WE SKIED 6 MOUNTAINS IN 6 DAYS LIVING IN OUR VAN! (Colorado van life)

If you've watched our recent videos, you've seen us winterizing the van, getting ski lessons to better our skills on the slope, and practicing our cold exposure to be able to withstand longer periods of.

Time on the mountain.

All of that effort was to get us ready for this week. This is the grand finale of winter van life. Over the next six days, we are going to be skiing six different resorts and completing four different challenges that will push us way out of our comfort zone. As skiers who have only skied for 12 days in our entire lives, we are going to attempt to ski down from the top of the highest chairlift in the U.S. we're skiing through trees, ski the longest run in Colorado, which is 5.3 miles without stopping, ride every single chairlift at Colorado's largest resort.

But the challenge that has me the.

Most nervous is about to start right now.

So we're in Leadville with the Knoth family, and Evie and Frankie are on ski team today. They have a race at their local.

Ski resort, but apparently this race is.

Open to all ages.

And Rick and Beck took it upon themselves to enter Kara and I into the ski race.

I have not been this nervous about something since bungee jumping in Switzerland, because I know for a fact that I'm too competitive to hold anything back.

But I also know that I'm not.

Near a good enough skier to be racing this course. I just hope neither one of us get hurt today.

All right, Frankie, do you have any tips for me?

No, but I already done it one time. That was when I was, like, four.

What place did you get?

First? First place.

I got a golden medal.

I'm really nervous. Are you nervous?

Just tuck and turn around the gate.

I'm not sure if I know how.

To tuck and turn yet.

You gonna beat all the boys?

Yeah.

What if you fall?

Just get up and keep going.

Okay.

Good advice.

I love you. Good luck. Please don't hurt yourself.

Okay?

I love you, too.

Three, two, one.

Okay. Oh, my. Go.

Go, Carol.

So far, so good. Why did I put these so close together?

I can't do this. I can't keep doing. It.

Does get a little deep.

140.

Go, Rick.

Pressure's on.

I've never been so nervous in my life. Five, four, three, two, one.

Hit it, bud.

Here we go. How did Rick talk me into this?

I don't feel like I'm going that fast.

Come on.

Bite edge.

Yeah.

I gotta be care. Oh, my legs are burning so bad. Oh, they're burning. I'm going fast.

Ah.

1:32 oh, dang it.

Nice work.

Oh, wow. That was a rush. I haven't had that much adrenaline course.

Through my body in such a long time.

So we're gonna start with the ladies. First place in the 30 to 39 division, Kara Buchanan.

I win third place with a 13716 team.

Frankie.

Congratulations. All of my ski coaches right here. I owe it all to these girls.

I'm so proud of you.

Thank you.

Medals were done by age group.

I may or may not have been the only person in my age group. We don't know for sure.

We're pretty sure.

Kara and Frankie may have gotten medals, but group standings ended up being Evie got first place.

No surprise there.

Rick got second. I got third. Frankie in fourth place.

And in fifth place, the gold medal winner.

It feels so wrong.

All right, Challenge one, day. One. Wait.

Over the next few days, we are going to be skiing some of the biggest and most popular ski resorts in all of Colorado. And unlike Taos, New Mexico, where we could camp in the parking lot for $25 a night, we've heard it's very frowned upon, as in, we'll get kicked out if we try to sleep overnight at any of these resorts.

But thankfully, we have friends or friends of friends or brother in laws, uncles, friends within, like, two or three degrees.

Of a relationship between us and the Knoth family. We have driveways and the right places, so for the next few nights, we'll be sleeping in the van in people's driveways who we have some sort of relationship to.

Oh, no.

I can't see anything.

All right. I am just so happy this morning. Today is a very exciting day for many reasons. First, we got at least 2 inches of fresh snow last night, and it's still coming down really hard. Also, we're skiing the second most popular resort in the entire U.S. breckenridge is like one of two ski resorts that I had heard of before we started skiing. And we're attempting our second challenge today, which is to ski down for the highest ski lift in the entire US it sits at 12,800ft.

That is well above tree line. And the easiest way to get down.

Is skiing a black diamond, which is only slightly outside of our comfort zone at this point.

I'd like to point out that it is extremely outside of my comfort zone.

Nice work.

What an incredible day.

Before we hit the slopes today, I have a confession to make. I'll take you inside for it.

This van is really taking a beating. If anyone was watching our last video and taking any inspiration for Building a ski locker in their van, Not a good idea. Let me show you what's happened. The skis, I originally had them strapped on with this piece of Velcro and then this hook with double sided tape. That hook ended up ripping out of the wall like two seconds after we started driving. Didn't work at all.

