Monday Jan, 20
In the
morning I was back at it, drove into New Mexico for a bit then north to
Colorado. I was hoping there would be some cool sights along the way but your
still east of the mountains a ways. So drove straight through to Denver. Somehow,
missed my exit by several miles, but I made it near Matt P place. I went to the
grocery store and bought some real food to make, including 4 boxes of spaghetti
to cook and freeze up. In the parking lot I went through the entire car and got
out all the garbage, put everything in the right place, and got together all
the dirty cloths. Soon after Matt P was done with work and I met up with him at
his place. It’s always great to see him; he’s either snowboarding or hiking
every single weekend, and usually has some good stories. We caught up for a
bit, but I was in desperate need of a shower. After that we ordered up some
pizzas and hung out for the night.
Tuesday Jan, 21
This
was a day to catch up on everything. All the laundry, cooked and packaged all
the food for freezing (about 8 quart Ziploc bags full), watched some TV and
relaxed a bit. When Matt P made it home we were deciding on what to eat, I was
thinking Chinese food, he brought up all you can eat sushi. I was sold. It’s
been awhile sense I had some really good food so I destroyed that sushi menu.
Between the 2 of us we had 10 roll with 8 of them being specialty rolls.
Needless to say after a meal like that the food coma kicked in hard.
Wednesday Jan, 22
This
day I did nothing! And I was pretty proud of it. Matt P and I went over to his
girlfriends place and we all went out for dinner and a few beers.
Thursday Jan, 23
I was
up early and drove Matt P to work. Then it was off to the mountains. This year
I bought an Epic Pass. This is unlimited skiing at 9 Vail resorts. I am
incredibly happy about this purchase. Not only does it pay for itself in 5-6
days on the mountain, but also, I don’t feel obligated to board from open to
close just to get my money’s worth. If it’s a crappy day on the mountain, just
do a few runs and call it a day. This
was pretty much the case for today. Vail was first up. They haven’t had any new
snow in over a week, so all the runs were icy moguls. There was nothing left
untouched anywhere I could fine. After the day of boarding I wanted to drive to
Aspen to watch the X-Games. Along the way there is the town of Basalt. This is
as good as it gets in the world of fly fishing. I stopped in a fishing guide
and asked if they had some line to use to for the leader on my rod. Of course
they did, but we started talking. There was a guy dressed in waiters leaning
off to the side. He asked what flys I was using. So I went and grabbed my fly
box. I was all wrong, so he showed me the right ones to use. Then he asked what
rod I had, so I went and grabbed it. He put it together and the line through.
Basically every time he asked “do you have…” my answer was usually “what’s
that?” or just no. turns out he’s a guide who just got back the day on the
river. I caught him at the right time and he went through everything with me! I
couldn’t have asked for a better situation. She showed me the knots to uses,
the spacing, the amount a weight, the placement of the strike indicator,
everything. He even told me the rock to stand on in the river. I was really
excited to get at it. It was close to dark but I wanted to try for awhile with
everything was still fresh in my head. I tried for a bit but it was too dark to
see what was going on. I think I had a strike or 2. Then it was off to Aspen,
here I parked in a shuttle lot and took the trolley bus over to the games. It
was shocking to see everything that goes into the production of this. Such a
cool thing to see in person. Seeing the whole snowmobile competition in person
was crazy and invigorating. The guy who won was hands down the best, he just blew
it away. I walked around for a bit after the show but everything pretty much
comes to a stop. So back to the car. I drove around aspen, and wanted to check
out a bar while here. After parking and walking around the main square, I ended
up going to The Red Onion. This turns out to be pretty famous. It’s where the 2
people who founded Vail first talked about opening a ski resort. After 1 beer
here I felt super awkward and not really into it. Finished my beer and headed
out, finding a cozy spot in a country club parking lot.
Friday Jan, 24
Today I was excited about fishing! Straight to
Basalt and that sweet rock. FINALLY!! Caught
a rainbow trout! Such a beautiful fish, I can tell why people get hooked. The
colors are hypnotic and you just want to spend the every minute trying to catch
one to see it again. Talking 2 pictures and watching it swim away was very
satisfying. I caught one more after that with another on the line and a hand
full of strikes. Doesn’t sound like much but I was ecstatic, this was also my
first fish ever with a fly rod. I ended up running out of flies so I had to
call it quits. Back to the store, one of the same guys was working and he asked
me about it and we chatted for a bit. I told him a little about the road trip,
and bought some more flies. Still some time before dark so back to the rock. A couple
more hits but never landed any. I was meeting up with Matt P tomorrow in Vail
so I drove up to Glenwood Springs for the night.
Saturday Jan, 25
Off to Vail;
there is a park that has free parking. It’s just a short walk to the bus stop
so it’s perfect. Getting there a little later than expected, I missed the bus
by about 1 minute. But this gave me time to make some sandwiches for lunch. I
made it over to the mountain and did a run before finding Matt P and Morgan.
