Snow Day! makes for a 3 day weekend

Upon getting to work today, a bit late, I had a wonderful email in my inbox.  The entire way in to work I kept saying that they would have to cancel work tomorrow because there was just to much snow.  Well the email said just that, that plants would close due to weather after first shift today and that they will be closed tomorrow.  And that we can use our own judgement in deciding to go home early today.  That was sent out about an hour ago and my guess is that in the next hour there won't be many people left here.

Reason for being late this morning was that I was finally able to get up and function early enough, 5:30 to get up to snowbowl and skin up the mountain for a run down.  I'm not sure how long it normally takes people to get up but I was well behind everyone else and wsa getting passed by people I didn't know on the way up.  Oh well with more practice hopefully that will change.

The way down was fun but it's the deepest snow I've ever skied in and I have got a lot of learning to do.  The deepest I probably ever was in before was probably a foot this was probably 2+ feet and when my skis sank in I came to a dead halt.  Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll have figured out how to float a bit better.

Well that's it for now as there's skiing and snow play to be had.

Blue Skies and Gorgeous Sunsets

This past weekend turned out to be pretty amazing.  Saturday was my first day of backcountry skiing since college and it was great to be able to do it again and with much better gear.  Then I followed is up Sunday with my first road ride of the year.

Saturday: We were fortunate enough to get a lift ride up to the top of snowbowl which saved us probably 1.5 -2 hours of skinning up the ski slopes.  From the top of the lift it was about an hour of hiking in ski boots with skis strapped to out backs to reach the top of what would be our first run for the day.

Digging a snow pit and me skiing.

After the first run down we skinned back up to the top again where we took a lunch break on a pile of rocks.  I was very excited to sit down and enjoy the warm temperatures as I ate my almond butter, cheese, goldfish sandwich.

 Run 2 : Not me skiing but you get the idea.  The picture to the right shows the turns we took on run 2.

The last run of the day was through an aspen glade like the one shown here.  Tree skiing is one of my favorite types of skiing and it was challenging for me Saturday because by this point my legs were about done and weren't responding as well as I would have liked. 

After this it was a long ski back to the car, I spent a lot of time on the ski out telling myself to just get to the bottom and that it couldn't possibly be that much further.  At the end of the day I think we covered around 10 miles and I was exhausted.

Sunday:  The ride in Sedona was pretty uneventful but I realized that it was not as flat as I was hoping it would be.  It turns out that the first half of my ride there was a net loss in elevation so as I was tired and wanting to get back to the car I had a fair amount of climbing to do.  I'm excited to explore more of the roads down there this spring while I wait for Flagstaff to thaw out.  The best part of that trip was the sunset on the way out of town.  In general the sunsets out here are pretty amazing as since Sunday I've seen 2 more gorgeous sunsets.

 

Crested Butte

I hope everyone had a happy new year.  Here are some pics and a brief recap of the trip.  I can't take credit for any of the pictures because while I brought a camera I didn't use it with my reasoning being that everyone else was taking pictures.

View from outside the front door onto the mountain at night.

All in all I had a great new years.  My only complaint being that once the sun went down it got really cold really fast and I just don't like being outside in 8 degrees. The first day of skiing was lots of groomers as they hadn't gotten any fresh snow.  I left the mountain about an hour before the lifts closed so I could do an easy run around town in the last bit of daylight.  Friday night a couple inches of snow fell and during Saturday a few more inches came down making the trails a bit softer which was nice because I was trying to learn how to Telemark.  Then Sunday was another long day in the car but very scenic as we went back through Ouray, Colorado and stopped to watch some Ice Climbers.

Some of the skiing crew from the first day.

Lift Picture

 Picture Down Main Street

I don't have anything too big planned for this weekend, I'm glad to be in town and not traveling as next weekend it looks like I'll be headed to Vegas for a bit.