big night ... and more to come

Last night we cruised over to Vail to check out a Grateful Dead cover band, but hold on, lets start at the beginning. So I had an average day at work, apart from the lift got shut down early for some maintanence issue. So I got off work early and headed home for a quick shower before heading out to Jakes, where they have a free keg for employees on Fridays. So after having a few brews with the crew Chris comes round and says he's hheading off to Vail to see this Grateful Dead cover band. So we round up a posse and head out. It was me, Chris, John, Brian and Alissa. We grab a few road sodas and hit Wendys in Frisco on the way. It was starting to snow so there was the possibility that the Vail pass might get closed and we'd get stuck out there but oh well, we were going to the show and not much else mattered at this point. We get to the show in plenty of time and play some pool and foosball while we wait. The band comes on and were good, too bad they charged $20 on the door, but I guess its Vail and everything is that much more expensive over there. At some point towards the end of the night Brian is doing quite well with some girls. Anyway, at the end of the night we're all piling back into the car and Brian says "Man, I should have stayed with thise chicks"
And John says "Why don't you stay?" and that was the last we saw of Brian as he headed out to find the girls again. So we cruise back to Breck and Chris is doing a sterling job of staying awake and getting us all back safely in the storm conditions. We finally get back at 3:00am and hit the sack after a rather big night.
Then at 6:00am the alarm goes off. Fuck. Both me and John have to head to work. It wasn't the best day at the office. John was sick and saw his pizza a second time. I did a little better but was constantly falling asleep and waking up not having a clue what was going on or where I was. But it all over now and I think I'll take a napo because Jules and his family are coming into town tonight for the week and I can foresee a lot more late nights and drinking.

A-Basin and Keystone

I went over to A-Basin with Mike the other day. Its was alright but really tracked out and they didn't have enough snow to open the East Wall. Its pretty small so by 1:00 we decided that we had enough. The verdict was that it would be an amazing place if the snow conditions were right. We decided to hit Keystone for a few runs on our way home and managed to find some powder in the trees. Check out a couple pictures here.

Pictures from the slopes

I've also added a few pictures to my "office" album from Rocky Mountain chair.

The office

another day at the office

So this weekend is Presidents Day weekend and its about the busiest we get out here. I was working E-Chair and I reckon we shifted roughly 6000 people up the mountain, and we're only a double chair. Inevitably there are plenty of muppets out on the hill, fucking gapers. The highlight of my day was seeing a kid getting completely taken out by a chair. This is how it happened. These two boarders were riding the lift together. The guy nearest me and on the outside of the chair got off pretty early and pushed off the chair. The other guy got left standing at the top of the rammp and the chair passed him. Then as he skated down the ramp the chair swung round the bullwheel and just cracked him straight in the head (check illustration).

He dropped like a sack of shit. I thought for sure that he was knocked out cold and there would be a pool of blood growing. I'd have to call ski patrol, the lift would be shut down for hours while they brought up a body bag. As it turned out he got up and after sitting around for a minute or two he took off and boarded down the hill. I was amazed. I wonder if he got a concussion or anything because he was fully taken out and the chair tagged him straight in the head, and those things weigh a lot and have a lot of momentum behind them. I just wish I somehow caught it on film because you just can't believe how hard he was clocked without seeing it yourself.

Apart from that the day had its usual pile of idiots not getting on the lift properly and being knocked about or having two groups of people come out not realising that a chair hadn't passed in the 1 second they were waiting. I also took a few more pictures and added them to my gallery of picture from the "office" so check them out.

The office

Another cabin

We found another cabin yesterday. I knew there was a cabin somewhere in the windows but hadn't really gone looking for it. Yesterday I was out riding with Arthur and his roommate Drew. We were cruising through the windows just getting some sweet powder runs through the trees. Drew and I stopped at on one of the runs and were waiting for Arthur when Drew stopped the cabin just 10 meters away through the trees right next to where we stopped. I hadn't even noticed it on the previous run. As you can see from the pictures its pretty well camouflaged. So I've now found three cabins. There a supposedly a bunch more but I'm not sure if there are many more that are in good condition and nice.

Cabin hunt

Epic, just epic

So we've finally had some snow falling in the last couple of days, and its been dumping on the mountain. Today was my day off so we decided to hit Vail for some truely insane riding. We got up for the 7:36 bus into town and were just waiting for the Vail bus watching the snow falling in big fluffy flakes. When the bus finally came the driver jumped out and announced that he wasn't going to Vail, the roads were too bad. So that scuppered our plans to hit an insane day at Vail in the back bowls and Blue Sky Basin. No problem, we'd just hit Breck and session the sweet spots we knew.

