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Tourist in My Hometown: Aspen’s Pine Creek Cookhouse

Isn’t it funny how you don’t often don’t the “touristy” things in your own backyard unless you have out-of-town visitors? We had good friends visiting from Orlando, Florida, last week — and they’d never played in the snow before! We had a ball sledding, skiing and snowmobiling, and generally wearing them out with all the winter adventures you can have in the Aspen area.

One activity we splurged on was lunch at the Pine Creek Cookhouse, a massive rustic log cabin that’s only accessible via sleigh, snowshoes or cross-country skis in the wintertime. It’s cheaper to buy a trail pass at the cross-country center and hoof it up to the restaurant, but we opted for the 20-minute sleigh ride into the wilderness ($25 for kids; $35 for adults roundtrip). With the a la carte lunch, featuring soups, stews, sandwiches, salads and kids’ menu ($11 for mac n cheese!) the total for the afternoon outing for the six of us was $360. Not inexpensive by any means, but for our Florida friends, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

When I asked my kids — ages 6, 8 and 8 — what they thought of the day, their first comments were, “The horses were smelly.” But with prodding, I got from my young son, “It was the best pizza.” Then from my daughter, “I liked sucking on the big icicles from the roof.”

Okaaaaaay. So maybe they didn’t appreciate the gorgeous mountain scenery and gourmet meals (think wild game stew and smoked mashed potatoes) like the grownups did, but we all had a grand time.

I think I’ll let our photos do the talking (thanks, Melissa, for sharing):

Source: MountainMama