We made it on the chairlift. It was a little bit of a mission here, but it's going to be totally worth it.

We've got at least 3 inches of fresh powder, and we're going to get a few practice runs in before heading all the way up to the top.

Man, this is incredible.

It's good work.

No.

Oh, no. I'm making it worse.

Oh, no.

My ski is stuck.

Well, that's embarrassing.

Get me out of the trees.

Following you.

Oh, no.

Show it off for the camera.

That's an intimidating sign. All right, this is happening. We're all warmed up. We are on Chair 6, working our way up to the Imperial super Chair, the tallest chairlift in the entire United States.

Ooh, nervous?

Good luck, guys.

We are currently on the highest chairlift in the whole country.

Everything you see in front of us is all black terrain, and somehow we have to make our way back down it. Do you think we're in a little over our heads? Yes. Look at that wind.

The weather is brutal. We made it. The highest lift in North America. Frankie, you think you're the first six year old to go down this? Ow. This hurts. Oh, I can't feel my fingers. Here we go. Oh, we're just going straight down the ridgeline. The wind is whipping.

This is insane.

The powder is so deep.

It's so deep. W.

W.

I'm okay. All good. I couldn't see anything but powder. We're skiing through trees. We're out of the wind now. Let's hope that.

This is crazy. I can't even see my sk.

Not only do we survive that run, but we're doing it again.

Yeah, Rick.

My first wipeout of the day.

Good job, buddy.

This is the coolest thing I've ever done on skis.

Go easy.

It's a perfect job for you.

Did you say jump?

Nice.

Yeah. Cara.

Rex, you're doing it again.

Oh, my gosh. This is the best day of my life. Good work, team.

I just want to do that same thing 10 more times.

Wasn't that awesome?

That was the most fun I've had all year.

Look what we just found on our car.

So sweet.

Appreciate the offer, Bill.

That is so kind.

Oh, that feels good.

Hey, Another day without an injury. Is that what you're gonna say? Yeah.

I would happily wake up and relive that day over and over again for the next 30 days and have no problem at all with it.

You're so cute.

That was the greatest day of skiing ever. And I am so sad that it's over. Seriously, best day ever. Man, that was amazing.

That was a scary shot.

Real quick, I want to say a big thank you to Athletic Greens for sponsoring this video. AG1 has been a part of our daily routine for almost two years now. The other day I got a message from a guy who was like, do you actually drink that green stuff every day that you talk about in your videos? I always say, I'm not just doing this. I don't only drink it when I'm drinking in the day. Every day.

Single.

Ask any of our friends we've traveled with. I take this with me everywhere. Anyway, just one scoop of this stuff or one Travel pack contains 75 vitamins, minerals and whole food source ingredients, which I can guarantee I was not getting from just my normal diet alone before AG1. I can also guarantee that 75 different supplements would not fit in my cabinet. During weeks like this where we're not getting a ton of sleep and we're pushing our bodies really hard, it's extra important to me that our bodies are getting the vitamins and minerals they need. And that's why we consider AG1 our nutritional insurance. If you could do some nutritional insurance of your own, click the link below to get the AG1 immunity bundle. Your first purchase will include this jar and shaker, plus a one year supply of these vitamin D drops which help support your immune system. And you'll get five free travel packs. All right, back to the slopes.

So tonight we're sleeping in another friend's driveway. This one's extra fancy. The reason there's no snow on it is because it's heated. I know. And yeah, tomorrow we're skiing Belle. Also, Kara was so hungry that she literally started cooking dinner while we were driving.

Let's try it.

Dang it.

Completely frozen. So I'll just move the shoe to get the water. This is pretty much like having a sink.

See?

Yeah, it's not the same.

So I've made this recipe a few times in the past on our channel, but I had no idea how popular it was. I got a text from my friend the other day and apparently if you search peanut butter ramen, one of Google's suggested searches is peanut butter ramen. Cara and Nate. So for that reason I am renaming this dish Cara's Famous Peanut Butter Ramen. And if you're one of the people who have searched for this recipe, I'm going to leave tonight's version of it in the description below. Because it changes every time depending on what I have and how lazy I'm feeling. It's very easy no matter what. Step one, saute fresh ginger and garlic. Fresh ginger.

Okay.

After these have sauteed, that's when I usually add the water and just the regular old packet that comes in the ramen. However, we are still doing veganuary and unfortunately the only thing the store had was meat flavored ramen. So tonight I'm going to attempt to make my own spice ramen. First I'm gonna add some water.

Ah, it's burning me.

That was not good. That was not a good idea.

