A Night in the Swiss Alps at Arapahoe Basin

~ See photos here ~

Saturday evening we headed up to Arapahoe Basin ski area for a dinner mid mountain under a full moon. I gave this to Melissa for her birthday back in Oct., so we had been looking forward to this for a while now and hoping we would have clear skies because it would be a full moon. We lucked out and there was not a single cloud in the sky. Just a million stars and a glowing full moon shining off of the ski trails and mountain peaks all around us.

At about 6:15 p.m. Melissa strapped on her snowshoes with her skis on her back and me my tele skis and skins, and we headed up the High Noon trail towards Black Mt. Lodge, midway up the mountain. It was 5 degrees, but the hike warmed us up quick. We arrived at the lodge around 6:45 and enjoyed an amazing dinner with about 100 others. The food was spectacular and in huge quantities. It was buffet style so we could try a little of everything. (See the menu below). After stuffing ourselves and enjoying some great conversation with others at our table, we strapped back on our skis and headed back down around 10 p.m. The ski down was a blast under the glow of the moon.

~ See photos here ~

Swiss Menu

Hors d'oeuvres

An Assortment of Swiss Cheeses, with

Swiss Style Air dried Meats and Sausages

Smoked Seafood Assortment

Soup & Salads

Busecca Ticines (tripe soup with garlic bread)

Gemischter Salat (mixed salad)

Swiss Chard Apple and Cherry Salat

Assorted Sweet and Hearth Baked breads

Entrees

Roasted Leg Of Lamb

Rippli (smoked pork loin with cabbage)

Alplermagronen (famers style macaroni)

Baked Pike Fillets

Lapin au Marc (stewed rabbit in grappa)

Desserts

Apple Strudel

Fresh Berry Tart

Carrot Cake

Dinner Itinerary

6:30p.m. to 7:00p.m. Start skinning or snowshoeing up to Black Mountain Lodge from the base area.

7:00p.m. to 9:00p.m. Cocktails, hor d'oeuvres, dinner and dessert
9:30p.m. to 10:00p.m. Ski, snowboard or snowshoe back down to the base area

26 and counting

See photos from our weekend HERE
See a pond skimming video compilation HERE
See a bouldering championship video HERE

Colorado in June, what a place! Another great weekend in the mountains. We headed up to Vail on Saturday and met up with our friends Jaimee and Wes at the Vail Teva Mountain Games. Every spring, they put on the country's largest celebration of mountain sport, soul and culture, with professional and amateur outdoor adventure athletes from around the world competing in seven sports and 21 disciplines including mtn. and road biking, trail/mud running, kayaking, rafting, climbing, fly fishing paragliding and dog competitions. They also have art, vendors and live music.


We caught the IFSC Bouldering World Cup finals for men and women. There were some crazy athletes in this comp. Click HERE to see a quick video of one of the women flashing (completing on first attempt) a route. We also saw the end of the Kayaking Freestyle event. Jaimee and Wes headed back to their camping spot down the valley and Melissa and I took off back over Vail Pass to the condo in Keystone. We enjoyed a dip in the hot tub and slept in a bit Sunday morning before Erich showed up to head up to Arapahoe Basin with us. Yes, the Basin is was still open. Last day to be exact. September 15, 2008 - June 7, 2009. That's quite a season! 26 days for me and 25 for Melissa. So far …

The day started out a bit cool, but with mostly blue skies. The snow was almost a slush, but more like a granular slush because of the cool temp. There were only a few runs left open, but we got some good turns in and met up with my friend Waxler for a few more runs. About three quarters of the way up the mountain, there is a flat area with a pond that has formed from the melting snow. This results in many people trying their hand at pond skimming, some more successful than others. Click HERE to see a compilation video of a few people trying some skimming. The last guy had a rough time at it and ended up ejecting from his skis and supermaning across the slush and ice. He was a bit scrapped up and cold at the end, but OK overall.


As we headed to the car, a storm moved in and the weather took a quick turn for the worse. Snow/hail began to fall and thunder clapped all around. We found out later that the top lift was hit by lightning, fortunately no one was hurt. This ended up being part of the same storm that hit the Denver area producing baseball size hail and five tornadoes. Glad we weren't there!



Well, that ends the "resort" ski season for '08/'09. But the skiing is not done yet. We are attempting to ski every month till the resorts open again. That will mean earning our turns by hiking into areas like St. Mary's Glacier or 4th of July Bowl. Stay tuned to CO Adventure to see how that turns out for us!

See photos from our weekend HERE
See a pond skimming video compilation HERE
See a bouldering championship video HERE

25 and counting

Check out photos from the ski weekend HERE

Melissa and I headed up to the mountains this past weekend to enjoy some spring skiing. Day 24 and 25 for me, 23 and 24 for Melissa on the season. Unfortunately it was not the best weekend weather wise, but the skiing was not too bad. It rained down in Keystone, but mostly snow up at Arapahoe Basin. We took five runs on Saturday and then decided to do a hike/ski on Sunday. The East Wall has a few places that you can hike to and then choose from numerous chutes to descend from. We picked the North Pole for our descent. Great hike and we even found some fresh powder towards the bottom of the North Pole. Skiing in May! Maybe we'll even be able to hit up a few days in June!

