Breckenridge or Break-a-rib?

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. What a day. Today was not my day. Yesterday was not Chris's day. Maybe tomorrow will be both our days.

Today I cheated death a few too many times. (Not really, maybe, don't worry Mom, I'm alive and well and probably exaggerating a bit. We're fine. Really.)

Ok, I have to interrupt this blog to tell you that we are currently watching America's Funniest Home Videos and it's a video of this little girl pulling her own tooth out. It was NOT funny. Just gross. And now I'm traumatized.

And...we're back!

The day started out nice enough. We headed to Breckenridge which is only about 10 minutes from where we're staying. Here's Chris letting you all know it's day three.


We started by going up to Peak 7. Breckenridge has a Peak 7, 8, 9, 10. We're not sure what happened to peaks 1-6 though. Maybe they got lost. Or the people who planned Breckenridge missed a few key days of school. Peak 7 was cool though. It starts out with lots of little pathways through trees and then opens up to a wide open run with plenty of room.

Chris and I generally stick together when we board, because Chris is a saint and will wait for my slow self to catch up to him. Here's a picture of him hauling out after I finally caught up to him.


So, a note about Breckenridge: it's REALLY windy. I'm glad I had my face mask thing on because my cheeks were getting some serious wind-chapped-ness. But, I do have to say, I was blown away by how beautiful it was. And the first run really was a breeze. (Ok, I might have spent the entire day thinking those up.)

The second time around we got separated though. And that is when I cheated death for the first time. After two days of boarding, it finally happened. I hit a tree. Granted, it was a tree about the size of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree (with maybe a few more branches) and I'm not sure I was actually moving forward, but I regardless, snowboard, meet tree. We're not really sure where this picture was taken, but it's after I used up the first of my nine lives.


Then we headed back up the mountain. To what I will now call "The Peak of DOOM" (ok, I might be overreacting a little, but seriously...it was scary!). We had to take multiple chairlifts to get there. Here are some pictures of us on those chairlifts unsuspecting of the DOOM that is about to greet us:


We got separated because there was a massive pile-up on the chair in front of me. I did not cause this pile-up. The people I am sitting with are very nice. They are from Connecticut, but have retired here and were singing the praises of the great conditions in Colorado.


So, here is where the chairlift left us off:

Yes, at 12,840 feet. The lift that left us off there is called the Imperial Express Superchair and is the highest lift in the United States. That is very high. But guess what? We weren't done. We went higher.

See me? I'm at 12,840 feet. See that path behind me? With the guy hiking up? Yeah, that's where we went next. We hoofed it up to the makeshift steps holding our snowboards and praying that we weren't going to slide all the way back down. Here's a little exerpt of what was going through my mind:

"What am I doing?

Oh, this isn't so hard.

Ok, nevermind that, now I can't breath.

Hmm..if I just stop here for a little while I can catch my breath.

What the heck was Chris thinking? This is ridiculous!

These steps aren't very big...what if my foot slips?

Um..if I drop my snowboard, how do I get down from here?

Chris, I think I hate you right now.

My legs are burning!

How much futher?

Chris, I definitely hate you right now."

It sort of continued like that in my head until I managed to reach the summit. Yes, summit. Because this is a mountain. Here's a picture of me hauling myself over the edge:


And here is how I spent the next 12 minutes trying not to die:

Yes, on my back, hugging my snowboard with a death grip so that it doesn't go flying over the edge. Because P.S. it was really windy up there. When I finally managed to catch my breath, it turned out it was pretty nice up there:


A whole bunch of skiers came up after us and one of them was nice enough to take a picture of us. We look so calm and happy, but we are actually holding on to each other to prevent us from blowing over. (I'm serious, it was so windy) Also, I'm pretty sure that's Chris, but since exactly 0% of his face is visable, it could just be some random dude.

So, after having a small anxiety attack and collecting myself for a while, we eventually had to go down the Peak of DOOM. I think I mentioned before how I don't like snowboarding near all these steep edges? Well yeah, this was the ultimate steep edge. For the first part I pretty much spent the entire way down sliding on my butt. Lower that CG (yes, Center of Gravity, I'm an engineer, deal with it). But the whole butt thing only got me so far and at some point I had to stand up. Chris led the way because he's awesome like that and much better than me. But, for a short amount of time, I was actually standing up. Proof:


I look pretty hardcore and awesome, right? Well, that didn't last long. Here's how the following few minutes went:


"Oh boy oh boy oh boy...I think I can stand up. Ok, I'm doing ok. I'm not falling down too badly. I'm going to make it over there."


"No I'm not! Now I'm just sliding down this mountain. What if I can't stop? There are rocks up there! How am I going to avoid those rocks? I can't stop! Why am I not stopping?! STOP STOP STOP!! THIS IS SO NOT COOL! HOW AM I GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS?! THIS WAS THE STUPIDEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE! AM I GOING TO DIE?!"

And while I was hoping the mountain was somehow going to just swallow me up or a bird was going to pick me off the side of the mountain, Chris was chilling:


But, because Chris is a saint, after I had a bit bigger than a minor (MAJOR) panic attack on the side of the mountain, Chris coached me down to the bottom. And I made it! And I'm alive and uninjured! And I don't think I will be attempting anything like that again!


That's me at the bottom. I think I managed to put my heart back in my chest. So, here's a picture of the peak that we snowboarded down.


Somehow, after that life-changing excursion, Chris managed to convince me to go back up to the top of the lift (the 12,840 ft part) and then go down again. Sometimes I'm not sure how he persuades me to do these things. But, it turns out it wasn't so bad. And it was pretty!


And this was all before noon. So we decided to head to the bottom of the peak (8?) to have a snack (and lower our blood pressure). It was actually pretty nice going down the rest of the way. Chris is waving "Hi!" to all of you and telling you that you should come to Colorado and hike up big peaks and snowboard through trees (betcha didn't know a wave could convey so much).


Oh, I almost forgot to mention...one of the trails we had to go down to get to the bottom is called Psychopath. And, yes, I do believe Chris is a bit of a psychopath.

Seriously, look how calm and collected the dude is.


We had only explored the right side of the mountain, so we decided that perhaps we should see what other (tamer) things were out there. But...there's a lot:


Now, being Day 3 of the great Colorado snowboarding trip, my legs were starting to give out on me. So we didn't spend that much time on the rest of the mountain before heading home.


Overall, Breckenridge was a lot of fun. I still think I like Keystone better, but Vail less. Lots of fun adventures. Tomorrow we're sticking around here (Keystone) before heading back to Boulder. I'm pretty sure a stop at Sonic is in the cards.

Subaru Count: 75. If Subaru spotting was like Zitch-Dog, Chris would be the Marshall of the game. It's like he has a Subaru owner's honing device.