Monday, December 31, 2007

Frustrated

I haven't had a post in quite sometime but I guess that is the way it goes over the Holidays. So tonight I am kind of frustrated because I had somewhat planned on going up to Steamboat and they have been getting dumped on with snow! However, the weather has been extremely unfavorable with extreme winds and avalanche danger on I70. It was pretty much impossible to get to any of the ski resorts today with I70 closed and most of the mountain passes closed. So I went to work and got some stuff done with my boss. However, the roads are now reopen but I am hesitant to go up since it is getting late and who knows what the weather could do. These are the times I wish I had a better vehicle than the Jetta because I wouldn't question heading up.

That's the way it goes though I suppose. I will wait till morning and head up to one of the resorts to get in some New Years day shredding. Not much else has been going on other than work so I will leave you with that and get back when more action arrises.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Rise and Shine

Well I had a 5am start this morning. I am heading up with my boss to most likely Vail for finally a full day of shreddin! No Tim to wake up since he has an exam today. It's amazing how early you can get up and be wide awake when you actually want to! I will write more today after I get back.

Alright so to back to how the day went. I met up with my boss at 6am about half way between Boulder and Golden. He lives up in the mountains of Coal Creek Canyon so he picked me up on his way out. We headed up to Vail without any back ups or bad roads. When we got there however Vail did not live up to it's premiere resort status.

When we arrived in Vail it was maybe maybe a balmy 0 degrees, however with windchill it felt much colder for sure. It never got any warmer than 15 degrees and of course that was without the wind chill. So we got up to the lifts and what do you know they aren't even open yet cause they are running behind schedule. No big deal we wait 10 minutes and they are up and running. We make it to the second lift with no run inbetween since we are making our way to the massive back bowls to find some soft fluffy pow. Second lift NOT OPEN YET! Patrick and I along with others begin to show real frustration after they maintenance guy tells us 15 minutes yet. He says sorry no promises it has been cold so the lifts aren't starting well. WELL NO SHIT IT'S COLD IT'S THE FREAKIN ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND YOU DEAL WITH THIS EVERYDAY! So some people are so pissed they take off down to a lift that is running and from what I heard later in the day from an ambassador "raised hell!" which I am glad they did because it was way to cold to just be standing there not getting any runs in.

They did end up getting the lift started after about 15 minutes and we were on our route back to the bowls. We got back there and made some awesome turns for about 4 hours in the trees and meadows of Blue Sky Basin. Nothing spectacular occurred during the riding we just had a really good day with blue skies even though it was a bit nippy. It wasn't to bad once we actually got riding though. Anyway Patrick was fun to ride with and I am sure we will do it many more times. Here are some photos from the day.

Me atop Vail for the first time.



The boss Patrick bundled up from the cold.


The classic goggle reflection shot.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Ah snow!

So we have finally been getting large amounts of snow in the mountains! Tim and I took a trip up to Steamboat this past weekend to hang with some friends that are still working up there and my buddy James from work was up there with Carly his wife as well.

I had my holiday lunch for work on Friday and it was already snowing down here so I was pretty excited about headin up for the weekend. Tim and I left Friday afternoon and got up to Steamboat around 8pm. We headed over to Keith's place downtown and had some beers with Keith and his roommate Rob who Tim and I had met when we all went out to Fruita to do some mountain biking. After that we headed out on the town and saw a really good funk band at the Tugboat. This is where the fun started.

Rob had this Cougar who was about 40-45 I would say come up and tell him that he was the hottest guy in the bar! She also mentioned to him that she was out on a match.com date but evidently she was more interested in "Handsome" Rob! HAHA that was what he called him all weekend as the story continued to come up and make us laugh all weekend.

So after we shut the bar down Tim, Rob, and I were out waiting for the bus to come when we ended up getting in a snowball fight with 6 random people. It ended with Rob just dumping snow on this guy who had fell down and Tim and I just unloading snowballs on the rest of their crew. AHH good times in Steamboat.

The next morning when we were supposed to catch the first chair since Storm Peak was opening we didn't make it to the lifts until 10:30 after we waited in line for half an hour trying to get our tickets not to mention Gondola Joe's didn't have any of our favorite breakfast burritos. The morning didn't start well. So we fueled up on some Gnarly Charlie's pizza and headed up. Turns out Tim, Rob, and I made some good turns and met up with Dave (Tim and I's old roommate from when we worked there). Keith totally bailed on riding with us (evidently he was more hung over than the rest of us... naw he was just being a wuss) so we didn't get to have any fun with him but we tore up all the fresh pow we could and tried to fight through our hangovers. Four and half hours later we made the most of the day and were completely worn out.

That night we had a few beers at Keith's place again and I headed out to meet up with James and Carly. Everyone then met up with us at the Rio where we went on our terror again. Julianne and Jolie showed up as well. Jolie just stayed for a bit then took off however the rest of us went out to Old Town Pub and continued the debauchery till they closed.

Sunday Tim and I were going to get up and ride at Breck but that didn't turn out so well as when we woke up we were once again hung over and extremely sore from all the whippers we had taken the day before charging the mountain. I wasn't happy about wasting the day but I'm over it. There is always next weekend.

It was back to work today and I accomplished a lot so I was happy with that. I might head up to the mountains with my boss this weekend since Tim has a final on Saturday. Even if I don't go with my boss I might go with James or Robert. But I'll be up there no matter. A lot of the resorts have opened a ton of terrain so I gotta go check it out.

On that note I am anxiously awaiting my trip back to the flatlands to hang out with the Fam. See you all soon!

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Quick Video

Just a quick video of me from Steamboat this weekend... blog on the way.