They were already on a hot coco break. The conditions were still really bad so
we did the best we could to find some snow but it was rough. The weather was
beautiful though, super sunny, no wind, warm. When we finished up for the day I
decided to get some hot tub time. Last year my cousin Zak booked one hell of
room in Vail Cascade. Of course I checked out the hot tub situation for future
reference. So I took the bus back to my car, grabbed some things, and bussed
over to Cascade. I changed cloths in the bathroom, grabbed a dark and stormy
from the bar, and hit that tub! You need a room key to get in but there were
plenty of people in there so you just have to ask. I was in there for a long
time. There was a guy in there who X-country skied from the top of Vail pass
all the way to the resort. Which I’m guessing is about 12 miles in some
seriously rough terrain. I grabbed another drink and did some more tubbin. There
was a guy from Florida I talked to for awhile. He was originally from Minnesota
and was loving it out here. He seemed pretty cool so I told him all about the
trip. He finally asked “so do you always stay in places like this?” I had to
laugh; I told him my usual accommodations have 4 wheels. There were also some
lovely ladies from New York that were very nice to talk to. One guy in the tub
made the joke “I’m not even staying here; I just came for the hot tub.” He wasn’t
serious, but I was. After all that they had a full shower in the locker room. I
could defiantly get used to all this. After drying off and catching the bus
back to the car, I drove to Frisco and watched some shows before bed.
Sunday Jan, 26
In the
morning I talked to Matt P and we decided to go to Arapaho Basin. I don’t think
I have ever been here before. I caved in and got some taco bell, all my food
was still frozen and there was no time to thaw anything out before getting
there. We were pretty early and had to wait for the lifts to open. 2 runs on
the lower front side and all the lifts were running. We went up top and did the
back side a few times. Lots of steep areas which is nice but they were iced up.
Some more runs down the front and it was bloody marry time. I’m a huge fan of
bloodies and they did a good job. Just a little spice with a ton of tang and
flavor, not to mention bacon. We finished those up and had another run or 2 and
called it for the day. Matt P wanted to get back early and ice wasn’t worth
sticking around for. From A-Basin I drove back to Vail and took the bus back to
Cascade. Everyone was checking out so no luck on getting into the main pool
area, I had to jump the fence on the side hot tub. After a soak I drove to
Breckenridge, the Pro Bowl was on but Dexter was calling my name.
Monday Jan, 27
I
decided to board Breck today. finding a parking lot with 3 hour parking worked
perfectly. Stuff like that really only applies on the weekend when the city is
flooded with out of towners. So I figured It was fine. The furthest left lift
was the closest one to walk to. Breck just opened a new part of the mountain,
called Peak 6. This just happens to be the farthest right side. So slowly making
my way to the other side was somewhat a drag, but I finally made it over there
and o so worth it. The runs seem super fun, the only problem was still the
conditions were horrible. So windy it would white out everything for several
seconds, and still ice. So doing a few runs kicked my ass, then all they back
over the left. I stopped mid way to grab a beer. It started snowing a bit
towards the end. And it really made me realize, I need a snowboard jacket. Mine
is still sitting at home and a brown leather coat won’t cut it. So getting back
to the car, I looked up thrift stores nearby. Figuring there are plenty of
people out here buying new gear all the time, they should have some good used
stuff floating around. Sure enough an extra long, large North Face snowboard
jacket for $45. It was very nice to finally have something long enough, I was
getting really sick of snow back. Nothing else to really do so Dexter took up
the rest of my night. That night, while sleeping I heard a strange noise
outside the car. I woke up and through the frost on the windows I could see a
shadow walking around the car. Taping on the window and he froze up, and I popped
open the door asking him if he what he needed. I scared the crap out of him; he
was the plow guy just telling me not to stay there. I think he was trying to
get a VIN number or license plate to get the cops to toe me. But it was all
fine, and pretty funny. I drove to different lot that was always plowed and
crashed out.
Tuesday Jan, 28
After
the few inches of fresh snow I was excited to get some real boarding in. Doing
the same thing as yesterday I and walked over to the farthest left lift. This
time I spent the whole day on one of my favorite parts out here, chair 6 in
Breck. This has always been one of my favorites, several different types of
runs. This made me remember why people love this snowboarding so much. With the
snow on the ground I felt back in control on the board. With a full day of powder
behind me I walked back to the car. I had a little time to kill so I walked
around the international snow sculpture championships. This was pretty cool to
see but just a quick walk through kind of thing. From there it was back to
Denver, Matt was able to borrow a tuning kit for our snowboards and Morgan's
skis. So we sharpened the edges, took off the wax, and put some new stuff on.
This ended up taking awhile so off to bed after that.
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