No Broken Bones, No Black Eyes

We made it! Four days done and no major injuries! After boarding for 5-6 hours a day for the past three days, we've gotten a bit tired. Like, whole-body-hurts-tired as well as just pooped. So, needless to say, we got a bit of a late start today. We decided to stick around Keystone (where we've been staying) for our last day out on the Colorado mountains. And I think it was a good choice.

When we checked out of our condo and headed to the mountain, it was snowing! There hasn't been any fresh powder since we've been here, but the conveniently forecasted snow for this weekend, just in time for our departure. But we got a teensy-weensy taste (I mean, it would have been enough to shut schools in Maryland, but probably not enough for an APL snowday).

Look, I'm telling you guys it's Day 4. And those white spots are snow, not dirty spots on Chris's camera.


Since we were familiar with the terrain, we made our way to our favorite part of the mountain - the North Bowl (Haha, I just realized that sounds like North Pole. I wish there were elves and Santa Claus running around. Now that I think of it, I did see three people heading to the slopes dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Batman, and a wizard. Awesome.). With the snow and all, the views weren't that great. But it was still pretty cool to be up there.


We headed down into the bowl through the trees like before. It didn't take us as long this time though. I'm not sure if it's because we were tired and just looked for the easiest way out, or if we are getting better. I'm going to go with getting better.


We did not hit a single one of those trees.

However, being Day 4 of the epic snowboarding trip (yes, I just upgraded this trip to epic), our legs were a bit tired and sore. Here's Chris showing us all what happens when your legs are tired and sore:



I have to admit there was a lot of that today (from me at least...I was tumbling all over the place). But for any worried readers out there, those pictures are staged. This is just an example of some of the exceptional falls we have had this week. But, we have both come away relatively unscathed. Here Chris demonstrates is snowboarding prowess through the trees:


See, not falling.

We did a few runs in the bowl before we decided we were too tired to keep trying to avoid trees. Since not trying to avoid trees seems like it would just lead to something really terrible, we hit a few of the regular trails.


Look at how the sky has cleared up. Our foray into awesome snowy Colorado weather didn't last long. This is how the entire week as been (I guess you can probably figure that out from all the pictures), clear with blue skies and nice temperature. It's actually pretty warm in Colorado. For some reason I had it in my mind as a frozen tundra in the winter, but the weather was in the high 50s today.

While we were at the summit of one of the mountains I figured I would take a bunch of pictures of the scenery. Because it's awesome.



We left a bit early today to beat the traffic since it gets pretty crowded on the weekends. We were already starting to notice the increase in people and the sudden need to avoid more skiers on our way down. (You know, we avoided them when we could...otherwise, well, snow is soft. Just kidding, we didn't hit any skiers...just snowboarders. Interesting note, when going down a narrower path, skiers with generally call out "On your left" or "On your right" and tap their poles together to let you know they want to pass you and on what side (because with ski goggles you have the peripheral vision of an owl (you know, that's why they turn their heads like 200 degrees, cause they don't have much)), but snowboarders just whiz by you and figure they'll get around you...) (Wow, that was a lot of parentheses. The engineer in me just thought of those last few paragraphs as a math equation and thought you should read the words in the innermost parentheses first, and then go out. But don't do that, because then it won't make sense. Because there are words, not a math equation. (In case you weren't sure.))

Overall, of the three resorts we went to, I liked Keystone the best, followed by Breckenridge, and then Vail. They were all amazing and have no comparison back in Pennsylvania. I now scoff at your little hills and icy conditions Liberty, Whitetail, and Roundtop! It has been a great 4 days of boarding, but I'm ready to sit down for two days and regain muscle control in my legs.

After leaving Keystone we made a VERY IMPORTANT stop at Sonic so we could get more $1, 44 oz slushie beverages of deliciousness, then headed back through Boulder to Vanessa and Ryan's (friends of Chris, whose house we are staying in tonight. They are very cool people with the most adorable baby boy ever. Also, their cat can open closed doors. Like he can somehow turn the handle and push the door open.)


These are the Flat Irons where Chris used to climb and do ridiculous things like hanging upsidedown from ledges. He has the coolest picture ever.

We had a low key evening, mostly just hanging around and we went out to dinner where there were two musicians playing some freestyle flute. Yes, flute. Actually, flutes. It was interesting. (haha, that would have been a funnier pun if they had been playing tubas. Get it? Low key?)

We watched a disturbing TV show about little girls and parents who compete in beauty pageants (together). They have 6 year old's tanning and 2 year olds wearing ruffles and twirling a baton. I suppose there was also an older mother wearing a lot of belly-bearing spandex twirling a baton which might have been equally disturbing. All I have to say is, thank you mom for never making me wear ruffled dresses and acrylic nails and putting me in a beauty pageant. For this, I might forgive you for giving me a mullet when I was 4.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading the blog for this trip. I'm not sure what we are doing tomorrow, or if I'm going to have a chance (or a reason) to update this anymore. But, Colorado, how I love thee and your snow covered mountains and crazy bike riding residents. Oh, and the Subarus. So many Subarus.

