So I just graduated college and a friend and I have the pipe dream of moving to Colorado for next winter season to ride everyday to enjoy the only point in our lives when we will have the opportunity to be free of commitments and most responsibilities. We are both avid snowboarders and after our adventures in the backcountry we will inevitibly have to get a job and enter reality.
Anyways, if anyone can suggest some areas in Central or NorthWest Colorado in close proximity to some big mountain riding that has relatively cheap living expenses or is just a great place to live any advice would be appreciated. Any cheap areas/ suburbs around Denver would be great, or pretty much anywhere you could recommend.
Ultimately we are going to be doing some first hand traveling around Colorado to find the best place for us but some local insight could be very helpful. thanks in advance.

Summit county or Frisco near Breckenridge. You can get a resort job and live in their crappy housing and smoke weed all day long like everyone else up there. If you do that your gonna have to sell that M and get a 4wd/awd...

a resort job may be an option, im hoping to become a rep and not just a lift operator. ive heard of both frisco and summit county, what is the average rent in these areas?
any other opinions would be great, thanks.

Hit up tetongravity.com/forums You will learn a ton and meet some incredible skiers and boarders. Look into Frisco and Silverthorne for Breck/Abasin/Keystone. And Eagle for Vail. Rent... you are looking at about $500/person for most places for rent. 90% of em will be furnished, which pissed me off. I almost moved to Breck a few years ago.

Living near a resort and finding inexpensive housing is contradictory for the most part. As someone has mentioned, you can live in the "rustic" accomidations that some resorts provide if you want to.

Living in an inexpensive area of Denver and commuting is not really an option. It's a ~1 1/2 to 4 hour drive each way depending on where you want to work and ride everyday. And that's on weekdays. Weekend traffic on I-70 can be a nightmare.

What type of resort are you looking to work for? There's the mega resorts such as Vail, Aspen, Winter Park, KAB, and Steamboat and there's a host of smaller places as well. My best friend is a weekend ski patroller at Ski Cooper near Leadville and he likes the smaller atmosphere. PM me with what you're looking for and I can probably help you get headed in the right direction.

Thanks for the advice, we've been tooling around with the idea of living under resort accomidations but thats still in the air. depending on what we do for work and what season pass we get will ultimately decide which resort we would want to live at or if we would get a place off the mountain.
Out of Eagle, Frisco, Silverthorne, and Summit county which is the nicest, cheapest, most fun, has a younger population? any experiences can help.
rockyrat i will definitely send you a PM in the future when i know my situation.