New Year on the Mountain
On Thursday, our awesome friends Rich and Lauren came to visit us in Denver. All of my friends are totally brilliant, but Rich is a friend who started his own museum (ok, he has TWO museums!). And unlike me if I started my own museum, Rich is really modest and doesn’t yell from the rooftops that he has spectacular museums that are very well-received. I was so psyched to spend a few days skiing with them, particularly when I found out that Lauren used to be a ski instructor! There might be hope for me yet!
We started at Vail and enjoyed a gorgeous day taking it easy on some blues and just enjoying each others’ company. The attentive will notice that The Boy is on skis, not a snowboard. He got skis to handicap himself so we could be more comparable in ability and since the snow isn’t great, decided that he’d ski. His plan of handicapping himself didn’t work, he is just too athletic for his (our!) own good 🙂
The next day one of my best friends came in from the East Coast and we headed out to Breckenridge. The snow wasn’t as good as Vail, but we were just so happy to be together being active. With Lauren’s help, I was finally stable enough on skis that after lunch we decided to tackle some more difficult terrain. I think we overshot because even though I got down uninjured, getting down a narrow, rocky, tree-heavy black named either Adios or Psychopath (seriously) was not pretty. The Boy, who is a very experienced snowboarder, said that although the trail was rated a single black that it was more difficult than any double black he’s skied at Vail. We stuck to some easier blacks and skied some moguls for the rest of the day.
On our third day we had some friends come down from Fort Collins and we hit Keystone. It was -1 at the start and we could barely make it through two runs before hitting the lodge to warm our fingers and toes. The snow at Keystone was pretty lousy, but once the sun came out, it was really beautiful. Hopping around the mountain made us ache for more snow because some of the runs looked just gorgeous and we are eager to hike or do some cat skiing in the Outback Bowls. Can I tell you how psyched I am that I live in Colorado and have gotten good enough at skiing that I am excited about taking a snow cat to ski bowls? There is so much of that statement that is so incredible for a DC girl!
Pray for powder!