Ski Report Thus Far...

Ok, so this journey has two main legs, Asia (a big scary foreign place to come) and skiing in Colorado (a childhood dream... and time to prepare for Asia). And since some people have asked, here are some of the places we've been to so far. We basically function on a four day work week (yes only four for now!) and then take two or three days of the weekend to ski. So far, apart from Winter Park, we've been to:
Read the rest...

Steamboat

(We forgot to take pictures at steamboat, so you get to use your imagination (Mr. Rogers would be proud). But it was fun with lots of tree skiing and some fun chutes to ski down. Note to non-skiers, a chute is a narrow steep space between ledges with just enough snow to make it down and normally at a pitch of 50 degrees or more- quite steep.)

Arapaho Basin

(Me cooking lunch in the parking lot. We've decided we are big fans of resorts that let you ski to the car... they tend to have a nice homey feel)

Copper Mountain

(Taken at the very top of Copper. This part has a very cool alpine feel to it. In fact, in order to get here you take a chair lift to another chair lift to a pommel lift (a metal bar with a circle on the end that you put between your legs) to get to the top... I'd say roughly a 30-45 minute trip.)

Aspen

(Aspen has a gondola that goes all the way to the top, kind of nice but a long trip up. There was 8 inches of powder that day, which was great! But the town of Aspen is a pain and no free place to park... not so great.)

Aspen Highlands

(Meg by an Aspen... seemed fitting. The skiing here was some of the best we've had since we've come out. (still pay-parking only))

Snowmass

(Who knew you could take a picture from a mogul? It didn't really turn out though; maybe that's why people don't do it... hmmmm. Oh, and parking? Yup, ten bucks.)

For some of these days we've been able to use a GPS to track our runs, some I forget to take it. But here is part of what we skied at Aspen Highlands. The far left shows a back bowl that they were blasting with big guns and dynamite in the morning and we skied down in the afternoon. We got to take a snowcat (if a snowmobile and a bulldozer had a love-child...) part of the way up and then hike up a bit further. The bowl is this massive open thing with lots of powder and a nearly 2000 foot descent. It's not super-steep (but close), but if you fall you end up sliding down a long way. Good thing we didn't.

Thus far it's been great skiing, decent snow, great places and the price is unbeatable (free). We hope to go back to some of these places and will eventually pay for some as well (Vail, Breckenridge). But those are for another day.

P.S. We skiied Winter Park Thursday but could use some new snow. So... Friday we took some snowboarding lessons in the morning (a refresher for me and a beginning one for Meg) and then rode together in the afternoon. During that afternoon Meg took a big fall right on her tailbone and now can't really move without wincing... teaching will be fun tomorrow!