Why is this happening?

Okay, so should I go off of.

What the package says minus the meat? Salt, monosodium glutamate, sugar, onion powder, soy sauce, leek chips, disodium malicane, disodium disodium.

Guanate, corn oil, sodium cyan, milk products.

Wow, that sounds awful. Salt, soy sauce.

Looks good.

Need something spicy. Cayenne.

Perfect.

I think I need more water.

Okay. Now obviously there's peanut butter. However much you like doesn't really matter. I'm so good at this. Now let this heat up and let the peanut butter get all creamy in the broth.

Now you just cook the noods.

Tara's famous one pan Peanut Butter Ramen. K, S, O, P, P, B. Alright, that's too many letters. Okay, in conclusion, if you're really wanting to make this to yourself, all you do is cook ramen according to the package directions and add a scoop of peanut butter. That's the most basic form.

If you make this dish and you're going to call it Kara's Famous One Pot Peanut Butter Ramen, you must top it with fresh cilantro. No excuses. Bonus points if you add chopped up green onions and tested sesame seeds.

Cue the cilantro song.

I love cilantro. Yes, I do. And if you like spicy, of course. Sriracha.

That's it.

Is the kitchen table ready?

Maybe I'll just.

Cheers.

Cheers. Thank you.

It's been so long.

I dreamed about this today on the slopes.

Did you really?

You've made this like a hundred times.

Does it taste different?

I don't think so.

I didn't use the spice packet.

Nice. Should we watch some YouTube?

Yeah, yeah.

See you in the morning.

All right, let's See if we can get out of this driveway without running into anything. The top half is heated, but the. The bottom half, not so much. Nice and slow. All right, and we're rolling.

Nicely done.

That's an exciting start to the morning. All right, let's go ski the most popular resort in the entire U.S.

So not only is Vail the most.

Popular ski resort in the entire US by the number of people who visit every year, it's also the largest resort in terms of skiable acres. And today, we have two challenges. We are going to attempt to ski.

Down every open lift at the largest.

Ski resort in the US that's 25 out of the 33 lifts at Vail. And hopefully, in doing so, we're going to accomplish our second challenge, which is.

To ski the vertical descent.

Is that a thing? The vertical descent of Mount Everest. So we are going to attempt to ski down 29,029ft of vertical elevation. This past summer, we actually climbed that amount of elevation in Vermont by not sleeping for 28 hours and hiking up and down a mountain 17 times. I think today should be a little more enjoyable.

Let's go, team. Let's do it.

What do you think our chances are of actually completing this?

I think they're pretty good. They're probably at least 75%. A lot of it just depends on whether we get lost, maybe whether the kids hold up. Maybe weather care needs a coffee break or two along the way.

First lift of the day. Rivabond 6.

Look how icy they are. Good morning, belle.

Chair number one of 25.

I don't know if you can see.

But my eyeballs are leaking.

The cold hurts. This morning, Rick said.

The van said negative 14.

Can you point me out our general.

Our general plan today? Yeah, basically, we go up the Rivabah, down to High Light Extension Express, over to Sourdough, up that, down to Northwoods, up that, Then we go in the Back Bowls. We work our way around the Back Bowls, back out of the Back Bowls, and then we start doing the western half of the front side, through the main village, and back over to lion said. All together, 25 chairs. I think if we keep a good pace, we'll just get it in in time.

Are you crying? Are you so emotional about this? I've always wanted to do this. I don't know if you can see these stairs.

The dog cried, too.

What a beautiful morning. One down, 24 to go.

That was a really great first run.

All right, we knocked out chair one in 13 minutes. Run number two down to chair three. Chair number three.

We timed it on the minute it opens right now.

No way. Sourdough Express.

The bad thing about being the first one on all these chairs is that they're frozen. And so is my butt. Is this chair four or five?

Six. Six.

All right. Our fourth lift has taken us to what the sign calls the legendary Back Bowls of L.

We're still on track. Lift number five.

This is so beautiful.

We missed the blue run. Now we're just working our way across the block. I think Rick's trying to kill us this morning.

We live. That was intense. When we went on the outside and.

Looked back at y', all, the mountain looked so giant, and y' all just.

Look like these tiny little ants coming back.

It's crazy.

It was an adrenaline rush, but I think it slowed down our progress a little bit.

Sunshine. Woo. I gotta pee.

This bathroom grate may be the reason we don't finish today.

Ride. Ride. Ride. Ride. Run.

Let's go, let's go, let's go.

All right, Chair number seven. We're taking the Skyline Express to Blue Sky Basin.

Oh, the sunshine.

This is the master plan that Rick put together.

