Altitude Asphyxiation

at 7:05 PM

This weekend, I’ll be taking my 2 planks up to the Breckenridge – home of the nation’s highest quad chair lift. Can’t wait to see what that’s all about. Here’s a quick video clip of the Imperial Express SuperChair.

Full ski report from a day at Breckenridge along with 2 days at Winter Park coming up next week.

Happy New Year.

at 10:06 PM

Over Christmas, I was able to get up on the mountain a coupla days – Saturday and Monday to be exact. Here’s what I found…

It turns out that I can’t find the perfect bump run – It appears as though I’m addicted to them all…
However, I’m glad that I reacquainted myself with runs called Brakeman and Coupler (both on the Mary Jane side). Yea, I know, these bump runs rock, though I’m not sure what took me so long to get back on them. See, I believe the last time I skied these two examples were way back during my first season – circa 2000. At any rate, I’m upset that I skied by these two runs so often for alternative runs that preside nearby; it will never happen again. Brakeman and Coupler, this post goes out to you.

Well, if you’re ever in the area, please check out the huge boulders on Coupler. Or you could just look at these photos:

Crazy angle looking across Coupler. A little steep i'd say.

Here's looking back up Zero Creek basin - out of bounds... This area should definitely be open in the near future.

Close-up shot of some sweeet-lookin chutes

Looking at the divide from the MJ side. Devil's Thumb is over there somewhere.

Parry Peak once again

And one last one looking up Berthoud Pass from the top of Parsenn Bowl

I also have some video lying around here somewhere. Once i get them hosted, they'll be posted.

at 9:36 PM

Yea, it's been a few weeks since you all have seen an update. Well, not much to report for the most part except that the skiing at WP/MJ has been outstanding to say the least.

Here's a few photos from the weekend before Christmas.
Hurricane studying the tough terrain that Mary Jane has to offer. Well, not so much... She's posing for the camera as always. ;)

Here's Hurricane chillin towards the bottom of Jabberwocky in 8" of fluff:

So, not much to report for the most part. However, Hurricane and I skied just about the entire mountain from side to side. We difinitely agreed that Gambler on the Vasquez side was easily the best run of the day.

Here are 2 photos from the Outrigger run on the Winter Park side. As you can see, the poles are bare because they are in the process of tearing the entire lift away from the mountain:

Much more video to come... just wanted to get some pics up for ya'll. Check back shortly; many more pics to come as well... And another weekend report from Christmas weekend.

at 4:46 PM

Yea, just like the xmas song... got 12 days in already. Not bad considering it's not even 2006 yet.
Weekend report IV coming up soon. Sorry for the delay everyone...

at 8:31 PM

Blue-bird day at Winter Park/Mary Jane... and it was actually above 20 degrees for the first time in 2 weeks...

Looking down the Continental Divide.

Timberline Lift finally opened. Good turns up high just about anywhere you went. Me, O headed towards the trees way skiers left as usual. John Jct and Kinicinic were better than most runs I skied on saturday.

Parry Peak

cannonball, Mary Jane

Powder on Parsenn Bowl

And a short Mary Jane bump video can be seen by clicking the thumbnail picture below.

There's a good chance i'll post a few more photo's; please check back.

at 9:20 PM

Just added some new pics. Enjoy.

More video to come...

at 9:30 PM

Wow. Only about 4 feet of snow fell since my last report. What a weekend it was no matter where you skied – well, Saturday for that matter. Lets get right to it.

I’ll get this out of the way first… try not to ski when there’s 40mph gusts… That was all day on Sunday. Ug. Talk about cold.

Saturday on the other hand was one of the better powder days I’ve skied at Winter Park. 2’-3’ stashes were to be had everywhere. It was just about enough snow to ski before it becomes too insanely deep. See, when skiing at Winter Park, once snow gets past say 3’, you’ll need the black diamond runs in order to gain enough speed. With all the cat tracks and crappy flats, navigation on the other hand is tricky with deep snow.

Well, the day started waiting in line at the C-lift promptly at 8:25am – enough for about the 30th chair. From there, I poked around on a few runs just off the C-chair until they really started to get tracked out a very short time later and the lift lines weren’t getting any shorter. I wasn’t too happy about that…. Heck with you MJ; I went over to the Winter Park side. Good decision. The Eskimo Lift family of bump runs was practically untouched at 10pm. This includes Reta’s, Outrigger, Bradley’s and Balch (especially the trees in between Reta and Rigger, shhhhhhh).

