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.