Fun in Colorado

From 2014 January Winter in Colorado

Last weekend, we got to head out to Colorado to spend some quality time with friends on the slopes. 🙂 Despite the awful flight delays and a cancellation, everyone had a swell time. There hadn’t been any fresh snow the week before we arrived, but the sunny blue skies and mild winter weather helped warm up the snow cover on the ground and made for some excellent skiing conditions.

Hit Breckenridge on Saturday, after a late-ish start given that we’d only got to the condo at 430am. On Sunday, our crew of 8 went to Vail. Our friends from Colorado left that afternoon to try beat the traffic back to Boulder, but we were joined in the evening by another two friends at our condo. The snow started falling Monday, and temperatures dropped precipitously from the relatively balmy temps the prior two days, but we still managed a ton of fun in A-Basin before we had to leave for the airport.

From 2014 January Winter in Colorado

From 2014 January Winter in Colorado

Reckon that’s the only ski trip we’ll have this year, but it was fun!

Powder day on Whistler

Powder day. If we had thought the snow fall earlier in the week was heavy, we were in for a real education Friday.

Overnight, nearly a foot of fresh powder had accumulated on the slopes. And it was still coming down thick, heavy, but fast. The resort shut down the Peak to Peak gondola, along with all thee other chair lifts above the tree line, given the gusts of up to 50km/hr.

No matter. We wouldn’t have ventured too high anyway for visibility sucked. And there were plenty of runs mid-mountain.

It was fascinating, having to adapt over five days the different ski conditions – hard packed snow – crunchy and icy – on the first day, and now ankle-deep powder on the main runs. Definitely a lot of adjustment was needed. Technique took priority over speed.

At 3pm, we reluctantly headed back to the resort and called it a day. Time to head back down the mountain.

Sunset along the Sea to Sky highway

Easy third day of skiing

The forecast originally promised snow only in the evening, but soon after we hit the slopes, the weather rapidly closed in. By the time we got on the chair lift to Whistler Peak, the peak was shrouded in snow. Below us, we could make out the faint outline of a few skiers on the steep incline, one of whom seemed to be hurtling uncontrollably downhill. This was clearly not a good day for us to try any hard runs, so we stuck to the blues. Even so, it was a little nerve wrecking trying to find the route through the clouds.

We called it in early, and lounged in the hot tub by the slopes, luxuriating in the steamy waters while watching the frozen skiers on the chairlifts above us. 🙂

First and Last Tracks

The number one awesome thing about staying in a lodge slope side is that in the mornings, we can simply walk out of our hotel and start skiing. No shuttle or parking hassle! And in the evening, we can time it such that we catch the very last lift up the mountain and leisurely make our way back straight to our lodge.

So it was that we arose this cloudless blue sky morning eager to make tracks in the fresh snow.

We found some awesome powder too, on the Whistler side, on Whistler Peak and Symphony Bowl. It was so much fun!

Snow day in Whistler

We awoke at 530am on Monday, raring to hit the slopes. At seven sharp, we joined the throng of others at the breakfast line. Everyone was eager to get first tracks. Supposedly, the lifts only started at 830am, but by 8am, we had strapped on our skis and skied out of our ski-in-ski-out lodge to the bottom of the hill.

We were let on early. Yay! Such an exhilarating feeling to have the freshly groomed runs to ourselves. It hadn’t snowed in a whole, so the snow was hard packed. Consequently, we simply flew down the mountain. I never lost control, but I certainly was skiing at much faster speeds than I was comfortable with.

It’d started to snow though. Flurries at first, then the flakes started increasing in size and speed. By early afternoon, we opted to get off the peak and ski mid mountain, where the shadow of the trees helped define the otherwise flat white light. It was getting disconcerting skiing above the tree line in poor visibility, since we could hardly tell a change in incline until we were on top of it.

Fun times though!

Colorado with Friends

Roughly 20 or us (plus/minus friends in town who joined us for day trips) headed out to Colorado for an extended weekend of skiing.

We’d all lucked out – the week leading up to the trip saw the most concentrated snowfall of the season. Yay!

Spent Saturday at Keystone, and for the first time, I tried some tree runs. Think I’ve improved enough to tackle a few of these runs. Hehe looking forward to a week in Whistler where I’ll get to practice some more!

Sunday – Vail with friends. So fun that Miles could join us for the day too! Spent a glorious day in the back bowls, going through trees, powder, and some scary runs. 🙂

Biathlon

We headed up to Wisconsin this past Saturday for a Biathlon clinic. Since there wasn’t any snow on the ground (come on now!), the clinic focused just on the shooting aspect of the sport.

What fun! It was my first time handling a live firearm, so I was a tad nervous initially. I forgot my trepidation soon enough though, and began to focus on trying to keep my sights steady before I pulled the trigger. We had a bunch of rifles to share amongst the 30-odd people who turned up for the clinic, but as there were only four of us lefties, we each got in plenty of turns with our rifle.

It took me a few tries before I figured out how to slow my breathing down enough to hit the targets while in prone position. It’s really difficult to shoot standing though – I think it would be a miracle if I get any targets coming fresh off the ski trails. Heh.

Fun new sport to look forward to this winter – if it ever snows!

Yay to Deals

Hehe. We aren’t big shoppers, but we couldn’t help ourselves with all these awesome Thanksgiving deals, both online and at the store.

We actually braved the crowds on Friday in Virginia, when we headed to LL Bean to look for cross country skies. The car park was crowded with cars literally stalking shoppers to their parked car, and we had a bit of a standoff with another car. In any case, we couldn’t find any skis for sale in the store, but walked away mighty pleased with new winter coats and my ski pants.

Continued the shopping online when we got back – Jeff got me new ski boots to go the skis he bought me last week.

And today, thanks to Cyber Monday, we booked trips to New York in January and to Seattle in February at amazing prices. 🙂 Yay! I get to catch the incomparable Joyce DiDonato sing Maria Stuarda live! (Although the tickets are mostly sold out, so we only managed to get side balcony seats) And I get to really break in my new skis in Whistler over Presidents Day! Hehe, the trip we’d booked for earlier Feb with like 20 other friends will be but a teaser. 🙂

Christmas on Breckenridge

Look at how bare the trees and the mountains in the back are. Usually everything would be under a blanket of white

For all our hand wringing over the dismal snowfall this season, we actually had three really good days skiing. The snow was crunchy but thankfully not icy.

We spent all 3 days on Breckenridge since it looked like it had the most snow of all the resorts in the area. Plus, we had prime parking spots that were only a few feet away from the lifts.

The days got progressively warmer. On Friday, it was bracingly cold with temperatures in the low teens. By Christmas day, it was warm enough (40 degrees) for us to lunch al fresco under the sun.

Too bad we have to leave tomorrow! Although I was really fatigued by the end of the runs yesterday, today I felt I could ski for a couple more days straight. Oh well. Here’s hoping for a ton of powder for when we return in February!

Off to a White Christmas!

Off to the airport to Colorado for a white Christmas. Hopefully there’ll be a bonanza of that fresh white stuff that has been falling on Colorado on the high slopes!

Otherwise this week has been spent catching up with friends. Grabbed dinner at Tasting Room with Rachel and Thomas Monday. Enjoyed a long and raucous meal at Double Li with 6 other friends. Even though the group hadn’t met one another before, the conversation flowed as freely as the bottles of sparkling everyone brought to share. On Wednesday, we caught up with yet another group of friends over beer, hot pot, and wine. Loving the great start to the festive season!