Check out photos from the ski weekend HERE

Powder Weekend!

This past weekend we headed to the mountains in Summit County for some skiing, both on the resort and off in the backcountry.

On Saturday, Melissa and I took a few runs at Arapahoe Basin. They had about 5" of new snow and it continued to snow all day. Melissa wanted to get some practice searching for avalanche beacons before we headed out in to the backcountry on Sunday, so we stopped mid-mountain at the Beacon Bowl. Ski patrol has set up an area with eight buried beacons. You can turn them on and off individually and search for them. When you find one, you use the probe to find exactly where it is buried and when you hit it, a buzzer goes off. Great practice. The more you do it, the easier it will be to save a life. Hopefully we never need it.

After a few more runs, we headed back to the Keystone condo, then out to Breckenridge to check out the International Snow Sculpture Championships. Some amazing works of snow! All created without the use of any power tools. Read an article about it HERE. See some of my photos HERE.

On Sunday, Erich, Melissa and I headed up to Loveland Pass for some backcountry. We hiked about 20min from the road and dropped in for some great turns in the 10+ inches of fresh powder. It was snowing quite a bit as we hiked, but cleared up just as we started to ski. Great timing! Erich and I took video of our trip, I'll be putting it together into a short movie. I'll keep you updated on the posting of that.

After our backcountry experience, Melissa and I headed back to A-Basin for some more skiing. We traveled out to the Montezuma Bowl. They just added this terrain last year and it expanded the ski area by 80%! Some great terrain out there that we have not had a chance to experience till now. We dropped in at the Zuma Cornice for some great snow. Can't wait to hit it up again!
Video of Jason's turns
Video of Melissa's turns

See photos from the weekend HERE.


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Love New Jacket!

I got a new ski jacket, finally!
Melissa took these photos of me at Arapahoe Basin ski area last Saturday.
My old jacket was 4 years old, so it was time for a new one. This one is made by a company in Jackson Hole, WY, named Cloudveil. Waterproof, windproof and breathable, the new fabric actually opens it's pores as the inside gets hot/wet from your body. Then the pores close up as you start to cool. Very Cool!

Powder Day!!!

It was a powder day at the Basin on Sunday!!! We headed up to the mountains on Saturday evening and found much different weather than in Denver. At the tunnel the roads were snowpacked and once we made it to Keystone, it began to snow harder. In the morning we headed up to A-Basin with Erich and Julia and enjoyed 23 inches in two days (they are now up to 35" in the past 3 days!!). The top of the mountain was not open yet due to winds topping out at 80 mph!!

But there was plenty of snow to enjoy lower on the mountain. Patrol opened some glades skiers right, but the terrain was not steep enough on the first time through as we sunk to our mid thighs and had to walk our way through most of it. As more people rode that terrain it got much easier to get enough speed to have fun.

Melissa and I were going to head out around 1 pm to watch the Patriots back in Denver, but we ended up sitting in traffic for two hours without even making it to I-70, and it's ony 6 miles away!!! We ended up turning around and heading back to the condo in Keystone. Instead of waiting in 6+ hours of traffic to Denver, we enjoyed a dinner at Kickapoos and a brew at the Wolf Rock Brewery in River Run Village. The bad part was we had to get up at 4 a.m. to drive back home for work.

I think it was all worth the early season pow turns!!

See more from Arapahoe Basin HERE.

First Turns!!

We headed up to Arapahoe Basin on Saturday morning and met up with Erich and Julia for a few runs to start the season. Only one trail is open with an 18" base. So the lines are long and the crazies are all over the place. We took two runs and then headed in for a Bloody Mary. The snow was OK, considering the time of year, but the crowds made it hard to link your turns. Can't wait for more of the natural stuff and more trails to open.

We finished off the day with a soak in the hot tub at the Keystone condo and then watched the Sox beat the Rays in Game 6 of the ALCS. Too bad they did not show up for Game 7. Oh well, there is always next year ...

See photos from our first day of skiing HERE

You can feel it in the air!

Ski season is on its way! With temps in the 30's at night and low 50's during the day the past few days in Denver, you can feel winter coming on. Although the forcast is for 70's be the end of the week. Anyways, Arapahoe Basin opens tomorrow with an 18" base, ribbon of death. One trail just barely covered with man made snow. They will be the first to open for the '08-'09 season in the U.S. I won't be there, but I am sure a bunch of crazy people will be. That's the best time to get hurt and be out for the rest of the season. Between the idiots who think they can race down the narrow trail like it's mid February and the beginers who don't even know how to turn yet, your likely to run into someone or have someone run into you. No thanks!

But I'll be there soon! Got my pass already and starting to do lunges after runs. Need to get the burn out of the legs before those first killer Tele turns of the season. Looking forward to it.

Read more about opening day here: Summit Daily News

Free your heels and your mind will follow!