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.
