Taking what Mother Nature (and old age) give us

Last Monday the weather for this weekend looked awesome:  predicted sun and temps in the 60s.  By Thursday the forecast had changed to a 40% chance of rain on Saturday and a 50% chance on Sunday.  So Friday afternoon I headed out for an after-work ride to make sure that Ellie the bike and I got some one-on-one time together before the rain hit.  We were a mile into our ride when Ellie started to make a bizarre noise.  It took me a few minutes of checking derailleurs, cranks, chains, etc., before discovering this:

Ellie's stay broke away right where the seam was welded.

After a long hike back to the car and some sadness on my part for the loss of a wonderful bike frame to old age, I felt ok.  I'd called a super awesome friend, A, who was going to let me borrow her bike for the weekend, so all was going to be alright.  Until we woke up to this sort of weather:

Hwy 65 headed back towards Mesa, CO

Oh okay Mother Nature.  That's how you want to play this.  It's Easter weekend!  I had plans to bike!  Today was not a planned lie-around-the-house day!  No!  I have to do something...we have to go do something!  (I tend to freak a tad bit when my plans get messed up for reasons beyond my control).  Soon though, we realized that rain here most likely meant snow at the closed-for-the-season ski resort.  Which meant...untracked creamy spring snow!


We gathered backpacks and snacks, beer and ski skins, and pulled out the ski wear (mine hadn't been used in a month almost).  Peanut butter and honey sandwiches fueled us as we headed up a run with the most consistent fall line:  Wonderbump.

It was warm, but super snowy the whole day! This is Voodoo biker on his way up.

The snow was great.  The crust underneath was soft, and the 4 or 5 inches on top were creamy.  Great skiing!

It just goes to show that sometimes you have to take the good with the bad...sure Ellie was broken and I had to shell out some $$$ for a new bike frame, sure it rained all day down here (and looks to do the same today), but we had the entire ski resort to ourselves.  Yes, the slog up to the top was painful, but half-way down I was screaming, "This is so much fun!!!!"

New trails bring humility

It never fails...you think you're a super awesome rider until you tackle a trail you've never ridden before.  Then you remember...oh, maybe I'm just average after all.  Yesterday we tackled Troy Built, a trail out near the Mack exit that is technically part of the Loma/Kokopelli system.  Voodoo Biker has ridden it several times and knew it would be less crowded than the more popular Mary's/Horsethief Loops.  We rode it as an out-and-back; the highlighted  (blue) portion here shows our route. 

The section from the start to the Kokopelli cut off is the toughest, technically.

The first portions of the trail (about the first 1/2 mile especially) can be tricky if you've never seen the trail before.  Random rocks in the way, narrow gaps to navigate...then there is a long descent down to the Kokopelli junction before a short exposed uphill.  After this the trail gets really fun, with some technical stuff, some awesome rolling singletrack, and a few portages thrown in just to keep you on your guard.  We stopped where Troy Built meets the hill up to Lion's Loop and turned back.  The ride back was just as fun and actually seemed easier (except for the long uphill that was a fun downhill on the way out...).  I'd definitely ride this one again, especially during high bike tourist season.  We only saw about 12 or 13 other people, as opposed to the 40 or so we'd have seen on Mary's or Horsethief.

View from the parking area for Troy Built

Crazy slickrock portion towards the beginning of the ride.  Super fun going down it at the end!

Junction of Salt Creek and the Colorado River

Our stopping point: The junctions of Lions and Troy Buit.  Lion's continues up the hill and involves several switchbacks.

View from the top of the big hill just before the descent to the Kokopelli junction (on the way out).

A Week of Little Rest and lots of fun!

View back down Prime Cut from Chutes and Ladders

This has been a week of fitness if ever there was one for me.  Sunday I biked (and blogged about it) Mary's and Wrangler out in Loma.  Monday I took off from working out.  It's my usual rest day.  Tuesday I walked the Riverfront trail (3 miles of it) with my friend K from work, on our lunch break.  Wednesday I walked with K and R at Sherwood Park, again, 3 miles, then biked after work with my friend A.  We did a short ride out at 18 Road:  Prime Cut/Kessel. 


Thursday I walked again with R and then jogged an extra mile. Friday Voodoo Biker and I headed up Mary's to the Wrangler trailhead and biked that in about an hour.

View of the Colorado River from Wrangler

This morning we fueled up on French Toast and turkey sausage and headed out to Lunch Loop for a quick Clunker, Miramonte Canyon, Ali-Ali, Holy Bucket loop.  We even saw a coyote!  Tomorrow we've yet to determine where we're biking, but since we both have the day off you can be it will be a 2-3 hour ride! 

View of Mt. Garfield and Grand Junction from Lunch Loop

Out and Back awesomeness

Sunday I was intent on riding at Loma.  The Loma trails are my favorites around here--partly for their views, and partly for the variety of terrain: double track, single, technical, rolling--it's all there!  I started up Mary's Loop and thought maybe I'd ride Horsethief.  My wrist had been bugging me though and I wasn't sure the large amount of portaging required was a good idea.  I decided to do Mary's.  I made it out to Pizza Point (where Steve's intersects with Mary's) after about 40 minutes.  I was pleased with what I'd been able to ride, but really didn't feel like riding Steve's or heading towards the frontage road for a boring 3 mile return to the car.  I decided to turn around--why not?  So I rode Mary's backwards until I got to Wrangler.  Wrangler is a great little trail that gets very little love from other riders.  I don't know why.  It allows you to ride more single-track while sort of paralleling Mary's.  You get some awesome technical downhill, and still bomb down the Mary's hill at the end.  This was a great 2-hour ride!  Not too difficult, but difficult enough to make me nap later ;)

Three Days, Three Resorts? No problem!

