been in Colorado ever since. She has lived in Summit County, Colorado for 11 years, and has owned a B&B and worked for a ski resort. She is married with two grown sons and owns a Golden Retriever called Sawyer who was born in Breckenridge. When not in Colorado, Jane and her husband Peter are either sailing or scuba diving in the Caribbean.
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