My Ski History – Pre Colorado Residence

OK, here’s my best recollection of my total ski days and their history before we moved to CO:

01 Season – 3 days – This is the fateful trip where I learned to ski.  Day 1 was ski school, which turned out to be a waste of time since they didn’t cover turning OR going fast.  Day 2 I think I took lots of risks learning to turn and skiing Timber Rigde.  Day 3 was my first diamond, Jaque’s Pique.  I did every thing in my power to convince someone to stay a fourth day.  I also found out Jennifer was a good skier on this trip.  We went over Christmas.

02 Season – 4 days – Six of us, including Gladdish, Josh, Nick and Aaron went skiing at Copper for four days over Christmas.  We stayed in the Alpine Inn, where two of us slept on the floor because one room was only set up for four people.  We ate out of crock pots that maids unplugged.  I also got frostbite on my toes so bad I didn’t know if I could ski the next day.  I did, of course, but got skin that peeled off my big toes about the size of half dollars all in one piece a few weeks later.   It was 0 degrees without the wind chill and I didn’t know much about staying warm.  I did get to try and pull Aaron out of a drift by his ski til I laughed so hard I couldn’t move.  Jennifer didn’t go this year : (

03 Season –  4 days – We went to Copper with Josh and Janel over Christmas wearing really obnoxious hats.  I  did my first front flip by going over a huge cornice-kicker way too fast and leaning too far forward on the tips.  White, blue, white is all I saw.  Then, my fiancee and friends left me for dead–though I’d stopped to make a lemon snow cone.  We stayed in Copper Springs Lodge for way cheap.  On day two of this trip, I nearly destroyed my back under Sierra because my bindings were too loose.  I was just skiing along when one ski came off, followed by a face plant with enough momentum to roll my legs over my head the wrong way, but not enough to flip me over.  I remember I was really tired at the start of the third day and then by the middle of the fourth day realized I could ski another month in a row if the finances would hold out.

04 Season – 9 days – We went to Steamboat for three days with Josh and Janel in January.  We took a lesson with Jason Kruegger (who fell in front of us) at Josh’s prompting and revolutionized our skiing–doubled our ability in one day.  This may have been the beginning of the end for living in KC.  Little did we know that it would also be the start of a string of sucky conditions at Steamboat.

In March or February, we went on a bus trip thru the KC Ski Club.  I don’t remember too much, expect that Berthoud Pass kinda scared me from the tour bus view, it was kinda expensive. and I scratched my new goggles.   I didn’t seem as fun as Copper, but I didn’t know much about Mary Jane at that point.  They were also missing some major lifts, e.g. no Eagle Wind (no lift at all in backside Parsenns), a double instead of Pano, no Super G.

I got an amazing deal with late, late season pricing at Copper over Easter so Jennifer and I went.  For the low, low price of $367 we got two three-day B-line tickets and two nights of lodging close enough that Flyer woke us up in the morning.  Since I didn’t have any time off, we drove all night both ways in Jen’s car and saw car rolled over near Bennett which made us nervous.  We also got 6″ of powder overnight and discovered Union Meadows on this trip.  This is the one that put us over the edge and we started looking for jobs in Colorado.

05 Season – 11 days – We went to Copper with Josh and Janel in February and decided to forgo a day of skiing to get Jen to a job fair so we could move to CO.  On our day off, we went to the beer factory (back when Coors was cool), the Downtown Aquarium and made fun of Janel over wanting to stop and look at the “pretty buffaloes “.

Somewhere in here, I think I went to Copper for another four days in February.  I don’t remember many details, but I know I skiied 11 days this year.   I think we took my car with Josh’s racks on and I think Nick was there.  We listened to the Storm sound track and Nick sang about his right knee on fire.  Josh got really, really sick with Purple Gatorade Syndrome and yaked on the side of many runs at Copper.  We felt bad, but not enough to not ski oursevles.  He got better after a couple of days and ended up pulling the trip out.

Josh and I and two of his buddies went to Winter Park for four days in March.  All we did, all we did, was ski and sleep.  I also fell in love with my Metrons on this trip after testing seven pairs of skis.   I bought a used pair from Virgin Islands for $400 later that spring and proceeded to have some of the best times of my life with them under my feet for the next three years.

Pre-Colorado Total – 31 days

Days 31 and 32 – Its Been Way too Long

OK, I’m a little late getting to post about these days.  I’d sorta forgotten and then one of the AmeriCorps said she got a Copper-WP pass, which made me gush a little and decide I should read about the infamous Day 18.   While heading over to do that, I realized I’d forgotten to post day 31 and 32 events.  Here we go from what I can remember of late April.

