Month: January 2010

Playing in what little snow we have

The past few weeks I’ve been trying to get outside as much as I possibly can.  First I went back country snowboarding with my friends Jerimiah and Lance.  Then, I spent a few days up on the slopes at Keystone and Breckenridge.  I need to limit the trails I go on until we get some decent snow.  The last time I went up with friends to Breckenridge they took me up the T-Bar to close to the top of Peak 8 at Breckenridge.  It was a nice view up there, but, the way down sort of tore up my board 😦  I think I have at least 3-4 new scratches on the board.  I guess I should have taken the older board up instead.

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Through the week Karma, Craig, and I went to a few of the UllrFest activities Ullr is thought as the god of snow/skiing.  Tuesday they had a bonfire and then Thursday they had the ullrympics where Craig and Nate were on the team that won 3rd place.  They got some beer and some Ullr (a Nordic libation with cinnamon and peppermint schnapps).

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Then last weekend I went with my friend Dan XC Skiing for my first time.  Not only was it my first time XC Skiing, but, it was also my first time on ski’s period.  It sure was a good time though.  I have a bit of a learning curve to get over and I’m sure I’ll end up wrecking a few times more and hurting myself a bit more.  But hopefully not too much more.

Then yesterday I took Zip out snowshoeing up a canyon.  I left around 4 and didn’t end up doing the whole trail because I was running out of time.  Good thing though since I had taken a wrong turn and would have ended up in Keystone rather than the loop I was going to do.  I know where I took the wrong turn and I had made the mistake of going with the flow of traffic (more footsteps).   But now I have the Topo’s loaded on the GPS and ready to go for next time.

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Tearing up Silverton

Last week I went down to southern Colorado (Well further south and a bit west of us here).  The first night a group of around 12 of us stopped at Orvis hot springs for a clothing optional dip.  It is one of my favorite places out there to go and relax.  And relaxing it was this time 🙂  This place has 4 or 5 pools outside including one big pool and a lobster tank (It runs around 110 degrees).   Afterwards we headed up to Ouray to spend the night.  Then in the morning most of the group headed out early to Silverton Mountain for their snowboarding.  Because Lance and my own skill levels were not up to taking on Silverton Mountain we ended up heading over to Purgatory to do our own riding.  It was fun there even though there wasn’t any new snow and the snow they had there was pretty packed down.  I would Love to go back to that place after it had had some fresh snow fall.  Their rolling hills are so much fun. 

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After around 3:30 things started getting too cold and icy at Purgatory so we decided to head back up to Silverton Mountain to have some drinks with the rest of the gang.  Now Silverton Mountain is an experience unlike any other I know of.  It is basically the exact opposite of what you would get going skiing at Vail or Aspen.  Instead of the big expensive resorts with the high end shops lining the base area, you have a simple plastic tent (yurt).  In there it is furnished with old used furniture that looks as if it was picked up off the side of the road.  Instead of super chairs you have a rickety two seat lift that looks questionable to sit on.  Instead of groomed runs full of little ski bunnies and bro brah’s, you have nothing but back country (Most of which  you have to hike to)  Even their logo says a lot for the experience on their mountain.

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After hanging out there we went back to our comfy little cabins that we had rented for the night at Red Mountain Motel, Cabins, and RV Park and relaxed for a while.  Then we headed out on the town for the night to tear things up.  And boy did our group ever.  We ended up getting asked to leave (Very politely) the restaurant because a couple of us were getting too loud.  Then we headed over to the only bar open in town.  The bar tender assured us she could handle anything we threw at her.  But things got pretty crazy there too (It was Jerimiah’s birthday after all).  After a few times up on the bar with quite a bit of nudity and falling off the bar, a couple of our group members were asked to leave the bar before she called the cops.  Then I guess after I left she pretty much made our whole group leave.  Whoops.  Oh well,  We had fun on the town and I’m sure Silverton won’t be forgetting us any time soon.

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The next day we headed back to Summit County in a long drawn out fashion.  We even took an hour detour to go to Crested Butte to go grab pizza at an awesome restaurant The Secret Stash

Quite the amazing trip I must say.  And quite the group of friends I think I’ve found up here. 🙂