Last January, father and son John and Connor Tedstrom took the ski trip of a lifetime. Connor’s company gifts employees a 30-day paid sabbatical for every five years of employment. Looking at such a nice chunk of time, the possibilities seemed endless. He and his wife considered a trip to Europe, or perhaps New York City, or a drive to Acadia National Park and the northeastern corner of the United States.

“But at one point he said, ‘I just want to ski. I just want to ski with my dad,'” said John — a natural desire for a kid who grew up in Eagle County, loving winter sports. Currently living on the Front Range, skiing takes a bit more planning than it did as a kid.

So together he and his father landed on the idea of the Radical Sabbatical — a road trip around Colorado during which they skied every resort in the state.

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“We skied 26 resorts in 25 days,” John said. “We had to logistically figure out how to do this. We spent a lot of time planning it.”

The guidelines to check off a ski area constituted taking at least four runs, taking a photograph and consuming a local beer.

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“In every case, we skied way more than four runs,” John said. “We also said at the beginning that we were going to talk to everyone and meet as many people as we could. That meant talking to everyone at the bar, on the chairlift, everywhere. It was easy to talk to people. We had a lot to say. Everyone wanted to know about our adventure.”

Growing up in Vail with an older brother (Charlie) and younger sister (Anna) after the family moved from Texas, neither Connor nor his dad had done much exploring at ski areas beyond Eagle or Summit counties. They purchased both Epic and Ikon passes for the undertaking. The adventure began on the Front Range, using Connor’s house in Denver as a home base. They tackled Eldora on Day 1, then Winter Park/Mary Jane on Day 2 and Loveland on Day 3.

“Some of the best experiences were skiing different resorts,” Connor said. “That was fun to see new places with my dad, explore new terrain and be a tourist on a new mountain. There was no snow at the beginning of January, then it started dumping at Steamboat. It was a sigh of relief when we got some good snow.”

Staying at an Airbnb in Steamboat Springs, where their wives met them for a couple of days, the Tedstroms landed a pair of glorious powder days at the northern Colorado resort, a welcome onslaught of about 30 inches of fresh snow. In the blog they produced for the trip, this made the cut for “best ski day.”

Homebase day trips

After that, they moved their home base to John’s house in Edwards, gunning toward the familiar slopes of Beaver Creek and Vail as well as Breckenridge, Keystone, Copper Mountain, Arapahoe Basin and Ski Cooper. They got lucky with another massive powder day at Vail (which, they both say, will always be their all-time favorite mountain in Colorado), arriving at the top of one of their favorite runs in China Bowl just in time for fresh tracks.

“We got to the top of Genghis Khan right when the rope was getting ready to drop,” John recalled. “We’re standing there with all these people. The rope dropped and Connor took off. He was literally the first guy to the lift at the bottom, racing one other guy to get there first. He had an amazing run.”

Of the many people they met and talked to at all of these close-to-home resorts, they were reminded that the world is in fact small when they struck up one particular conversation at Ski Cooper.

“We were in the bar having our beer. I turned to the woman and gentleman next to us and said, ‘We’re from Edwards.’ She pointed at Connor and said, ‘I recognize you.’ It turns out, she was his kindergarten teacher,” John said. “It was amazing she could recognize and remember him from back then. He’s 32.”

The father-son duo racked up even more standout moments when their Radical Sabbatical landed in Aspen, where they stayed at the ski-in ski-out condo of one of Connor’s high school friends.

“We met a local real estate agent in Aspen. He invited us to ski with him. He showed us all the local runs on Aspen Mountain, especially the new Hero’s area. We wouldn’t have been able to find them on our own,” John said. “At Snowmass, we rode the chairlift up with a bunch of guys in their 70s who had been skiing together for 30 years. I think they meet every day. They were super friendly, great fun to be with.”

When they hit Aspen Highlands, they ended up separating for a few runs when faced with another enticing rope-drop situation at the long, steep hike leading to Highland Bowl.

“We didn’t know anything about Highlands. We got to the bottom of Highland Bowl and we’re watching ski patrol bomb it. A lot of people are watching and the energy is building, because they’re getting ready to open it,” John said. “They drop the rope, and everyone just starts running with their skis on their shoulders. I mean, that’s like a 45-minute hike, and everyone is running. Connor is the first guy down. He does it two more times that day. I watched and did the runs next to the Highlands Bowl on Deep Temerity lift. Some of the most fun, steepest terrain on the mountain. Just without the 45-minute hike! It was a great day.”

Pacing themselves

The duo were careful, given their packed schedule and priority to keep the trip radical and fun, to avoid overdoing either the on-the-hill or aprés portions of each day. They did take a rest day 12 days into the adventure.

“I love to ski and I love to ski everything. The deeper, the better. I’m an aggressive skier for an old guy,” John said. “I’ve skied three or four days in a row before, but never this many. I usually ski 40-60 days a year, but over a whole season. We got tired, but I was very focused on pacing myself, making sure we weren’t staying out every night until midnight drinking beer.”

