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!

Heading for untouched snow

After a lovely day celebrating Telefest at Powderhorn Ski Resort
we headed up to Mesa Creek to check out some backcountry ski runs.  Back before Powderhorn was created, Mesa Creek, or "Old Powderhorn" was the Mesa's only ski resort.  There were tow lines and a warming hut...but people wanted more, so the whole works moved down to the current location and Powderhorn Resort was born.  What was left were some awesome runs that just required a little more work to get to.

This link was quite helpful to us in helping us to see where the runs were, which way we should head, etc.  We got to the parking lot around 10:40 or so, got all our gear together (backpacks, skins on skis, helmet, water, snacks, cameras, map, etc.) and headed across the sled hill around 11.  At this point there were no kids on the sled hill at all!

It took us a few minutes, but we eventually located the bridge across Mesa Creek and carefully began our ascent.  Never having skied UP anything before, I wasn't sure how the skins would grip the snow or how much effort it would take to glide up.  Turns out it was fairly easy! 

Several times I had to stop and rest.  Each time I thought to myself, "This is just like backpacking...all the hard work is rewarded with a great campsite...or in this case, skiing DOWN!"  Or I would think about biking and how sometimes you have to work really hard on the uphill to get some awesome downhill bike time.  Mostly what I kept thinking was just how beautiful it all was.  The sun was shining, trees were snow covered, and the only sounds were us breathing and the occasional "whoop" of joy from the sledders now busily traipsing up and down the sled hill.

Finally we reached the top.  What a beautiful view!  There were no other ski tracks around that day...we could see old ones, but it was clear we were the first ones to the top of the hill Sunday.  We'd skinned up Pruess, one of the old blue runs, and as you can hear from the video, skiing down was well worth the trip up!  We made one more hike to the top and then called it a day.  We will definitely be back!

Back Country Skiing Virgin

This weekend I will take my first foray into the world of Back Country skiing.  We'll head up to Mesa Creek, or Old Powderhorn as some call it, and check some easy runs on our new backcountry skis.  These are my first ones, the Atomic Centuries.  As the picture states, they are specifically made for women.  They also have a length that is perfect for me.  These skis come right up to my nose when they are held vertically.  Add to those some super cool bindings that allow me to climb uphill with my heels free, then click them down to ski down the hill, and I'm all set!

Hopefully we'll get some awesome footage with our new flip cam and I can post a video for you guys.  But for now, this video gives you an idea of some of the terrain.  There are a few wide open slopes, Pruess, for example, that will be perfect for my first attempt. 

Happy weekend!

8 days of skiing down, 22 to go...

Well ski season is in full swing out here in Colorado and my goal this year is to ski 30 days.  That's pretty tough when I can really only go on weekends, but right now I'm on track to get it done before Powderhorn (our local resort) closes in April.

Some of those days will be spent at Snowmass and a few others elsewhere in the state.  Still, I don't really care where I'm skiing as long as I'm skiing and improving!  So far this year I've skied a few new black runs from last year and am getting much better at skiing around moguls.

For Christmas I got new bindings for backcountry skiing, and then the BF, awesome guy that he is, ordered me new backcountry skis too!  It will be fun to go skiing somewhere out in the middle of nowhere--away from resorts, but I think I'll always be spoiled by having a lift take me up the mountain.

Here are a few shots from our adventures at Powderhorn so far this year.  One is of the BF on a run called "Cow Camp" and the other is one I took from about half-way down a run called "Hooker."  Love love love the snow!

Moab--the Mountain Biking Mecca Part One

Ok, ok.  I get it now.  For all these years I kept thinking, "Moab can't have better biking than Grand Junction!  We rock!"  But after finally, finally getting to ride there this past weekend, I can honestly tell you that Moab has one thing we never will:  miles and miles of slickrock.

Unlike the name implies, slickrock is super grippy.  So much so that you can bike down it with no fear of a tire slipping.  See?

This picture was taken on the Circle O trail, which is part of the Moab Brand Trails right off of Hwy 191 by the "Chuckwagon" Bar M entertainment area.   Starting on the Bar M trail (which is really a dirt road for the most part) you head counterclockwise out to the Bar B trail.  The Bar B is more technical than the description claims.  It's quite rocky in places, with lots of possible tire traps!  Be careful!  From the Bar B you join back with the Bar M briefly, and then down to the Rockin' A on your right.

The Rockin A is all slickrock.  So super cool to ride!  You follow the concrete stain and stick to it.  Don't veer off because you'll end up running over cryptobiotic soil!  It's alive and you will kill it if you get off the trail.  The stain is there for a reason.

The Rockin A had some techincal moments, but was a lot of fun.  Just up and over and around rocky sections, down a few ledges, up some steep stuff.  Finally you run into the Circle O, which adds 3 more miles of slickrock riding.  In all this time we saw 1 other person out on the trails.  Crazy!

At the end of the Circle O you once again join the Bar M and head down some fun whoop-de-whoos.  A few miles of pedaling take you back to your car and (hopefully) the beer that awaits you.

The Brand Trails offer something for everyone--the Circle O would be fine for someone as an introduction to slickrock.  They wouldn't be able to ride it all, but they could get a feel for it in a relatively safe environment.  The Bar M is great for beginners, and the Rockin' A and Bar B offer something for the intermediate/expert.  There is even another one called the Killer B that is EXPERTS ONLY!  We didn't venture to it!