Weddings At Thunder Mountain Lodge

This summer/fall we are hosting four weddings here at Thunder Mountain Lodge.  The first two went great and we are looking forward to two more!  What's great is that you can have all of your friends stay and party with you all night, and then they can stay in all the cabins, set up their personal tents, or bring up their campers.  You can use the rental company we work with to set up a large event tent, or chance the weather without one.  We rent you the cabins and charge a venue fee, but for the most part we are out of the picture.  You are renting the space and have fun!  

Here are some photos from the wedding August 5th, 2017:

 

Here are some photos from the wedding September 9th, 2017:

Pricing:  

There is a 2 night minimum on the cabins, so each cabin is $160/night + taxes & fees.
The total for all 9 cabins with all taxes & fees would be $3222.72.  So now your friends and family have somewhere to stay for 2 nights.  If you are looking at our website, you will notice that $160 is higher than our normal cabin rate, but our cabin rates are based on 2 people, and we charge and extra $10/night/person or pet.  So we compromise at $160/night and you can put as many people as you'd like in each cabin.  You can park as many campers as you'd like, and you can put up as many personal sleeping tents as you'd like.  We usually charge per person, pet, camper, and tent, but this way we won't be stressing out, and hopefully you won't be either.  Also you have the 9 cabins, you can assign one or two as restrooms for your guests or you can rent port a potties and bring them up.

Wedding Venue Fee:  $500 + $250 for a security deposit.  You pay $750, but if you do a good job cleaning up, and don't trash our property, you get $250 back.  We think this is pretty fair.

  

Now if you want to rent a tent:  Depends what you want to get, but on the high end, if you get two tents, side walls, tables & chairs (as shown in the pictures from 9/9/17) The total is roughly $3000.  Probably less...

So for less than $7000 you have lodging, a venue, an event tent with tables & chairs.  Also since about $3000 is lodging, you can collect that from your friends and family who are staying in the cabins.  Weddings are expensive, but all you would need now is food, alcohol, decorations, a photographer, music, & an officiant.  nbd....

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2018 Ski-doo 850 Rentals this Winter!

Last year we upgraded our rental fleet with some new 2017 Ski-doo models, but we did not have 850s for rent. Well the demand was high, and we decided that for this winter we would get two new 2018 Ski-doo 850 SP 154s to add to our rental fleet. We also just ordered some new wrap kits so they match our fleet! We are getting excited for winter! Check the activities page on our website for more information and pricing.

This year we were unable to attend Hay Days, but we are there in spirit! 

See you when the snow flies!

Cabin #10 Improvements

The cabins at Thunder Mountain Lodge are each unique.  Each one has it's own personality.  They have had these personalities since before we bought them.  Our goal is to add to the character that is already there, and make each cabin great!  Cabin #10 needs a little more attention than the others.  I like to say that the garden walk wall paper is so bad it's awesome!  But there is also this pink wall paper in there that just does not belong in a cabin in the woods.  So I am undertaking the goal of putting up pallet board walls on top of the pink wall paper.  At first glance it looks like wall paper, but when you look closely you notice that it is paneling with texture in the pink flowers.  Kind of cool, but it still doesn't belong in a cabin...

Here are the steps I took:

1.  Prep the area

2.  Rip apart pallets

3.  Cut to size

4.  Sand

5.  Stain

6.  Polyurethane

Look at that shine!

7.  Paint the background wall brown

This is a very important step when working with pallet wood!  Pallets are not exact, and by painting the wall behind the pallets, it is much more forgiving.  You can see the texture on the panels now.

8.  Nail gun time!  I employed Jeff to come help with the big tools.

A few cuts were required as we were putting the pallets up.  I had decided that since the pallets are not really exact, that we would wait until this stage to cut the holes for the outlets.  

9.  Finished product

The other thing we addressed was the fact that Cabin #10 does not have a closet, rack, or shelf.  There was no way to hang anything or store extra blankets and pillows.  We had an old armoire that we moved in to solve the issue!  Sadly it blocks a lot of the beautiful new wall... but functionality wins here.

Also, if you look closely at the futon, we have two futon pads.  Cabin #10 has a lot of floor space.  So when we need to, we can pull one pad on the floor, put sheets on, and you can sleep more people now!  

This photo was taken Saturday 1/21/2017.  A little note here about the shovel.  Notice that it's on a hook by the door?  In the spring time we will find a red and black shovel that is buried somewhere under all of the snow....  Keep the shovels on the hooks, then when it snows 2 feet overnight, you can find your shovel!

Winter!

