To make up for the fact that he couldn't join me to Silverton, Arturo invited us for a 3 day weekend in Colorado. Due to our schedules, it was a bit last minute, and the bastards at United just jacked up their ticket price by 50% for the weekend 10 days away, so we took Frontier instead.
This turned out fine, except for the part where the Frontier plane was scheduled way too late on friday and we landed in Denver close to midnight local time, with still a 2H drive in the snow ahead of us (at least we got lucky, Colorado had been quite dry so far and had just gotten a well needed 12 inches).
we got the penguin plane :)
Denver's got it down for skiiers and snowboarders :)
Arturo got us to Silverthorne around 02:30, in the snow, uphill both ways and stuck behind a row of snow plows (actually they did have 4 snow plows blocking the entire freeway while cleaning the road).
All the pictures are geotagged, so clicking on them will bring you to a page like this one
which will show you were the picture was taken.
BreckenRidge
After a few hours of sleep, we painfully got up and headed for BreckenRidge. Unfortunately half of Denver hand their brothers had done the same due to the fresh snow and it took over an hour to drive a few miles, get a parking spot in an off resort lot, and then a bus to the gondola.
I think it was noon by the time we had made it to Imperial Peak (and unfortunately we lost Jennifer in the process who had trouble with the T-Bar).
Jennifer's beloved T-Bar :)
Imperial Bowl from the near 13kft peak
Probably one of the Highest Peaks with a Ski Lift to in the Continental US
BreckenRidge was fun, but just too many people that day, and quite frankly still a bit low on snow.
Nice Powder Run with Arturo off the T-Bar:
The second day, we met up with Arturo's friends: Suwei and Karl and drove to Vail. Vail is indeed a huge resort, and there too we had to drive to an offsite parking lot and take a bus to get to a lift. The next 2 hours were spent crossing the mountain to the other side where we wanted to go, doing some nice runs in the process though.
Vail definitely had more snow, plus what was falling this day.
Pretty
Aspen Trees
Suwei and Karl nicely invited us to their condo that evening, by Keystone, so what we could just walk to the lift the next day.
Nice Ridge run with everyone:
Farther down that run where Jennifer runs into me and I go through some nice trees after that:
Nice Tree Run with Arturo:
Here are the stats, gpx track and map for Day2 at Vail.
Keystone
After another 5-ish hours of sleep (I don't sleep well at altitude), and not much more for Jennifer, we got our butts off the condo and to the nearest Keystone lift.
Arturo, we can't tell it's you with your mask :)
Now you see how I take my GoPro HD videos :)
Snowman, or something :)
Keystone, while a bit smaller, was still quite nice to ride in my opinion, especially with the fresh powder.
Conditions were quite nice, and I did a fair amount of tree runs. The forests however had just enough snow, and it was easy to catch a hidden tree trunk or branch and fall. The trees were also fairly dense, making riding quite challenging, but I like challenges :)
Nice little run with Karl, Arturo and Jennifer, finishing up in the trees:
This was one of my last tree runs, when my brain was definitely slowing down, and I missed a turn in front of a tree, ending up on my back, head downhill and my board stuck behind the tree :)
Here are the stats, gpx track and map for Day3 at Keystone.
This was definitely a great deal of fun, we lucked out on snow, and big thanks to Arturo for taking care of most of the organization, and Suwei and Karl for hosting us and showing us around the slopes.
