Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas weekend spending time with family and eating and drinking till we were full.

We headed North to the Hanke farm on Sat morning and watched the Patriots game with Rich and Belinda. Then we headed over to Erich, Julia and Wyatt's house for a turkey dinner with Julia's parents, John and Judy, and her sister Kristina and her husband Justin. Tucker got to meet Daisy, Kristina and Justin's new dog and they all played out back while we ate. After a gift exchange, we headed back to the farm and awoke Sunday morning to blue skies and warm weather.

Belinda made tasty apple pancakes that we enjoyed with bloody's and mimosas. We opened gifts with Erich, Julia and Wyatt. Then later in the afternoon, Rich, Belinda, Melissa and I took a two plus mile snowshoe out back. It was a beautiful afternoon and it worked up our appetite for a New England style Christmas dinner in Colorado. Mussels, little necks and lobster were on the menu!

See photos from the weekend HERE

Christmas Tree at the Smith's

Melissa gets a new ski helmet from Marsha and Mark

Time for a snowshoe out on the back 40 at the Hanke farm

See photos from the weekend HERE
or see the slide show below

Crested Butte

This weekend we enjoyed one of my gifts to Melissa for Christmas ... a ski weekend in Crested Butte, CO. I've been here a couple times before, but it was Melissa's first visit. A 5.5 hour drive from Denver (well worth it for no traffic and no lines at the lifts, unlike Summit County and Vail). We stayed Friday night through Sunday. On Saturday we skied as it snowed all day, then Sunday we took a 4 mile snowshoe on the road to Gothic (closed in the winter, goes to Aspen in the Summer). We enjoyed the local shops and restaurants in town and even got in a couple more Breweries on the way (Gunnison Brewery and Amica's Brewery). The drive home was a bit longer due to an hour long road closure on 285 as the snow blew across the plains and iced up the road. Four vehicles had flipped in the icy conditions. We made it across slowly and in one piece.


Check out photos in the slide show above or HERE

More snowshoeing photos

A couple more photos from our snowshoe trip with the Maines' a couple weekends ago. These were taken on the way up and at the top of Mayflower Gulch.

3 Sport Weekend

Check out photos from the weekend HERE

This past weekend we headed up to Copper Mountain on Saturday to meet up with our friends Adam and Elisa at their condo to go snowshoeing. They just had their first child, Ethan, about four weeks ago. He came along for the trip as well. Pretty impressive for his first time at about 11,500ft! After our hike, we enjoyed a delicious venison fillet dinner.

Sunday morning we headed out onto the trails at Copper with Adam while Elisa stayed with Ethan at the condo. Adam and I were telemarking while Melissa was on her new alpine skis. We had some great turns down Spaulding Bowl and took some video with Adam's new HD video camera. When he has it up online somewhere, I'll send out the link. After lunch, Elisa came out with us on her snowboard. Her second time out since Ethan was born. Not bad for four weeks!

Sunday evening we headed into Frisco and had a great Italian dinner at Tuscatos. Then we crashed at Gary's place for the evening. We slept in a bit, tired from the past two days activities, and then took off for Beaver Creek and another great day of skiing. I took out the Alpine skis for only the third time in the past two seasons. My thighs needed a break from the constant lunge turns on the teles. Felt great to be back on the alpines. It was a blue sky day and not too cold. Snow was OK and we even found some new chutes on the North East side of the mountain that we will be exploring more in the future when there is more fresh snow.

On our way back to Denver, we stopped at Kermitts restaurant, a small shack on the side of I-70 known for their chili. I'd recommend the green chili. I think I've driven by this place 100+ times, glad we stopped in, great food and a very unique atmosphere with dollar bills signed by customers covering all the walls and ceiling!

Check out photos from the weekend HERE

The Trail Less Traveled

Rich, Belinda, Melissa and I decide to enjoy a beautiful blue sky Sunday and head out into Rocky Mountain National Park for a snowshoe hike. Our goal was to hike up to Emerald Lake, but we took a detour after crossing Nymph Lake and blazed a trail of our own. We are sure glad we did, because the traffic of people hiking on the main trail was like driving on I-25 in rush hour. It was nice to get away from everyone on that packed down trail and have an adventure of our own. The views were amazing, the weather was great and the snow was deep.

Check out more photos from our hike HERE.