I skied these few runs along with my usual weekly Jabberwocky run most of the late morning and past lunch. Then, my legs about shut down on my around 2pm – I was toast. Time for some tail-gating in the C-lot.

Sunday on the other hand was a nightmare. Yes, there was plenty of left-over used powder to ski but the wind and cold weather made the morning useless for my tired ski legs. Talk about ice cube feet…I had to take a break around 10am in order to gain some circulation back in my toes so I could make a damn ski turn without performing a total yard-sale. I took a nice hour break in the lodge with many other people with similar issues as mine. Yea, I don’t work well with high wind gusts that create a minus 30 wind chill. I was in my car by noon and outta there.

Anyways. Here are a few photos from the best pow day before Xmas that I ever experienced.

Looking downhill on Trestle

US40... main road into WP.

Well, all in all it was a great weekend, though, I forgot about a very important rule that I now live by: winter park mountain is always over looked on a powder day… see you there next time…

Sorry for the late post…

One more of my ride after getting her pushed out of the drive way.

at 12:56 PM

Yes.
I can handle the fact that over 100" of snow has already fallen this year at my home mountain. And over 2' of fresh dry pow has landed so far this week. This weekend will be one for the books...

Cheers

at 7:23 PM

Not much to report over a 4-day ski weekend except for the fact I got many first runs down many newly opened Mary Jane trails for the first time this season. It was killer a Thursday to say the least.

Here we go with a few photos (click on thumbnail for a larger view):
Here are my past tracks...

And some future ski tracks...

I park here every week for your standard apres' ski tail-gating action. The infamous C-Lot on the Jane side...

Sometimes, I take a break at the Sunspot Lodge with a view looking directly at Byers Peak.

Well, I can't go too long without a guest appearance from thee Joe Public of them all... Here are some short ski video clips of the original Joe Public. PLease click on the thumbnails to view the videos

Take a look at this guy hitting the Jane Trail:

And one more random Mary Jane video:

at 9:06 AM

What a weekend at the Wanker! Over 30 trails open. A plethora of lifts. 40” base. All before thanksgiving. And, to boot, Mary Jane will be opening very soon. In fact, MJ should’ve been open last weekend; however, I imagine there weren’t enough foreign nationals in town to man all the lifts.

Highlights of my weekend include:
-Cruising down the old Apollo lift line on Bradley’s Bash. Perfect semi-large powdery bumps that tamed my newly tuned skis perfectly. WOW. Great to be skiing again.
-The small tree run between Sunspot lodge and the Quick Getaway run were outstanding even though it’s only about 100’ of vert.
-Jabberwocky and Cheshire cat we’re loaded with pow on Saturday – enough for me to get stuck and tip over a few times. However, on Sunday, both runs we’re bumped out. This is good though. No one was up for skiing them. Man, people are such chickens about bumps these days. They missed out on the soft snow that was packed in between every single bump. It was really cool skiing Cheshire bumps because this run is usually reserved for slalom skiers which require a very smooth surface. In other words, Cheshire is always groomed.

Bonus Pub Report: I’m sorry, but if your bar was actually organized and managed properly, people might actually show up and fill up every seat by 5pm. Although they do a good job at keeping the beer flowing.

Here's a few shot from this past weekend:

They even had the snow guns fired up everywhere. I guess you can't have enough snow.

And here's Jaberwocky loaded with freshies.

Lower Hughes snow making.

Here's a random shot of the Sunspot lodge. Yea, I took a nice hour or so break to rest my tired dogs.

One last shot of snow covered trees from the Looking Glass lift.

Check back on Monday. I'll have many new photos from a nice 4-day weekend of skiing.

at 9:35 PM

Thanks TTips... got the idea from here.

at 2:54 PM

This will be me in 3 days...

Please check back for a full Winter Park opening weekend shenanigans report.

at 9:49 AM

I've gone through and switched all of my Telemark and ski related videos over to a faster hosting service. What does that mean for my paying customers? Quicker load times i hope...
Thank you ZippyVideos.

at 4:18 PM

More pics to come!

at 5:27 PM

Hurricane cutting a rug on some sweet dry powder going down Trestle at Mary Jane with assistance from 2 tele planks . Yep, back with some crappy images, so, please check out the video here (slow IP connections, please beware, you can be waiting awhile).