Day One Post Blizzard

Fort Collins and Denver only ended up getting about a foot of snow. Below the snow on the roads however was about three inches of ice, which made the highway a skating rink. Alex and I were hell bent on making it to the mountains today though. I want to send a special thank you to the state of Michigan today for its crappy weather. Because of all the driving on snow I did growing up I was able to white knuckle us to the mountains. The roads to Denver and west for about 30 miles were a solid sheet of pitted ice! But once we got past Denver it was clear as a bell on the roads. We decided to stop at Keystone today and head to Vail tomorrow. We were anxious to get on the slops. And OMG was it worth the drive! Today was amazing - sunny, warm and more fresh snow than we knew what to do with.


This is taken from the outpost Gondola. We were heading into the back to reach the way-back bowls in search of fresh powder. For those of you that don't ski, the runs on the front of the mountains are usually groomed every day. They are great for sore knees and are so smooth and soft after a fresh snow but there is no powder. You have to go into the back bowls to find ungroomed trails and fun runs with lots of trees. Usually I don't like the way back bowls because they are so choppy that it really hurts my knees. But today was different.


We caught another chair lift or two and finally made it to the back ridge and started to hike up onto the ridge to reach all of the untouched areas and the north and south bowls. Above is the sign you see when you finally reach the top of the mountain. Hiking in ski boots is not easy and your shoulders get sore from your skies resting on them.

Look how miserable Alex looks trying to climb up the mountain ridge with his skies on. They have a snowmobile that will run you up to the top so you don't have to hike but we didn't want to pay the $5 it cost to get a ride.

Alex is leaning on his ski's near the top trying to catch his breath.

The View from the top. All of the runs you see are the runs at Breckenridge. You can't see the mountains above them because they are covered in clouds.

So off in to the South Bowl we went. The powder was over knee deep at spots. I quickly learned that skiing in deep powder is VERY different than skiing on groomed trails. I was on my face or my butt or side every few feet. It was so much fun! The snow was so deep that when you fell it was like falling into a giant fluffy pillow. My skies were constantly popping off when I fell and often I couldn't find them because they were buried too deep. Once I fell forward in a splits like face plant and couldn't get up because the tips of my skies were stuck deep down in the snow. If the camera had not been in my pants pockets I would have had Alex take a picture.  He probably couldn't have taken one anyways because he was laughing too hard at my silly struggle to get up. He ended up having to pull my skies out and help me flip over. Alex took quit a few spills too. Below are a few pictures of our deep powder adventures.

I stuck my poles in the snow and nearly lost them. They just kept going down, the more I pushed the deeper they went. The base back there is about 60 inches.

Alex dove off the edge ahead of me and made it a few feet before becoming a giant rolling ball of snow, feet and arms. This is him climbing back up the hill to try and reclaim his skies. It took him forever to find them because they got buried over two feet deep.

I went off down the mountain without Alex and checked back on him awhile later, he is STILL looking for his lost ski. He is poking the snow with his pole trying to find it. Poor guy!

We finally made it through the steep part and in to the trees. It was so much fun. The path was narrow and I felt like I was on a half pipe with trees at the edges. I came out of one set of trees and didn't have enough room to stop and decided to crash into a pile of snow to stop myself. I quickly learned that what I thought was a pile of snow was really a rock covered in snow. Ouch! No major damage was done and at least it stopped me. While I was sitting smashed up against the rock I took the below picture.

I am not sure if you can tell or not but it is fairly steep and is shaped like a chute.

It got cloudy around 3pm and really started to get cold and snow again. Yippee for more snow. After the lifts closed we headed back to our rooms. Thank you Laurie for the FANTASTIC accommodations you got us! Below is the view from our room.

We are staying at Snow Mountain Ranch over by Winter Park. The activities for families here are amazing. Well I better hit the sack, we are headed off early to Vail tomorrow. One last thing I have to say though: Happy 35th Birthday Alex! I hope it was a good one!