What to do and where to go on your Aspen Colorado Girls Weekend
In my opinion, EVERY girls weekend needs to have an epic photo shoot and in my group of girlfriends we even have PLANNED our entire trip around the photo shoots before. Every year we have a theme and this year it was "red and white fur" since we opted to go to snowy Aspen. This time we were celebrating Angela's bachelorette party, but we wanted to not just go skiing and drinking, but we wanted a photo adventure! So we decided on two picturesque locales as our backdrop: The Maroon Bells and the snowy Aspen forests. Now we just had to plan a day adventure around getting us, our costumes, and my photo gear there in the snow! Our first adventure was via snowmobile.
Snowmobiling:
- T- Lazy 7 Snowmobile Tours:
The BEST and most fun way to see the White River National Forest, the Maroon Bells, and some of the deep back country wilderness of Colorado is by snowmobiling! We used T-Lazy 7 and we LOVED their guides and they were especially patient with our group of girls, since we packed water, camera gear, red and white fur, and make-up on the back of our snowmobiles in order to do a group girl's photo with the epic view of Maroon Bells in the background while the rest of the group stopped to have hot cocoa:). I'm pretty sure we must have been the first group they have ever led to strip down our of our snow gear into bikinis and fur at the top, but they were such great sports and even helped us to take the photos! Such a fun photo adventure!
Our second adventure we opted to snowshoe into an Aspen forest in order to get the shot. We heard about this amazing hidden gem called the Pine Creek Cookhouse where you can rent show shoes and trek to your lunch. This adventure turned out to be harder than we thought since the snow was 3 feet deep and we definitely had to stay on the trails or get lost in the woods forever. So we somehow managed with snowshoes on to do our sexy girls group photo with a tripod leaning against a tree and I have never laughed so hard in my life! If people could only see the behind-the-scenes of how unsexy and ungraceful we were trying to change from our snow hiking gear into sexy outfits!!... We SO earned our lunch after that and our 45 minute uphill show shoe adventure3 through the most beautiful forest trail along a river
Aspen's best kept secret, an amazing cookhouse with delicious food in the middle of the woods nestled in a gorgeous canyon about 25 minutes away. You can only get to the lodge by cross country skiing, snowshoeing, or a horse drawn sleigh! It's a fun adventure & challenging and by the time you reach the lodge, you have DEFINITELY earned your drinks and lunch!
Other than sexy, snowy photo shoot adventures, here are our choices for fun things to do, places to stay, restaurants to be seen at, and where to ski while in Aspen the next time you are looking for a fun Girls Weekend getaway!
Skiing:
There are 3 mountains & you can hop the free shuttle to any of them:
- Snowmass- My FAVORITE mountain to ski. It's about 15 mins away, but big wide open tree runs. Intermediate skiers do well on this mountain and have many long sweeping runs to explore.
- Ajax- Aspen Village is at the bottom of this. Pretty steep, so not for everyone. Here's a fun little trivia- there are shrines to old rock musicians all over the mountain, but they are pretty hard to find:
https://www.aspenchamber.org/
- Aspen Highlands- where Cloud Nine is. The BIG drawn here is the Highlands Bowl. Which you have to hike up a ridge line to access. Very weather dependent, scary AF. I've only done it once. Most tourists never do it. The rest of the mountain isn't as interesting.
Lodging:
About a 20 minute drive from downtown Aspen, but my favorite place to ski for sure! We all stayed at the Viceroy here where your ski valet is on your floor, fits you into your boots and skis, and you can ski out to the lift directly from your floor! It is such a luxurious way to stay and ski easily. I rolled out of bed and was on the slopes in 20 minutes!
- St. Regis Aspen
Iconic property at the end of town. Beautiful stone hearth with a roaring fire and a calmer, more relaxing upper scale scene:
https://www.marriott.com/
- Little Nell
Popular hotel, right at the base of Ajax. Modern and intimate.
- Hotel Jerome/ JBar- other famous hotel on the far side of Aspen. It's an Aspen tradition.
Restaurants
These are the 3 most popular. The best places to get reservations for dinner in Aspen and they always turn into a full after dinner social scene.
- Matsuhisa- by Nobu
- Cache Cache- contemporary spot with a bar
- Campo di Fiori- casual Italian spot
You can get in for early lunch seating, but definitely will need a reservation to get in for late lunch=>apres seating. It was once a cool Swiss-alp lodge, where you ate fondue & drank champagne. It's now a total party scene later in the day ie: spraying champagne, standing on tables, shirts off... If you are in to that sort of party weekend:) Watch video here: https://www.youtube.com/
Nightlife
- Caribou Club- famous private members only club. You can buy a temp membership for the week, as it's THE "high-end" end up bar. We ended up here every night as our last stop.
- Hooch Cocktail bar- beautiful understated cocktail bar
- Escobar- Rowdy fun late night spot if you don't go to Caribou. It looks like you are inside of an airplane hangar with a good DJ and dance floor.
- Belly Up- ALL of the famous bands perform here if they have a tour stop in Aspen. Definitely the spot for live music!