Winter has arrived in a fury!  Today we are getting our first major snow storm of the season.  Last year by November 17th we already had a three foot base of snow.  Winter is getting a late start this year, but his storm is making up for it.  It has been hammering hard for 4 hours now, and we have about 7+ inches of snow in the parking lot.  

The snow camera is live on our website now!  Check it out here.  Today has been windy, so it only shows that we have 5 1/2 inches.  When we get more snow, we will be able to put up the snow screen.  Then it'll be more accurate.  

If you are on snapchat, you should be following me for live updates:  @venusfairies ~ of course I mix in snaps of our cat Otto and cooking...  Life on the Mesa!  

Our summer and fall went by quickly!  We have been working hard on upgrading the cabins.  A few cabins now have new(er) mattresses.  We painted some exteriors, interiors, and added some new quilts and blankets.  Have you ever bought 150+ new towels?  It is expensive!  Even with a discount. But it is a nice amenity for our cabin guests to have all new fluffy towels!  Also somewhat new is supplying our guests with soaps and shampoos.  We used to tell people to bring their own personal soaps, but now we have some!  We are trying to make it so that the only thing you need to bring is groceries.  

Here you can see how we painted the bathroom in cabin 6.

In cabin 8, I redid the bathroom with pallets.  It turned out so amazing!  I pulled apart pallets, cut, sanded, stained, and polyurethaned the wood before putting it up on the walls.  The texture is great, and each piece of wood soaked in the stain differently, so even though each piece had the same stain, it turned out so varied.  

The next project is to use pallets in cabin number 10.  If you have stayed in cabin 10, you know that it needs a little updating.  We plan on putting pallet wood on the walls where the terrible pink wall paper is.  The terrible green garden wall paper is safe.  It's so bad that it is great!  At least for now....  

Here's your before picture.  Keep posted for an after picture!

We are filling up with reservations for the winter!  Make sure to book your cabin and snowmobile tour soon.  We are already sold out for New Year's Eve and a few weekends in February.  Hope to see you this winter!!

Winter 15-16

Well it's March, and we have been having quite a winter!  December through February it snowed about 3 feet a week.  We were constantly digging out.  This winter we have had over 360" so far!

This is the road leading up to the cabins!  They do a great job plowing, but when it's coming down in buckets, it's hard to keep up.

The sunsets this winter have not disappointed!

I got to operate big red!  I am now a master snow blower.

Jeff pushes snow around with the snow cat. 

At the beginning of the winter we decided to keep the center pavilion open to guests for the grill and a fire pit area.  It got used quite a bit too!  We save all of our cardboard and then use it to burn a big bright fire!  On New Year's Eve, we invited all the guests to a pot luck and fire.  It turned out really great!!

We dug a snow bench into the hUge snow pile Jeff had made with the snow cat.

This year we got our permit snowmobiling.  Jeff has been guiding groups with their own snowmobiles and also people who come up for the day that rent our snowmobiles.  The Grand Mesa has 800+ square miles of terrain.  Most groups take a guide for the first day, get some good ideas, and then ride the rest of the week on their own.

This is the winter of El Nino.  The meteorologists named this El Nino cycle Bruce Lee.  We jumped on board with that and put a little Bruce Lee figure on our snow stake and got a life size card board cut out!  There was a meteorologist from Denver 7 news that came and interviewed Jeff for a story on El Nino.  They ran a story the other night and plugged us as "Thunder Ridge Mountain".  So if you're wondering where that is, it's here, it's us!  Some of the footage they used was from a customer that stayed with us, he had a drone!

We also had a friend move out from Chicago to live with us.  Cameron is taking on some of our carpentry projects.  If you have stayed with us before, you know that some of the cabins were remodeled before we bought them.  They have built in bunk beds, but there were no ladders.  Now each bunk bed has a ladder!  I had to figure out how to pull the mattress down, make the bed, and put it back up, because I was not about to climb up there to make the beds!  Tricky tricky.

In Cabin 7 we put a lofted bed in the bedroom.  Just another way to maximize the space a bit.

More projects coming this summer!

Cameron and I have been exploring the cross country ski trails quite a bit (Ok he has explored much more than I have).  There are some trails right across the street from us in a non motorized zone.  The trails are kept up nicely, and they are very well marked.  The Grand Mesa Nordic Council has a great trail system throughout the Mesa.  We are trying to reach out to more of the cross country skiers in the area to make sure that they know they can stay with us!  Since we are right on the border of the motorized and non motorized zones, there's no reason that both groups cannot get along!  And we don't currently have a large lodge, so most groups hang out in their cabins.  Just sayin, come stay with us!

It's the end of March, and we have been getting hit with some spring snow.  The conditions are still great!  So come visit all through April!!