You guessed it; day five with Sky and two friends

5:30 came too soon on a Sunday morning, but at least the new guy, Tank didn't get up during the night. We, Sky and his two friends that spent the night, were on I-70 by 6:40 and there was hardly any holiday traffic to speak of... they were all asleep by Chief Hosa, so I guess I couldn't speak of it anyways.

When you ski alone (with iPod which was great but you kind of have to unplug or pause on the lift in case the other passengers are chatty) you get pretty tired from skiing as fast as you want. And not waiting in lift lines, the only rest you get is on the lift. So, I got a lot of skiing in today and got pretty tired but I'm starting to get my ski legs for the season.

These pictures aren't great because I forgot my camera. I had to resort to my iPhone's camera. Day five was great in that I got to ski in the Outback, do some tree runs which was surprising since in other areas of the mountain, those slopes were just about bare. We really need snow. It kind of snowed today but as one guy from Oklahoma City said, "if this is the snow we brought with us, it's pretty pitiful!"

Happy Martin Luther King Day to everyone!

I love changing out of my ski clothes before the drive home. The coffee helped; I hardly nodded at all even though all the occupants of our car were asleep. We were home by 3:15 to let Tank out of his crate... I even got motivated to pull all my drums off of the shelf, setup and take pictures for my Craig's List posting.

Changes at A-Basin

As I was editing my blog header with some utilities I discovered on the Mac, I noticed that there are tracks coming down one of the chutes above A-Basin.

When you click on the picture, you'll see them. It's fairly normal at A-Basin to ski the East Wall but to ski above it, as those tracks show, is pretty extraordinary and probably would result in jail time.

These pictures were taken during Sky's 14th birthday party. He invited several friends and once we arrived, they promptly ditched me. That was fine since I wanted to take some pictures with my new Canon DSLR. The agreement was to meet at the mid-mountain restaurant for lunch. When they didn't show up for an hour or so (no cell service on the front side), I skied a bit more and then ran into one of the Moms who said that Sky had taken a jump and hit his head and blacked out. The ski patrol would not release him from the clinic until I checked him out. It didn't occur to any of his friends to come up to the restaurant and find me, or ski around to see if they could find me. Oh well, I checked him out and he was fine.

I was amazed at the party scene on "The Beach" which is the front row of parking at A-Basin. As I skied over to the Palavachini lift, I looked down this snow bank and there playing at 11, was a full band. When Tamra and I skied there, people would drink and BBQ, but it was really tame compared to what they do there now.

A-Basin has changed a bit over the years, but essentially, everything is as it was in the spring of '78 when I took Katherine there to ski. She had just come back from England and probably was amazed by all she saw that day at A-Basin.

The top of A-Basin is just a few feet shy of 13,000 but oddly enough, I don't get headaches skiing up there. What could explain the fact that I get Altitude sickness hiking fourteeners but not skiing at 13,000.

It's hard to get a photog that shows how steep this side of the mountain is. If I had a pitch meter, I'd take it to Palavachini. You start up on a ridge and are funneled down into some fairly narrow chutes, exiting out through the woods to a double chair which I think they are proud to still operate; it goes almost straight up from the bottom to the ridge. A wait at the bottom is a welcome rest.

I just read on their web site that they are adding a quad to replace the 1978 triple that has been in service all those years. Again, a major change for this area that prides itself on not changing.

I think that's Breck in the distance. A-Basin opened up Montezuma Bowl off the backside. The biggest change in their history and it increased the area's size by 80 percent, adding 400 acres.

I have very fond memories of A-Basin, skiing with Peter, Phil, Mr. Mark, Other friends and of course Tamra, Sky and Sierra. It's included in our pass this year, so I'm excited to go back for more... great days, great runs and drink in all those wonderful mountain views.

View in Montezuma Bowl which opened in the '07/08 season, my 30th season.

What a fine day for a Day Four

(The title refers to a song that was playing while I was writing the blog... Fountains of Wayne and the song, "What a Fine Day for a Parade" - I had to explain since it sounds kind of funny.)

