Open For Season!

I haven't updated in a while and I apologize for that! I had surgery last Wednesday on my arm (long story), and midterms were keeping me busy! Arapahoe Basin opened on the 13th and Loveland opened on the 14th. They duke it out every year to see who can open first, and this is the first year I've been here that ABay opened first. I actually haven't ridden yet, so I don't have any of my own photos to show you... Here's a quick video though!



After two years I can say that I am honestly unenthusiastic about the 45 minute lift line plus the lift ride up for one short "white ribbon of death" run. I guess I am too impatient these days... I'm more about the skiing than the waiting. I did however buy an "Epic Pass" for the first time, which is pretty exciting for me. I had previously bought the local pass, which only gave me 10 days at Vail and Beaver Creek, so I have only gone to Vail a few times. It's not that I'm sick of riding Breck, but I am very much looking forward to spending lots of pow days at Vail and Beaver Creek and exploring new mountains (praying for another La Nina season). Vail is so big!!! It was quite a bit more than I have previously spent ($500 vs. $650), but $650 for unlimited and unrestricted access to 7 resorts is pretty insane. If you live by any other big resort in the U.S. you can expect to pay $1,500 for a season pass to one mountain, ouch!

Ignore the 2-year-old photo! Hahaha!

We got our first big storm of the season last night, which is affecting most of Colorado and not just Summit County. Pre-season storms are always bad because the snow is still wet and heavy, which makes the roads a lot more slippery. Not to mention it's not any fun to ski in... unless you like quicksand!

Out my living room window.

Photo courteous of Snow.Com's facebook page. Breck Main St.

Photo courteous of Snow.Com's facebook page. Breck Main St.

Summer, What's Summer?

I'm not sure if Colorado has decided to play the longest April Fool's joke known to man, or if it's just decided to exclusively host winter. If you haven't heard the word, Colorado has A LOT of snow. Not the "a lot of snow" where the peak hiking trails won't be open for another week... It's a lot of snow to the point that Keystone Ski Resort, that has been closed for 6 or more weeks, decided to reopen this weekend. It's "a lot of snow" to the point that ABasin has extended it's closing day into July. A lot of snow to the point where cities down river are planing for catastrophic flooding. And even a lot of snow to the point where Mother Nature said forget it and decided to just keep sending snow instead of rain.

Below is a collection of all things snow. The first is a video taken May 5th of Loveland Pass, Colorado, from the Loveland Ski Area parking lot to ABasin's. A few feet of snow have actually fallen since this video was taken. *Note that the real snow doesn't start until 1:35.


Next is an article from Weather.com about the flooding concerns in the west... something I never thought I'd have to worry about.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/flood-fears-west_2011-05-20

The next is an article that actually concerns the state of Washington, but I found it relevant. It seems like the whole West is dealing with snow concerns right now.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1387344/Washington-State-Route-20-Highway-buried-75FEET-snow.html

And lastly, some pictures Keystone posted on their facebook of their reopening this weekend... Absolutely insane.

BRRRRRR!!!!

Well it's finally here, ski season! Sunday was opening day at Loveland, and yesterday was opening day at A-Basin! Two weeks later than last season, but I can't complain because my first day of the season was a POW DAY! I woke up at about 6:45am (skiing is probably the only thing I'll get up before 8:30am for. You know what they say... Coloradan's will drive 2 hours in 12 inches of snow to ski but can't get to work when there's 4.)
 The blizzard was supposed to start at 3am, but I looked outside and it hadn't snowed a flake... and there wasn't even the slightest hint of a blizzard on the way besides the fact that it was cloudy. I had high hopes because this is supposed to be a La Nina season, but Colorado's weather is always unpredictable. I grab all my stuff, put on my ski gear and head out the door to what? Yeah, rain. My jaw dropped in disgust and I almost debated whether I wanted to go or not... but no way in heck was I letting a little rain ruin my first day of the ski season! I left the house around 7:30 and literally no more than 10 minutes later this is what the roads looked like:

As I said... Colorado is predictably unpredictable. It took me about 50 minutes to get to A-Basin though it usually takes 25-30 minutes. It's safe to say I'm one of those annoyingly slow drivers in bad weather... and proud of it. I don't plan on totaling another car this year (you're welcome mom and dad). Though just for clarification, I was not at fault for that... and they actually ended up fixing that small section of road this summer, thank God! Apparently I was one of a few cars that got pulled into the ditch there. ANYWAY, I finally got to the mountain and drove into a parking lot with around 6-8 inches of fresh snow on it.
 "I knew I should have brought my powder skis!" I thought to myself. I was kind of in denial because we hardly got any snow last season, much less on the first day! I met up with some of my friends a few minutes later and we hopped in the lift line. The lift line during pre-season is usually ridiculous but the new lift they put in this summer made things so much faster. We rode until 12 and the weather got bad enough that I decided I would leave before the roads got any worse. The temperature also dropped more than 10 degrees, so I was definitely not dressed properly. Despite the blizzard and having the wrong pair of skis with me, opening day was a blast! I'm not nearly as out of shape as I thought after not doing anything all summer. I really want to go today, but it's 13 degrees outside right now, and windy! I thought it was supposed to gradually get this cold... I am not prepared for this! Yikes!

 

The new 4 seat high-speed quad! A huge improvement from the old 2 seater!

A BAY BAY!

I spent this weekend at A-Basin shredding!! Saturday I went earlier in the morning and the lift lines were pretty ridiculous, although they did go down significantly later in the evening. Sunday I got there around 1:00 and stayed until close. I took double the runs Sunday than I did Saturday.

The hill was super fun. There were a few small icy patches here and there, but overall I'm very impressed. The park had a flat down rail to down rail, and then a picnic table to corrugated pipe jib. I noticed that the two rails were pretty close together, so you have a bit too much speed going into the down rail if you don't hop off the first a little early and speed check. I heard they're supposed to put up two more features, not sure if they've done that yet. Besides that, it's a super awesome little park!