So we got the gondola up to Peak 8 and grabbed some breakfast before hitting the slopes. We were planning on hitting E-Chair since it has some sick terrain and opens before the higher mountain lifts. When we got up Colorado to head over to E-Chair we called them and they weren't open so we decided to hang around Super Connect hoping it would open soon. The first runs we took were in the trees under the lift and the snow was deep, fluffy and just sick. Hitting deep fluffy snow pillows between the trees getting face shots on every turn and just cruising hard, what more can I say.

After hitting Super Connect a few times we cruised over to Peak 10 and hit Falcon and that was a lift ride. They were running the lift slow and stopping it quite frequently because the wind was picking up and swinging the chairs. We got stopped a few towers from the top and the chair was just flying around with some massive wind gusts ripping through. Anyway, we cruised fresh powder down through the Burn, which is a sick open tree run. After sessioning that a few times getting fresh trakcs we headed over to Mustang and got more fresh tracks and hit this natural kicker for a few runs. By then our legs were burning from riding so much powder so we took a late break for lunch. After lunch we hit Mustang again but the landing on the kicker was getting bombed out so we hit the Burn again and headed down to Mercury so we could get a run down under E-Chair. More fresh tracks, deep powder, pillows and face shots. By this time we were pretty knackered so we headed up Super Connect and jammed down 4 O'clock and back home.

It was pretty much the best day riding I've ever had and the top of the mountain wasn't even open because of high winds. E, 6, T-bar and Imperial were all closed so theres some sick snow up there still waiting for fresh tracks. Too bad I've got to work the next two days. Oh well, it's supposed to snow again on Monday, my next day off. Game on.

Oh I did have my camera out but I only took a picture waiting for the bus and then one before we had breakfast. I was too busy enjoying the powder to stop and take pictures. But here they are anyway.

Pictures from the Breck slopes

more pictures from the office

So I've posted a few more pictures from my office on E-Chair. Check them out here and see if your office has views as nice as these.

The office

Photo update

I've decided to organise my photos a bit differently. Instead of just adding more and more galleries with a couple pictures in each one I'm just going to have a few general albums and keep adding more photos as I take them. So some of the album links in the previous posts may be a bit screwed up but from now on it should be a bit more organised.

So the latest pictures from today are in the newly named "Pictures from the Breck slopes". I did a bit of hiking with Mike and we found some pretty good powder (it's finally been snowing) and then I hit the small park at the end of the day with John. Check out the pictures here.

Pictures from the Breck slopes

Night boarding Keystone

So after the Guttermouth show last night I got up pretty late and felt pretty shitty. I didn't bother getting on the mountain which was a bit crap but oh well, its good to have a day off every now and then. But all was not lost. Mike and Jim were up for night boarding over at Keystone. We cruised over with John and hit up a few runs under the lights. It was the first time I'd tried night boarding and it was pretty cool. The first run was a bit wierd but once I got used to the light it was pretty sweet. Checkout a couple of pics.

Night boarding

Guttermouth show

Guttermouth came through town last night and I headed out to the show. It was a really good gig. A nice small venue where you could get right up to the front of the crowd and right up with the band. The crap thing that happened was that I bought a t-shirt at the start of the show and had it tucked in my belt. Some time during the show it must have got ripped out because at the end of the night it was nowhere to be seen. I managed to talk the guy selling shirts into giving me a second one for cheap so it wasn't all bad but it still pissed me off. So the lesson from that is buy anything at the end of the show. Oh, that and my chest hurts, I think someone must have punched me when I was in the pit. Anyway, here are some pictures.

Guttermouth

Cabin hunt

There are a bunch of cabins hidden in the woods all around Breck. Some are left over from the times of the miners and other have been built by locals. So today the snow wasn't too good and we went looking for a few of them. We found the two bigger better and more know cabins, CJs and Leos. Leos is a two story cabin built a few years ago and has a pile of old snowboards and skate decks for the seats. Cjs is an old miners cabin that is a bit more traditional but still has a few snowboards on the wall. There are a bunch of other cabins hidden around the place so I'll post more pictures as I find them But for now check out the pictures here.

Cabin hunt

The office

So I took my camera in to work today and took a few pictures. I was working at Snowflake (aka the mighty 'flake, best lift on the mountain) which is one of the lowest lifts and it was nice and hot in the sun. Check out the pictures here:

The office

Update

It was my day off today so I hit up the mountain again. I actually brought out my camera and even took some pictures. So here's an album with a few random pictures that I took over the last week or so.