Made more sense last night at 10 o'. Clock.

Okay, this is a big moment. We're about to step off our eighth.

Chairlift, which means we're a third of the way through.

We're a third of the way done.

Yeah.

It's 10:30. I think that puts us on track.

Chair number nine, the Teacup Express. This is without a doubt the coldest.

Day of skiing we've ever done in our lives.

I'm still having fun, though.

Beautiful powder.

Chair number 10.

Our first serious line at chair number 11. Back on the front side of the mountain, so it's a lot more crowded.

We majorly underestimated the amount of snacks that we would be eating per day when we went to the grocery store last week. So we're all out of snacks, and I've resorted to packing leftovers in my pocket. So I'm having some leftover vegan pizza right now.

What else do you have in your pocket?

Leftover KFC Beyond Nuggets.

She's been skiing with chicken nuggets and pizza in her pocket all day. I'll make fun of you and then I'll take a bite.

We're going up to my.

We're halfway.

This is chair number 12, Wildwood Express.

Nugget time.

We've accidentally found ourselves on a giant mogul slope.

White Diamond Mogul.

Here we go.

What could go wrong?

Nice turn.

You okay?

That's a leg burner.

Nice. I don't want you to get any.

Ideas, but that was really fun. Okay, 13.

Well, we said we were going to.

Do them all, so.

This isn't helping our time.

Lift number 14 is the magic Carpet. How's it going, Rick?

Got the need for speed.

We're gonna graduate from the bunny slopes today. There we go. Now we get to go down, down the bunny slope.

All right, lift number 15 is Gopher Hill. Notice the possibly slower than the rest.

I feel like I could hop off of it right now.

More like a carnival ride.

All right, number 16 is the main gondola.

We're two thirds of the way there.

Hey, hey, hey.

Just bring the balls.

Bring the ball. Sorry, I wasn't prepared for that.

Oh, it's starting to feel like a bit of a physical challenge now.

Whoa. This is crazy. Who needs to walk a new type of lift? I love that.

I got turn on Red Clouds.

I like that one. That was high tech.

Number 18 is Thundercat Carpet, the longest one of the day.

By longest, I do mean shortest.

Number 19. Little regal. These tiny lifts are great for our.

Numbers, but we do get some funny looks.

All right, we're starting Simba's rhyme down at Cascade Village. This is the longest rhyme at the entire resort. This is our 20th lift. And it's also lift number 23. More left.

Thanks for Nathan.

I haven't had a smooth entrance onto the gondola yet. 22.

So we're going to the movie chairs.

After this place that has margaritas and Mexican restaurant.

It's 2:30.

Oh, we're gonna finish early.

We're gonna have time for the kill.

Two, four. Cheers. Chair number 23.

We're so close.

I'm getting delirious.

You know what?

This is kind of like our last. One last run. One last run.

How you feel, Franks?

We lost her mentally a long time ago.

Here we go. Second to last run.

My legs. So I got to fall like jelly beans.

Should we stop now, Frank?

No, this is it right here. One more. Jealous? Come on, Frankie. You're so close.

Let it go.

4, 3.

Win our skis touch the snow up here, we will have officially ridden every open lift and bow.

Did you fall asleep on the last chair left?

No, but I forgot to.

3, 2.

What a bride.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

You guessed it.

Last night we slept in another friend's driveway.

And this morning we are skiing Beaver Creek. To be completely honest, we are all exhausted from our big day yesterday, so.

We'Re planning on taking it pretty easy.

But we do still have one challenge for today, and that challenge is to find the chefs who are handing out free, warm chocolate chip cookies on the slopes. But now that I say that out loud, maybe Rick and Beck just wanted to make sure that we skied with them today.

I think Rick has some bad news for us.

I got a spreadsheet out last night just to double check. So I. I tallied up the numbers. We did 27,924ft. But the real kind of bummer was that there was really only one chairlift yesterday that wasn't open. Earl's Express and Blue Sky Basin. They haven't opened it this year. If we had done that, that thing is 1357ft, and we only needed 1105 to get our Everest 29029. So we were just that one chairlift short, and it wasn't open. Butter.

Bummer.

So we didn't achieve our goal yesterday. But the real bummer is all of our tracking devices broke, and we had finished all the lifts 30 minutes early. So we could have easily gone back up for another run and gotten 29,000ft of elevation in. But we just didn't know that we were short. We started eating chips and salsa just a little too early.

Let's do it.

You.

This is the deepest powder I've ever skied. For sure.

That was our first time skiing through.

Aspens, as opposed to evergreen trees.

You could just see so much further.