This past weekend the BF and I embarked on a trip over Vail Pass to ski three awesome Summit County resorts:  Copper Mountain, Arapahoe (A) Basin, and Breckenridge.  Three days of skiing?  No problem!  That's why you make sure to fortify yourself with lots of meat and beer.  (Hence the reason I haven't eaten meat since Sunday afternoon).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top of the Sierra Lift, Copper Mountain

                       

On Friday morning, we left Glenwood Springs (our half-way point Thursday evening) around 8:00 and headed to Copper Mountain.  We got a really good deal on lift tickets from Liftopia.  It hadn't snowed in a while, and it was super windy on top, so the snow conditions could have been better.  Still, after a steep, extremely bumpy run on Far East, we settled into a nice groove of blue groomers for the rest of the day.  I highly recommend checking out Jack's bar for lunch.  It's at the bottom of the American Eagle lift and it's almost like a food court inside.  Everything from gyros to curry to brats!

View from the Montezuma Bowl at A-Basin.  Keystone resort is in the background

Saturday was spent at A-Basin.  This is a super old resort, and I really wish I'd gotten a picture of the AFrame building at the base.  The crazy thing about A-Basin is that the whole top-half of the mountain is above treeline.  It's an odd experience for someone who's used to looking for runs between sets of trees.  Skiing there was trying for me at first, because I just couldn't get over this weird anxiety that I had at being so high up.  Perhaps it was a little altitude issue as well.  Who knows?  We spent some time on some blues from the L lift (I can't remember the whole name) and then headed into the Montezuma Bowl.  THAT was super cool.  By the end, I was a happy girl!

We spent our last day skiing six inches of new snow at Breckenridge.  We have friends who live close to there and ski there quite often, so we had a guide.  Our buddy A took us over into the Contest Bowl for a few runs.  MAN was it steep!

Me skiing the contest bowl

We then skied a few runs off of Peak 10 before picking up the Four O'Clock run and heading into town to the car.  What a great weekend!  I highly recommend Breck for people new to skiing or who don't get to ski very often.  It's got a lot of good intermediate terrain. 

Ski History

Interested in finding out about Colorado's ski history?  Looking for lost resorts and possible back country options?  Colorado Ski History is a great place to get started!

Oh Snowmass...how we love thee

Look if you haven't heard me say it before, you've obviously never read my blog.  I love Snowmass Village, CO.  I love the mountain, I love Goodfellows pizza, I love to bike there in the fall and enjoy the JAS concert series on Labor Day.  So of course we once again got Aspen Classic ski passes this year.  Those allow us 5 wonderful days of skiing any of Aspen/Snowmass's 4 mountains for the low low price of $250.  What?  Everyone has their hobbies; this is our winter one. 

This past weekend we headed over for another 2 days of skiing at Snowmass Village.  We've skied at Aspen Mountain and at Buttermilk and neither compares (for us) to Snowmass.  The territory you can cover is massive!  Because of this, the number of people you see on some runs is countable on one hand.  It's crazy to be at such a huge, popular resort, and yet take video footage where there are no other people on the run except you and your significant other. 

The runs at Snowmass vary; they have a great amount of blue (intermediate) terrain, but also easy beginner runs, awesome groomed advanced runs, bump runs, and extreme "sidecountry" terrain too.  This past trip we learned about a new area (on the far right in the map above) called Campground.  I know the map is huge, but I wanted you to be able to actually SEE the runs.  This was, obviously, taken from the Aspen/Snowmass Website.  All of the runs off of Campground are black, so that right there limits the number of people who spend time there.  Both days we found awesome powder and the runs like Slot and Campground really weren't bad at all.  Mostly just fun rolling runs with a few steep faces.  Still, if you're unsure, ski the top part of the slot down to the Sam's Knob lift.  That will give you an idea of the runs.  If you haven't skied black runs, don't ski there!

View from the Campground lift--Capitol Peak is out there somewhere!

From there we headed left towards the Big Burn lift, where we always make a few runs.  This weekend (and I'm mixing the days together here) we checked out Whispering Jesse and were disappointed to find it crowded!  No matter, we skied towards it via the black Garrett Gulch and had a blast in the trees.  After that it was Sheer Bliss over to the Alpine Springs lift.  We headed up that one for lunch at Gwyn's (on Sunday).  We're still more fond of Cafe Suzanne off of the Elk Camp lift.

We headed straight for the High Alpine lift once jumping off the Alpine Springs lift and made a few runs on The Edge where we found more untouched snow!  Lucky us!  From there we took Turkey Trot over to Elk Camp where, on Saturday, we almost missed lunch!  It was after 2 when we showed up at Cafe Suzanne and there were just a few burgers left under the heaters.  We were having so much fun we forgot to eat.

It was getting blizzardy, but we skied a few of our favorite end-of-the-day runs off of Elk Camp:  Bear Bottom and Sandy Park.  Some of the "expert" black sidecountry terrain dumps out into the wonderfully mellow, rolling Sandy Park. 

After all of this fun, we headed back on Adams Avenue to the Village.  We skied right over by Goodfellows Pizza, kicked off our skis, locked them, and headed in for a giant slice of veggie pizza and beer.  What a perfect weekend!