Day 31: Chris got two tickets to A-Basin with the purchase of his Nomad Crimsons at Sniagrab that he wanted to use in May.  So off we went to A-Basin.  We got there around 10 and skiing was pretty uneventful to start with.   We did ski Montezuma Bowl, which didn’t quite live up to the hype but was still fun.   There was decent snow at the top and I had to jump several dirt patches at the bottom.  Stupid global warming.

The biggest event of the day occurred standing (well) below the runout at the lift out of Zuma.  Chris and I were casually chatting when I looked up to see an older guy getting off the chair with a crazy look in his eye.  I thought for sure he was going to plow Chris, but instead he just skiied over Chris’ skis and then gave me a death-grip bear hug.  From there, he refused to let go–I mean the dude thought he would die if he let go of my leg.  Eventually, the his ski buddy and a liftie got him untangled and he let go.

After that I did a few more runs, though I can only really remember skiing some trees near Main Street off Pali and then dropping the cornice at Pali and burning it up thru the bumps.  All was right with the world til I got to the bottom and remembered it was May.

Day 32: I had a day off work to burn and two tickets to Loveland left.  So, Jason and I went up to ski, discuss business and tailgate.  All three were accomplished with astonishing success.  It was really windy, but we found some decent trees and steep sections.  We also found some incredibly sticky snow on the south faces and a really expensive place to buy beer in Georgetown.

Afterwards, we had a few beers, cigars and brats in the parking lot.  This was really the end of the season…

Day 30: Bittersweet Copper Closing

Sunday was bittersweet–Copper and WP closing.  No real skiing left for eight months….

Anyway, to mourn Jennifer and I went to Copper.  She wasn’t sure she wanted to go, but after I passed Pecos I knew I couldn’t go to Closing Day without her.  After a trip back home, we got to Copper about 1.  We skied our favorites, or at least our favorites that were still open and then headed to the terrain park.  I needed to get some video of my back flip in case there were any non believers out there.  Anyway, here’s the first of four:

While waiting to drop in on the third, I was reminded of why I don’t spend much time in the terrain park.  Most of the people there are morons.  Its kinda like college, only they’re more stupid.  It was an interesting cross section of the skiing culture.  Anyway, here’s the fourth:

That one really hurt.  Really hurt.  I found out later that I hadn’t cracked my tail bone (or my ribs a few days before) and after a little chiropracting I was fine, but it hurt.  It really hurt.  I realized later that I need more practice judging how fast to hit it, how hard to throw it and how much boost the kicker is going to give me.  If you’re laughing, I’d like to see you learn a back flip in less than 20 hours.  In one season .  With no prior experience.

After that we had some uneventful tailgating.  My little camp grill works awesome, though I couldn’t enjoy it because of dull ache reverberating from my tail bone.  Plus, some annoying lady giving her life story the next car over.  I did enjoy Quattro racing to catch his tennis ball after eating.

Oh skiing, I’ll miss you.  Its not so much a tragedy now as it will be in July when its ridiculously hot and I can’t do anything fast and dangerous because my mountain bike money went to pay taxes.  To soften the blow, I’ll try and use up my last ticket at Loveland and Chris’ ticket at A-basin.

Day 29: Own It!

I knew I just needed one more day to get a back flip.  So I went up Friday 4/16 (T-2 days til close), despite the fact I had to be at the Hammies in Longmont 6:30.  And I would need to be able to walk and speak coherently.

After about an hour of straight, I decided to take the lift  up and meditate about the how this was all going to go down.  Plus, every hike up to the drop in would give me a big shot of adrenaline.  So after a ridiculously long time, I got off the lift, skied down and waited at the top of the drop-in.  I was scared, so I thought about for awhile and then the skis started moving.  I skipped the first two kickers and concentrated on the third.

Then, I came to the third one and gave it everything I had, which turned out to not be quite enough.  I shorted it and caught the knuckle with my tips.  The next several were too hard and I landed too far back to ski away.  The one after those was way too hard.  It knocked the wind out of me and I thought cracked some ribs over my sternum, even though I landed on my back.  I waited about twenty minutes and had my lunch before I tried the next one.

Then…success.  I don’t know what changed, but I landed on my skis just beautifully.  I did another that was a little over-rotated, but followed that up with a beauty.  From there I skiied down to the car and left.

Mission accomplished–goal complete.  I guess I really wanted an iron cross, but a plain old back flip will have to do for this season.