It takes a lot of my stress away because I'm not, like, guessing what's coming around the corner.

And look at this snow.

You're so close.

Nice.

Put your hands like this.

This is just what the girls need.

It a new trick to roll around in the snow.

The sun is coming out.

It's been a very different day from yesterday.

They were both incredible in their own ways. Today we skied some fresh powder, did some tree skiing, stopped at the candy cabin.

There you made the heaviest candy bag.

Warmed up by the fire at the Ritz Carlton. But now it's time for the main event. Car is in a full tuck for the cookies.

Quick.

Go, go, go.

Ah, the rumors are true.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

I can't believe this is happening.

That was the best free $300 cookie I've ever had.

I've never had a better cookie in my whole life.

Okay, let's be at the door. Let's be ready for the next batch.

Come on.

Today's challenge is get as many free cookies as possible.

I got a cookie from each chef. I have four.

You're the pro.

I need to follow you around.

Thank you so too. You're so generous.

Wow. I'm in heaven.

Beaver Creek is the best.

Between the fresh powder this morning and.

The warm cookies this afternoon, this might be our new favorite resort.

Big anyway is over us is right now. We almost made it.

We gotta get out of this town.

Yeah, and go where?

Where are we gonna go?

Aspen.

Little chilly this morning.

The van says 3 degrees. If you guessed that we slept in a friend's driveway last night, that would be a good guess, but you would be wrong. We slept in Cara's sisters, husbands, uncles, wife's tennis office parking lot. Today we're skiing Aspen. We have about a 30 minute drive to get to the mountain. And it's the day that we mark off our fifth and final challenge.

I just said there's a toilet at the parking lot.

Don't know if you heard that, but it's the little things when you live in the van.

Well, we've been in Aspen for about five seconds and I am already in.

Love with with this place.

Free coffee. Thank you so much.

Cheers.

Wow. I love Aston.

We have just ridden the elk camp.

Lift all the way to the top.

Of the resort and we are about to ski down the longest run in all of Colorado. It is 5.3 miles and we're going to try to do the entire thing without stopping.

Amy just taught me how to boot the ski.

Wish me luck.

I wasn't actually thinking I was gonna follow my face, but then I did.

All right, Evie, show me how it's done.

Yeah, Franks. Oh, no. This is it.

We can do it.

I feel like I need to go pee before we start.

How long is this going to take?

All right, is everybody ready? Three, two, one, go.

So it turns out we didn't do long shot.

You didn't do long shot. I'm sorry. No hike, no long shot.

We did a run that we thought was long shot. Apparently you actually have to go on about a quarter mile hike to the back side of the mountain just to get to the run.

Man, were we wrong.

This is long shot. We have to hike up to the top and then I'm pretty sure long.

Shot is actually on the other side of the mountain. Thankfully, somebody set us straight.

Thankfully.

Or unthankfully, depending on how hard this hike is. Are you glad we're doing the hike, Frankie?

No.

Wonder how many 6 year olds have been this.

I got the heart rate up.

That was not easy.

And the dad of the year award goes to.

I only carried it last, like, 10ft.

That was awful. Oh, come on. Look at this view. 3, 2, 1. Go.

Yoo.

Yoo.

Wow. This is awesome. The snow is different. We're only a quarter of the way done.

What?

Totally worth the hike. That's so fun. Yeah. This is awesome. Halfway, and we haven't stopped in five minutes.

Three quarters.

Go, go, go, go, Go, Frankie. Just bombing it. Man, those rollers are fun.

That way.

Right, right, right, right, right. Sorry. That's what the pointing and the waving was for.

Almost 12 minutes in, and we're still going. The lift is in view. This is the run that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on. My 5.3 miles.

Guess how long that was?

12 minutes. 14.

14.

Okay, we have now done the longest.

Run in Colorado, and the video is officially over.

It says Cooper cup on the back.

Cooper Cup. It's kind of like the Stanley cup or the World cup, but bigger and more important.

That's what we looked like out there.

You didn't do this?

No, I didn't do any of that. Another day in the life of Frankie. Can you believe Nate and I are doing this race and we've only skied 12 times?

Oh, my God.

No more skiing in the next video. This is probably it for us as far as skiing goes. You've watched enough mediocre skiing. Before you go, I just wanted to let you know that we are going.

To be choosing the winner of the Antarctica giveaway later today.

Over on Fair Drop's Instagram page, we are going to be doing a live drawing. We've used technology to narrow it down to the top 100 people. It's completely random, and we're going to write those hundred names on this pack of index cards, and we are going to manually draw the winner. So if you want to join us over there, we'll leave a link in the description below.