Fireside Cocoa (West)
🏂⛷️ + 👨💻🔥👩💻
Fireside Cocoa is a retreat for members of the iOS / macOS (and adjacent!) communities, bringing together a dozen people for a great weekend of skiing, snowboarding, and camaraderie. As a retreat there are no talks, just a group of developers, designers, and product people hanging and enjoying the snow.
Back for its seventh year, Fireside is happening again in 2025 on Jan 25th - 28th at Breckenridge Colorado.
🤔 Tell Me More...
Join us in a private condo at Breckenridge for a three night trip with two full days of skiing and snowboarding. Arrive at Breckenridge Saturday evening, ski Sunday and Monday to avoid the crowds, and then leave Tuesday morning.
While there, you can expect group dinners at the condo along with group breakfasts. Lunches are self-organized as we’ll be at the resort and I have no desire to mother-hen the entire group for a lunch on a 3,702 acres ski resort 🙃.
🔎 The Breckenridge Trail Map
You can plan on two full days of skiing. In past years people liked to stick together in smaller clusters, but we always have enough people of various skill levels that any skill level of skiing or snowboarding is welcome (and they offer lessons there if you’re new). It’s a great mountain with plenty of trails to check out no matter your experience.
Evenings, besides said dinners, are self-organized inside the condo. You’re welcome to bring a board game, a Nintendo Switch, or whatever else. There is a hot tub (bring your bathing suit!) at the condo. It’s generally pretty chill; a great opportunity to chat and make new friends long into the night.
Cost
Included in the cost is the group house for 3 nights + the 3 group dinners + 3 breakfasts. This will cost $575 per person.
Ski-specific potential additional costs:
- Lift passes are ~$235 per day when you book ahead of time online. If you have an Epic Pass, Breck is a part of that so you’ll ski for free.
- If you need to rent skis or a snowboard you’re looking at an additional ~$75 per day. Christy Sports is a local go-to for rentals.
- If you’d like lessons, they are also available through the resort.
Travel-specific potential additional costs:
- If you’re flying in from out of state (fly into Denver International), beyond the price of your plane ticket, expect to spend ~$150 for a round-trip shuttle from the airport to the resort via a service like Epic Mountain Express If you have the Epic season pass, I believe they offer a discount too.
Please be sure to book any of those additional items well ahead of time, especially your lift tickets.
🔍 Some Additional Details
+1’s
+1s are encouraged! The atmosphere is one of shared camaraderie, not technical lectures. The last few years have been a great mix of people and I’d expect any non-Mac/iOS to enjoy themselves too again this year. The condo has multiple private rooms for couples.
Wifi
Yes, there is wifi. This isn’t a retreat for savages! If you need to get some work done while you’re up here, you’ll be able to. That said, the laptops have rarely come out in the past, most people are too busy chatting to bother with work!
Weather / Ski Conditions
Mother nature never makes any promises, so I can’t make any either. Whatever the situation, we'll make the best of it. That said, late Jan is almost always great in Colorado.
Weather-wise it never seems to get too fridgid here. Bring some layers to say warm, but also bring sunscreen as the UV can be brutal at this altitude.
Driving In
There is on-site parking for 3 additional cars, at least assuming there is no snow in the way. Last year some people parked in the Airport lot, which has free overnight parking. An AWD vehical is going to be required for winter months.
🕚 Extra Ski Days
I’ll be in Breckenridge early on Saturday and staying later on Tuesday as everyone leaves. I can store luggage for a limited number of people in my car if you want to ski / snowboard either of those days to min/max your trip out.
Please coordinate this with me before booking any travel plans.
If you do this, you may save money on lift tickets by instead getting an Epic Local Pass before mid-Nov.
🤝 Code of Conduct
We will be living together for 3 days, and as such it is important to me that everyone feels safe and welcome. Please refer to the code of conduct for a baseline of expectations.
Seriously: make my friends feel uncomfortable and we’ll have consequences and no refunds #phillytoughlove.
‼️ I’m Interested! What Next?
To keep my stress level low-ish, I’m doing this on a first-come first-serve basis (+/- some fudging to make sure the bedding situation all works out as I need it to). Interested? You’ll need to:
- Read the code of conduct and make sure you’re committed to abiding by it.
- Shoot me an email, let me know who you are, and if you’ll be bringing any +1s.
- I’ll let you know if we still have room, and then I’ll have you Square / Venmo / Apple Pay / Google Pay me the $575 per person. Your beds aren’t reserved until you do this.