Day 28: Back Flip Progress

Monday I went to Copper thinking I was just a few hours from a back flip.   I got a Woodward Air Bag ticket, thinking I’d be ready to throw immediately.  After waiting around for the Woodward guy, I realized a couple of things: 1. he wasn’t going to be the least bit helpful and clearly didn’t want to be there, 2. straight air off the medium kickers in the terrain park scared me.   So, instead of a back flip onto snow, I did a few on the air bag and spent the rest of the afternoon getting cozy with straight air.

After six or seven hikes from the bottom of the park to the top, and about the same number of rides up Flyer.  I finally had it dialed in.  Shins pressed to the tongues, waiting for lift off instead of dreading it dialed in.  Next time back flip, you will be mine…

Day 27: Good Times at Copper

Wednesday 4/7, Jason and I went to Copper.  It was supposed to dump, but stupid Vail stole our snow with their cloud seeding.  Anyway, its was still 6 in 24 and 9 in 48–just enough to cover the junk.  We got there shortly after 9 (since it didn’t dump) and proceeded to ski all over the mountain.  Let’s see if I can remember them all…

Storm King to Upper and Lower Enchanted to Eagle to Excellerator to Storm King to Patrol Chute (which is my fave in Sapulding Bowl) to Spaulding Glades to Cross Cut to Reso.  Drainpipe to Cabin Chute to Reso, which also had really nice snow.  Then Atlantic Cornice (untracked as always) to Cross Cut to Reso to Atlantic Cornice to really tight trees on skiers’ left of Cross Cut.  A little to tight for my tastes even.

Followed by Reso to Cache Glades (the upper entrance which turned out to be a dud) to Flyer to Little Burn to Timberline.   A couple laps in the trees off Flyer’s lift line which turned out to be really good.  I don’t think I’ve ever been in there before.  Lunch at T-Rex, well, lunch sitting at T-Rex eating my PB&J.  Then, Jason wanted to try the backside.

Timberline to Sierra.  Funny story: I’d told Jason we needed to take Sierra to the back side.  I realized I was wrong and we needed Rendezvous at exactly  the same time he realized he was heading to Rendezvous and I’d told him Sierra.  So, with both of these in mind, we turned directly into each other right in front of the back bowls sign.  Although we didn’t collide, I hit the brakes as hard as I could and clipped his ski, which threw me over my edges.  He got turned around and lost a ski in front of a big tree.  Neither one of us got hurt, but it was quite the experience and good for a laugh.  Anyway…

Sierra to Revenge Cornice to the Bowl to Sierra to a bigger hit off Revenge Cornice to Revenge trees to Rendezvous.  Rendezvous to Mountain Chief to really sucky snow in the bowl to Mountain Chief to Gold Digger to Union Meadows to Timberline.  A couple more laps in the Flyer trees to Catalyst and then home.
Overall, quite the day….

Day 26: Low Key Day at Copper

We skied Copper on Sunday for a couple of reasons.  One, Jen hasn’t been there in a long time, two we were to beat to get up there Saturday and three I thought I’d have to change the oxygen sensor in my car on Saturday.  We almost didn’t make it on Sunday, but decided to go about 10 and got there about 1230 or so.  Jennifer did the leading and we skiied Drain Pipe to Cabin Chute, Enchanted Forest, Timberline Trees, Union Meadows and a few others.   The snow was soft and the whole experience made me think I should really try and get back up there soon…

It was a nice day of skiing and an easy trip home now that traffic season is over.  Oh Copper, I’ll miss you this summer…

Day 25: Better Conditions at the Butte

We barely made it to breakfast at 8, and the early breakfast turned out to be for not.  Despite blizzard conditions during our soup at the Last Steep in town, the mountain only recorded four inches.  After breakfast, we also found that our lunch meat had a funk to it.  We ended up borrowing some peanut butter and agave nectar for sandwiches instead.

We got on the mountain a little after nine and rode Silver Queen up.  We took a warm up down International, then back up Silver Queen.  Denise at our B & B recommended Big Chute, so we rode High Lift up.  J took North Star down and I timidly skied Big Chute in flat light.  We made several runs off North Face Lift, including North Face.  The snow was better, but still a little funky.  J ended up meeting me down from the Peak and we’d ski down to Paradise lift.  After several runs like this, we ended up at High Lift again and I skiied Big Chute better this time.  J decided she was done for the day, but I still had some stuff to ski.

I decided to try Headwall of High Lift.  Overall, I didn’t think it was particularly steep or fun, but probably worth doing.  Then, I headed for Spellbound again.  This time it was awesome.  I had some music going and was a lot more confident of the snow conditions.  After navigating thru some rocks, I flew thru Spellbound Glade and Phoenix Bowl and then did an adequate job of navigating the total crap just above the run out.  It was such fun that I went back up, despite the hike.  This time, I tried a new way out of the total crap and had to work really hard not to slip down a  chute and destroy my skis.