Free Nature Valley Granola Bars: 4...I might have waltzed into the registration office and grabbed a handful. There just in a big basket...isn't that what they are there for?

Subaru Count: Honestly, we were just too tired. And there were hundreds.

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.

Vail - Snowboarding in a Skier's Paradise

You can thank Chris for the lovely blog title today.

So, today we hit up Vail. Pretty much because I wanted to say that I had been to Vail. Of all of the ski resorts we have passes to, Vail is the only one I had actually heard of. This seems to be the case with a lot of people, because Vail was crowded. With lots and lots of skiers. And not so many snowboarders. And we found out why later on.

So this morning we got up early (going to bed at 9:30 sort of lends itself to getting up really early) and headed out to Vail.

Chris drove (thank goodness, read previous blogs about driving through Colorado...and my white knuckles) and I was in charge of the radio station. Funny note, driving to Vail there are exactly zero radio stations. And then you start to get a country music station. No more, no less. Good thing the ride is only 30 minutes.

This is on our first lift up the mountain. You can take it as the Asian peace sign, or the fact that we are on day 2 of snowboarding trip (I would lean towards the second one). Right now it's a balmy 11 degrees out.


I think this is at the top of the mountain. I imagine all of these pictures at the peaks of mountains start to look the same. But you can tell that it's a different day, because I'm wearing my offensively bright orange pants.


We had heard from Avid-Skier-Man yesterday that the Blue Sky Basin was awesome and we should check it out. So we made our way up to look for it. I'm still not completely sure how we made it there, but at some point we were at the edge of the basin (I think).

On our way to the basin there were lots and lots of flat points. For those of you who don't snowboard (probably the majority of you reading this...) for snowboarders, flat = bad. You get stuck not moving forward and since you feet are tied together by the board all you can do is crouch down and pray that you continue moving. Then you calves start to hurt. And if you're me, then you fall. So, needless to say, we ended up stopping a bunch. But then we got to take fun pictures of Chris on a bridge!

Oh, and here's the basin. Can you say beautiful?


I think the bowls are in the basin or something. I'm not completely sure, so we sort of just started snowboarding down. The bowls here were more open than at Keystone, but we found some cool trees to go through.

We pretty much rode up and down the bowls all morning. Here is a sweet action shot of Chris:


Right before lunch we decided to ride down one more time. This is us before the trek down. I pretty much can't stop taking pictures because it's so gorgeous. However, you know what I didn't bring? Something that would actually be useful during this trip? My TRIPOD. Darn it. There are lots of trees and branches to hook it on and not so many people in the woods to take your picture.


We were in search for some fresh powder and we some near the bottom of the bowl. So, like kids in a candy store, we did whatever we had to get there. So this is what we went down:

See that completely vertical wall in the distance? Yeah, that's what we decided to go down. Here's me thinking that this is probably the stupidest idea we've had yet.


And here's me "boarding" down the mountain. More like just praying that I'm not going to tumble head over heels and plummet to my death. But, since you are reading this blog, I didn't die! We made it down and found the powder!

We spent the afternoon the front of the mountain. And took a bunch or ridiculous pictures. This is a picture of me in front of the map of Vail. I think I'm at an altitude of approximately 2 miles. Umm..that might be the most interesting thing I have to say about this.


They also have these hilarious plastic statue things near the peaks. I'm not entirely sure why there are there, but to me, the best use is to take a picture with them. I don't think they beat the statue things at Wall Drug, but these are animals! And they are giving thumbs up!

Our last run of the day was down a trail called "Hunky Dory". If that isn't a great way to end the day, then I'm not sure what is. For the most part it was quite hunky dory, but like many of the other trails at Vail it had lots of flat parts that were narrow and crowded. And lots of these narrow paths sort of had edges to them...where I was sure I was going to fall over. So I spent a lot of time going as slow as possible, being passed by skiers left and right and just praying I wasn't going to fly off the edge and hit a tree.


Overall, a good day though. I think I prefer Keystone over Vail. My legs are currently still working also, which is pleasantly surprising. Now I think we're going to make some delicious dinner. Breckenridge tomorrow!

Subaru Count: 52

Free Nature Valley Bars: 0 (sad)

Correction: In the previous post I mentioned that Chris had been hit by a truck his second year of grad school. It was actually during his first year, but he had surgery his second year.

Immobile

It's 6 PM and I am currently immobile sitting in our condo. I'm not sure if it's as bad as the post-half marathon crippling, but it's a close second. As I'm falling on my face for the third of fourth time, I sometimes wonder why I like this whole snowboarding thing, but then, well, I have a day like today. It's been a fun day and I have an obscene amount of pictures that I will put in this blog, because pictures are usually more interesting than words.