Their plan to maximize time on the ski hill panned out nicely when they moved on to Powderhorn. Once they arrived at the Western Slope resort on the Grand Mesa, they stayed in a yurt located at the base of the mountain, adjacent to the chairlift. This accommodation made their short list for “best lodging.”

“The yurt was about 50 yards from the lift. It had a wood-burning fireplace. And the bathroom facilities were in the main lodge. We had everything right there and could get right up the mountain first thing,” John recalled. “We even saw a fox at the lift in the morning. That was a special experience.”

Finding their favorites

Making the long haul to ski areas in the southern corner of the state, they bagged another amazing day of face shots and soft turns at Silverton, then hit the little-known (and little in size) Kendall Mountain before notching Telluride, Purgatory and another obscure and tiny area — Chapman Hill.

“When we were driving back to Durango, we saw a lighted ski hill. It was Chapman Hill — a small, municipal ski area. Connor went over and skied that. He’s this 6-foot-4 giant lapping that hill in the dark with all the middle school kids from town,” John said.

It was just outside of Purgatory that the duo discovered their favorite après ski haunts of the trip — The Nugget and Olde Schoolhouse.

“They were these incredible little locals bars — little hole-in-the-wall places right off the road,” John recalled. “We loved finding those.”

The last resorts to cross off the list were Wolf Creek, Monarch and Crested Butte. The Tedstroms made sure to notch “longish days” at these areas to relish the last window of their trip. For both skiers, however, the time together, even on the long drives, outshone even the best powder turns and colorful characters they encountered throughout their 25-day adventure.

The most radical part

“I was able to drive around Colorado with my dad listening to music and having deep conversations,” Connor said. “How great is that? Throughout the experience, I was also trying to not take for granted that this was an incredible benefit my company offered, a great retention benefit to come back feeling rejuvenated.”

For John, the time with his son felt full circle at times, as he often found himself drifting into nostalgic memories of Connor’s childhood, even from before the family moved to Vail when Connor and his siblings were young.

“As a parent, that kind of stuff comes into your head all the time,” he mused. “There’s memories of them as little kids, all the fun you had. When Connor was little — maybe 5 — we were skiing in Breckenridge. It was a whiteout. He was literally screaming about not wanting to be there. He was terrified. Then moving here, watching him grow up and surpassing me as a skier — he’s a beautiful skier — to see that transformation — is spectacular. I’d always ask my kids to ski with me. They were my best ski buddies. Their standard answer when they weren’t into it was ‘Not right now.’ So just being asked to do this by my son was very special. He’s busy. He’s got a lot of stuff going on. To spend 25 days skiing with his dad is a big deal. We cherish time with our adult children. The fact that we could spend that time together was amazing.”

For Connor, the trip supplied him with another point of admiration for his father.

“My dad is 63. For him to do that, it was impressive. He was probably more energetic and capable than I was. At the end of the month, the time did fly by,” Connor said. “The fact I had the opportunity to do this with my dad while he could still do this with me was one of the most special experiences I could possibly have. I will never forget it.”

“It was an amazing experience, he’s such a great kid, very easy to be around,” John said. “We just had fun, we spent a lot of time talking about life and goals, aspirations, what he wants to do with his life and career and family. As a dad, sometimes we tend to do a lot more telling than listening, because we’ve been there. I got to learn more about his perspective, what he wants to do in life. I was surprised by some of it.”

Since the trip, John, who led the strategy team in a 1,000-person marketing agency in his former life, has been thinking a lot about what he’s started calling “family touches.”

“Any time with family, especially adult children, is some of the most precious time you can spend. And if you have the opportunity to make it epic, do it.”

John Tedstrom

“Creating reasons and opportunities to spend time with our families is really important,” he said.

On a recent trip to raft the Grand Canyon with his wife, Carri, John met a family that does a monthly call, it could be 5 minutes or 30 minutes, but simply an update. And another friend does a family football pool, a family March Madness day.

“You ask if we had any overall thoughts,” he said. “I think the main idea is that any time with family, especially adult children, is some of the most precious time you can spend. And if you have the opportunity to make it epic, do it.”

Checking off 26 areas in 25 days, John and Connor skied more than 300,000 vertical feet, drove more than 1,850 miles, drank 100 beers and one tequila shot. That sounds pretty epic to us. 

The Itinerary

•  Eldora
•  Winter Park/Mary Jane
•  Loveland
•  Steamboat
•  Beaver Creek
•  Copper Mountain
•  Keystone
•  Breckenridge
•  Arapahoe Basin
•  Ski Cooper
•  Vail
•  Buttermilk
•  Tiehack
•  Aspen Highlands
•  Ajax
•  Aspen Snowmass
•  Sunlight Mountain
•  Powderhorn
•  Silverton
•  Kendall Mountain
•  Telluride
•  Purgatory
•  Chapman Hill
•  Wolf Creek
•  Monarch Mountain
•  Crested Butte
• Plus a drive-by of Hesperus, which was closed

This story originally appeared in Vail Valley Magazine.