Day four at Keystone started at 5:30 am. Pulled out of the driveway at 6:44, hit some traffic after Idaho Spiggs but it was completely clear traffiicwise and weatherwise the rest of the way to the resort. Half way up Loveland Pass, the sun started illuminating the mountains around I-70.

Taking pictures while driving over the pass made some of my passengers nervous. I can't imagine why, the roads were fine!

One of our favorite Podcasts to listen to is "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" an NPR quiz show with a panel of guests and and a great host, Peter Sagal and Carl Castle from Morning Edition. The Podcast we listened to was 2009 in review with the highlight being Brian Williams from NBC who talked about being happy he was on vacation when the Colorado Balloon Boy thing happened. He also blogs on Music (BriTunes) and had some funny lines.

When we pulled into the lot, it was two above. A 12 minute gondola ride to the top put us on top of the mountain not ready to ski. Since it was early and cold we grabbed 2 coffees and a hot chocolate for the inflated price of $9.50. Sky took a couple of runs with us before heading over to Area 51, the terrain park where he was meeting some friends.

Meanwhile, Tamra, Sierra and I took another gondola over to the Outback where there are only blue and black runs. It's a little less crazy than the front side of Keystone. Just before lunch, I found a really steep blue that was one of the widest and steepest blues I've ever skied. It is the picture below where it drops off precipitously in the next 50 yards.

AT&T cell service seems to be pretty good at Keystone. It really helps when you want to track Sky down or give him an update. He said he was hurting in one of his texts, so we headed to lunch, ate, took a few more runs and headed home.

Day four was great for the weather, everyone skied well, Sky turned out not be hurt (his friends went up to A-Basin) and we didn't hit massive traffic on the way home. Plus, I got a nap in and I'm home writing this blog watching the sun set over the Rockies just before we head over to our friend's house to pick up our new puppy, "Tank".

First blog of the year, ever

I was so impressed with Phil's blog that I thought I'd create one with the theme of our ski days during the 2009-2010 season. Of course, this is my blog and I may break some of the rules I've been mulling over in my head; one paragraph is good (about 15 lines...this first one will be longer since I have to catch up), one picture is nice but since I love photographs, I may break that rule. So here it goes, starting 2010 with a blog that will have to morph into something else once the snow melts. OK, to catch up from last year;

• Day one - Took Sky and four friends to Keystone before Thanksgiving. Really crowded and I managed one run which was on fairly decent snow from the top of the gondola to the bottom. Since there were a lot of people, I decided to go have lunch and browse around a bookstore in Dillon.
• Day two - Christmas Eve - Keystone with Sky, Tamra and Sierra. Not crowded and had a great day from about 10:00 - 2:00. None of us enjoyed our first run down the back side which is called North Peak. A great day before a great party that night with friends. 
• Day three - The Monday after Christmas. Breckenridge. We haven't skied here in 15 years or so. Now we know why; the blues are almost green meaning that they aren't as steep as blues in other areas. I guess you need to know where to ski. The upside was that parking was only $10, $5 if we had four people in our car. It was -2 in the parking but it warmed up by 2:00 when we jettisoned our skis to get in the car and head back to Genesee. The skiing was ok but extremely crowded, but what did we expect on Christmas week. As we rode the gondola back to the car, we spotted a bull moose and we were told that a mother and a calf were harassing skiers up on the slopes. We'll give Breck another try and hopefully we'll know where the best lifts and trails are on the mountain.

This year is definitely a good year to start this blog because we bought the Colorado Pass which gives us unlimited ski days at A-Basin, Keystone and Breckenridge. On top of that, we can ski 10 days at either Vail or Beaver Creek. My goal for this season is 20 days. Sky is shooting for the high 20s.

Oh, another rule, I'm not going to care if anyone reads this, comments or whatever.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Keystone on 12/24/2009

Breckenridge on 12/28/2009

Mr. Berkowitz; shot, stuffed and mounted...