We woke up far before our 7:30 wake up time because our room was freezing and we went to bed at 10 PM. Oh, and we might have been a little bit excited.

We had some breakfast and waxed our boards. I know this sounds kind of inappropriate (I have to sensor myself a little, my mom is reading this. Hi Mom!), but we did actually put wax on our snowboards. It's great fun.

Then, the snowboarding began!

Look, here's me before getting onto the first chairlift. I am proud to report I did not take out any fellow skiers today after my disastrous day last Saturday when I was unable stay upright and took out no less than 12 people getting off the chairlift (sorry folks!).


This is a picture of Chris at the top of the first mountain. Yes, first, because there are three. Ski Liberty, you got nothin!


The next few pictures are of us shredding some powder. Yes, with the 'g' because we aren't that hip.


It was a great day out. Sunny and not too cold. So sunny that my one eye is actually shut (not just small because I have small eyes, although, my other eye is open even though it might not look like it).


I honestly have no idea at what part of the mountain this picture was taken, but I look happy, so it must have been early before my ankles and knees started to give out.

Oh, fun notes about riding the chairlift:

1. We met a guy who was on his 112th day of skiing this year. How long has ski season been so far in Colorado? 112 days. He's aiming for 240 days this season. That is 8 months people! Pennsylvania and it's pathetic 3 month ski season can suck it! This is how he's spending his retirement. I might have to take a page from this guy's book when I turn 30 and retire.

2. We met a guy from Bethesda, MD. And he lived in Boston. Apparently this world is very small.

We did a lot of riding of various difficulty. Note: I am not that good. But I like to try and figure the burning sensation in my quads is only making me stronger. Yeah Kanye!

Here we are at the top of one of the mountains. Breckenridge Ski Resort is in the background. We're heading there on Thursday. Did I mention Colorado is really freaking beautiful? I think we're at about 12,000 feet and neither of us was delirious with altitude sickness so I count that as a plus.


We wanted to see these mysterious "bowl" things so we rode up to the third mountain (which takes like 5 runs because you have to go up one lift to go down another run to get to another lift to go down another run, etc, etc, etc as you make your way across all of these mountains. It's ridiculous.) We got to the top and the ski patrol guy told us to go down by all of these trees. It was awesome...we were riding through trees (mom, we did not hit any of them) and then got to some crazy bump things. This led to me falling about 75% of the time. However, exciting news! Apparently my snowpants can zip to the back of my jacket. This lead to a significant decrease in snow going down my pants. My butt was very happy about this. Here is a picture of me at the bottom of this crazy run (called a chute...I might have wanted to shoot myself halfway down since my legs no longer worked). I am pooped.


However, shortly after we decided to stop being little babies and made our way back. And lo and behold! We found a bowl! (It was sadly not filled with Cinnamon Toast Crunch) Here's the bowl:


Turns out a bowl is, well, bowl shaped. And you start at the top and go down to the bottom, but it's very natural terrain. We went through more trees (mom, again, we did not hit any!) and got to make our own pathways and stuff. They were definitely my favorite part of the day. However, riding bowls is hard. A lot of what is is there is fresh powder. The best way I can describe riding on fresh powder is that it feels like you are riding on a cloud (I know, I played Mario Bros once or twice in my life). And like riding on a cloud, when you fall on powder it doesn't hurt. However, also like riding on a cloud, when you try to put your hand down to push yourself back up, you sort of just sink. Until you are up to your shoulders in snow with your board buried under a couple of feet, resulting in your writhing around for 10 minutes trying to put yourself right side up (which may or may not have happened to me many many times). Anyways...the bottom line is that you get tired. So here is a picture of Chris "resting" (or falling, or recovering from falling):


We rode pretty much straight through from this morning until just after 3 PM. We decided that if we stopped we wouldn't get going again so we powered on. The entire day I had been wanting to ride on the GonDOLa (as the nice young lady at the desk pronounced it), but we didn't make it there until our last run. Here's a picture of me on the GonDOLa:

My smile looks pretty fake because I'm pretty sure I'm summoning all of my energy lifting those cheeks into that insincere grin.

Overall though, today was AWESOME. Snowboarding on a weekday (and on a mountain (s) with a vertical drop greater than 600 ft and more than 12 runs) means that it isn't crowded and you have lots of free space to do your thang. Some of those bowl runs are so peaceful and beautiful because it's just you and the trees (because Chris is waiting for you to dig yourself out 5 minutes ahead). Tomorrow we're hitting up Vail (because I want to say that I went to Vail) and they apparently have some amazing bowls.

We're now livin' it up and maybe cooking dinner (or going to sleep).

Free Nature Valley Honey Oat Granola Bars aquired today: 4 (they just give them to you when you buy your lift ticket. Coloridians (?) Colorado-ites (?) Colorado-ese (?) are quite nice like that.

Subaru Count: 6 (we didn't actually drive anywhere today, so it was only what we saw in the parking lot).

Peace out homies!