I met J for one more run to finish our trip to CB and life was peaches.  Kevin and Denise said they didn’t care when we checked out, so we got to go back, get a shower and pack up our stuff after skiing.  Quite nice.  Then, we headed out of town and tried going thru Leadville instead of Fairplay.  Unfortunately, it was longer and dark by the time we went thru Buena Vista, so we didn’t get to see anything new and grand.

Overall, CB was a great trip and at least one of us will go back next year.

Day 24: Day 1 at Crested Butte

I’ve wanted to go to Crested Butte since we moved to CO.  There were rumors of really gnarly terrain I need to confirm.  Anyway, I’ve been trying to go somewhere new every season.  First year was Vail Resorts (they suck), second year was Taos (good enough to get a sticker on my helmet!), third year was Steamboat (generally stupid).  We’ll see if CB is another Taos or Steamboat.

I found a bed and breakfast online for $100, which sounded like a great late season deal, given that just the motel was also $100, the Elizabeth Anne.  Another bonus, right now we get 50% off the window rate with our season passes.  Killer.  We decided to stay Wednesday and Thursday night and ski Thursday and Friday.

We slept late, because, well, we’re on vacation.  We got out of the house about 1250 or so.   We decided to take 285 to 50, since it was 17 miles shorter than I-70 to 91 thru Leadville.  Things went pretty well, though 285 is a magnet for cops.  We took a short detour thru Buena Vista and a really weird antique shop.  We got on 50W, went past Monarch, Monarch Crest and over Monarch pass.  We drove thru Gunnison before turning north to CB.  We got in about 515, so I’d say we could do it in four hours if we we’re trying with dry roads.

CB is very charming.  Very charming.  Its got the mountain Victorian style throughout almost the entire town.  Its different than any other ski town we’ve been too.  Plus, our place was well worth $100.  Probably the classiest place we’ve stayed in awhile.

NOAA forecasted a bunch of snow for Thursday and we got up to find not very much.  Not to despair, it was only supposed to snow 2-4 overnight anyway.  We had some good breakfast at 830 and got some ski advice, rode the three mile shuttle to the resort and got on the mountain by 1015 or so.  Due to high winds, Silver Queen was closed, so we rode Red Lady to Paradise.  Eventually, we got over to North Face lift and took a warm up run down Rachel’s.  Then, we went to North Face.  Jennifer wasn’t feeling the drop-in so we traversed around.  BTW, CB is freakin’ steep.  Steep like Toas, but more steep above treeline.  Anyway, we skiied down over some really sucky snow.  2″ of new over a bunch of crap.

After a light lunch and some warm up time in the lodge, we went back up North Face to Spellbound.  The traverse over was a little more than we were expecting.  The drop-in was a little dicey, with flat light, thin coverage and 60 degree pitches.  We skiied down Spellbound Glade, into Phoenix Steps with a Traverse to Phoenix Bowl and then a short hike out.  It was longer and steeper than we expected, but Jennifer was awesome about it.  She’s my favorite.

After Spellbound, J was about done so she skiied International and I skiied Forest a couple of times.  Overall, it was an OK day.  It was always windy, and face blasty in the morning (and J wore my balaclava) and then sometimes snowy and sometimes sunny.  Reminded me of Wolf Creek last April.

Its dumping right now, so hopefully tomorrow will be epic.  Overall, the mountain looks good, but the weather and snow was kinda sucky.  We’ll see how tomorrow turns out.

Day 23: Flips onto the Air Bag

Since I’d been to Woodward the night before and the season is running out, I wanted to hit the airbag on Monday.  Jen was going to ski Tuesday so she didn’t go.   I wanted to get there about 9, do some skiing and hit the airbag when it opened at 11.  I didn’t get there til 1120 and took the long way to the bag and didn’t get there til 1215.  Then, I found out I had to get a ticket at the Woodward Cage.  Bummer dude.  Anyway, by 1245 I was back at the top of the bag.

For the next 2.5 hours, I hit the bag and hiked back up to the top of the drop-in.  I actually left before the bag closed because I didn’t have anything left.  What I have to show for it: I got personal instruction from the dude (Rick) who’s in charge at Woodward.  I mashed my wrist once, got completely soaked from the melted snow on the bag multiple times and got the wind knocked out of me once.  I also got a few laughs and several “that was awesome”s from people watching.  Most importantly, I’m now competent with a back and front flip onto the air bag.  Next step: get comfortable with straight air off the small kickers in the terrain park, hit the bag a couple of times and then GO BIG OR GO HOME.