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 sixth year, Fireside is happening again in 2024 on March 23rd - 26th at Breckenridge Colorado.

Past years at fireside

🤔 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 on Sunday and Monday nights 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 🙃.

trails🔎 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 pool table and 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 2 group dinners + 3 breakfasts. This will cost $575 per person.

Ski-specific potential additional costs:
Travel-specific potential additional costs:

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

March is usually some of the best skiing in Colorado! That said, mother nature never makes any promises, so I can’t make any either. Whatever the situation, we'll make the best of it.

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 1 additional car in the garage, and then parking in the driveway. 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 Nov 19.

🤝 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:

  1. Read the code of conduct and make sure you’re committed to abiding by it.
  2. Shoot me an email, let me know who you are, and if you’ll be bringing any +1s.
  3. 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.