Monday, October 4, 2010

British girl turns Colorado ski resort expert


Skiing in Steamboat Springs, Colorado Jan 2010
British girl Helen Gienke, originally from Cambridge, England, now lives full time in the mountains of Colorado, USA and advises fellow Brits on where to take their next US skiing holiday.
Helen resides in the down to earth ski resort of Winter Park and is within 2 hours drive of the famous ski resorts of Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge & Steamboat Springs and not far from world class Aspen ski resort. Helen spends much of her time visiting Colorado ski resorts and touring the accommodation, so she knows the properties & resorts inside out and passes on this knowledge to her clients.

In 2001 Helen left her Boots Marketing job in 2001 for a “short” career break to pursue her love of skiing. She learnt to ski in her teens on a family holiday, followed it up with a gap year ski season in Davos, Switzerland before settling into the corporate grind and just one skiing holiday a year. She wanted more.

Purely by chance Helen ended up in Colorado, USA, helped by her dual nationality, courtesy of her American father. “I’d never been to Colorado before and had no job, nowhere to live and no transport when I arrived with my husband Rob.” Within a week they had both found casual jobs, rented an apartment and bought an old banger to get around in. Helen never looked back. Skiing and the mountains turned out to be her passion and she went back to Boots only briefly to be made happily redundant.

“We love the mountains of Colorado, the uncrowded slopes, the powder, the 300 days of sunshine a year and we wanted to share this with other UK skiers, so we set up Chalets USA in 2004”.

Back in Colorado year round, Helen is on the phone and email asking clients exactly what it is they need from their holiday. “It’s not always easy, people don’t always know what they want, especially when someone’s trying to organize a big group and each person has different requests.” Helen works with the groups to find the perfect accommodation in a resort they’ll love. There is a selection of hand-picked properties on her website (www.chalets-usa.co.uk), which she has personally visited, so she knows they are good quality and in great locations. But she also has access to hundreds of others if there’s something specific a client needs.

You can ring Helen on her English telephone number, which through the joys of technology, comes through to her in Colorado at no extra cost to you. She’ll give you objective advice, explain the pros and cons of the different lodging options, from catered chalets to hotels & self-catered apartments and tell you honestly if it’s not quite ski in / ski out.

“We just want UK skiers to enjoy this place as much as we do. And you never know some of them might just move here too!”

To find out more call
UK 01223 655642
US 1 303 482 1961
info@chalets-usa.co.uk
http://www.chalets-usa.co.uk/