Breck update (Jan 5)

We cruised up to the summit and went all the way over to Art's Bowl and the The End where we actually found a little powder stash. After cruising a few more runs we got split up and I sessioned the little park a few times just to get myself a bit more comfortable in the air. The new board, boots and bindings are getting worked in a bit and I'm starting to really like them. Hopefully I'll get in the park with a couple people soon so I can post some pictures and videos. As far as other pictures, a couple other people have been bringing their cameras out to the bars so once I steal thier pictures I'll be able to post a whole pile from nights out.

another day at the office

So today was pretty good. The weather is still storming with the winds howling. I got to work and was all set to go on time. I walked out to the lift we had to take up to get to the lift I was working but they weren't running it yet due to the wind. So we sat around the lift house waiting for lift to get running. After a half hour to an hour they finally got the lift going so we headed up. It was a cold and windy ride but we made it. Then boarding down to our lift I got lost. A big gust of wind rolled through and it was a complete whiteout, I couldn't see anything and I over shot the trail I was supposed to take. No problem though, I just cut through a different trail and made it over to E chair, the lift I was working. With all the stormy weather we had to move a few tons of snow to get the lift ready to run. So we spent an hour or two shovelling snow and the whole time people would ski by and ask "Hey is this lift open?" and we'd just look at eachother and think, "does it look like its open? there's a ton of snow in the way and the chairs aren't moving." After we got all the snow work done we sat around and waited for the lift mechanic to start it up, which he finally did when he thought the wind had died down a little. So we sent up the line check and a couple of ski patrol guys. At this point a big group of people were lining up to get on the lift. We said that it should open soon but we couldn't guarantee anything. After running the lift for about an hour the mechanic decided we wouldn't open it. Then we went back into the lift hut and lay down for a nice nap and waited for a call to either start it up again or go home. After an hours sleep we got the call. Go home, the lift won't be opening. So a nice run home and that was my day. A few hours of shoveling snow followed by a nap and home early. Pretty sweet. Oh and did I mention I went to see the Wailers last night as well. Its pretty good out here.

cold, windy and surreal

So I had the day off today and I needed to test out my new boots. I got up a bit late (finally got some sleep) and headed out to the mountain. The first clue I missed was teh howling winds outside my window, but for what ever reason it didn't register. Then when I got off the bus the gondola was stopped. It occured to me then that the wind was guite strong and the conditions were pretty shitty. Oh well, I had new boots to try so I jumped on the bus and headed up to the hill. Once I got there, I saw that a bunch of lifts were closed due to high wind. It wsn't looking good. Basically the whole of Peak 8 was closed except a double chair that would get you over to Peak 9. Peak 7 was still open and running but the lifts that accessed it were closed. So I jumped the lift over to Peak 9 and took a few runs there and getting over there I had one of my best runs ever. The wind was howling, the snow was blowing, I could barely see my snowboard because of the blowing snow. I was on a crappy easy run connecting me over to Peak 9 with 4 snow cats ahead of me. I had my tunes going and the whole thing was a detached surreal experience because basically all my senses were numbed. I couldn't see the snow, I couldn't hear the board, I couldn't feel the snow because I was on my new boots that are a lot stiffer than my old ones. And with all that, I was cruising the run weaving in and out of the snow cats grooming the run in a world without sensation. It was just amazing.

Beaver Creek

So we had a good few inches of snow on Tuesday night, but I was working on Wednesday and didn't get to enjoy it properly (although I did have first tracks boarding down to my lift and a ride break). It continued snowing a bit and today I went out to Beaver Creek with Arthur (another liftie who started at the same time as me). I remembered to bring my camera and although I didn't get it out too much, the one time I was going to have a good picture of Arthur coming down a double black, steep and deep tree run it was too cold for the battery to work at all. So instead of posting pictures of the fresh snow we had over in Beaver you'll just have to imagine it.

Apart from not being able to take any pictures, Beaver was alright. They had a couple of double black, extreme glade runs through the trees which would be amazing if you hit them after a storm before they got too moguled. They were ok for us but we got there a bit too late. Apart from those runs there not much there that you couldn't find on Breck or Vail, and considering its and extra few minutes down the road from Vail I don't think I'll be going back any time soon. The village was pretty amazing though. If Vail is a pre-fab, Disney Swiss mountain village look-a-like, then Beaver is one notch more artificial because all the buildings match completely. Its definitely a place for the more discerning clientel. They have heated sidewalks and escalators to take you up to the slopes. So if you're about 50+ and want a perfect ski experience then check it out, otherwise don't bother, although it can be a good place to avoid the crowds.

In other news I've picked up a new pair of boots, Burton Rulers. So now I'm all set with kit and tomorrow is another day off to hit the slopes. And in the evening theres the ski tour half pipe contest so I'll check that out and see some sick skiing and massive air out of the pipe. I do miss the skier cross which runs on Saturday because I work again but the course they built looks pretty deadly.