breckenridge, Vail

Tuesday night Trevor, Kevin and i slept over at another girl from high school, Sammy’s, house. She lives in flagstaff too.

                The next morning we parted ways and I headed out for the Grand Canyon, about an hour and a half away. When I arrived I looked around just for a little while. Then went over to the office to see about hiking down and camping. I talked to Adam and then I realized that him and all his friends were getting to the house Thursday, tomorrow, 10 hours away at Breckenridge, CO. I didn’t have time to camp or even stick around. So I left right away and drove strait there. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time at the canyon because I rather see it all when I had the time later. The drive was great during the day but I missed a lot once the sun went down. When I finally got the Breckenridge at 2:00 am I should have just went to the house we were staying at because no one was there, but instead I slept in my car. I thought we weren’t allowed in the house that early but it ended up I could have gone in. it was -30 degrees, so sleeping really didn’t work. I woke up many times and was just getting frustrated. At about 6:00am I finally just went to the house. The sun was just coming up and the view was unbelievable. Right outside our door were the mountains with the sun just illuminating the white tops. I slept most of that day waiting for Adam and everyone else to show up. I also went to the store to pick up some things. Adams friend matt showed up first with his friend Jim, at about 8:00pm. They unpacked and we went out to dinner. Adam and a few of his friends showed up at 10:00pm with the rest an hour later. Total we had 11 people staying in the house. That night everyone unpacked and went to bed.

                Friday we all went to Breckenridge Mountain for snowboarding. It took a few runs on the easier hills for everyone to back into it. But after that we went up to the top, here was amazing, it was a huge bowl that you drop down into which lead to the other great runs. For one run a few of us went all way from the top to the bottom, that run was about 15 minutes of strait riding. Our cousin matt and his girlfriend Stevie met us at our house and we all went out to dinner at the Breckenridge brewery. Then a few people went home and a few of us went out to the bar for a drink. While we were at the bar I received a text from my friend Kevin. It turns out that Kevin and Trevor changed their plans, mainly because of the huge snow storm in Wisconsin, and they were in town. Everyone else went back to the house, Kevin, Trevor and I went to a few more bars and had a great night. I made it back home at about 3:00am.

                Saturday I woke up realizing I had way, way too much fun the night before. I decided to still go with the morning group of people to Vail. Over the night Vail got pounded with fresh snow, I think was about 20 inches. Vail is a huge mountain; it’s really a few mountains. Most people just stay on the front side of the mountain, so that area is packed with people and the hills get moguled very early. The back side of the mountain is huge bowls with a lot of wide open space. We did these runs for a while but the best spot to go is blue sky basin. This is the face side of the second mountain. So you have to go up the face down the bowls and up another mountain. This was my favorite place I have ever been boarding. To get here takes an hour and a half so you really only have about 3 hours of riding back here but it’s insane. Not many people make it here so it’s all fresh powder runs with any terrain you could want. Open areas, patches of trees, cliffs, tight packed forest trails, everything. The forest runs were new for me and the most fun I have ever had on a snowboard. A single run would take around 25 minutes, weaving around trees. I loved it. The runs would all funnel down into the more open areas with a lot of features to play with, Lots of jumps and drop offs. Matt and Stevie left a little before we did to head back to boulder. When we all got back form snowboarding I took a shower and got some much needed sleep.

                Sunday we went back to Vail for another amazing day. Overnight more snow fell just to add to the already great runs. Most people were pretty sore from all the riding but we couldn’t pass up a trip like this. The plan was to be off the mountain by 3:00pm to be able to make it back home for the super bowl, but that didn’t really work out. We ended up getting off at about 4:00 and just decided to watch the game at the resort bar. Only Adam and I were packer fans with everyone else against us. We all left just before the half and rushed home to finish watching. I was shocked we won and it was a great game to watch. A few of us hit the hot tub and attempted to finish off all the beer in the house. We finished the night with a fuse ball tournament.

                Monday morning Jim had to leave early to pick of some of his friends from the airport. He is staying until Friday and I might try to meet up with him for one more day of boarding before I start heading back to phoenix. Everyone made breakfast and pack up. Everyone else headed to the airport and I drove up to Boulder, CO. I’m going to stay with Cousin Matt for a day or 2 and do some hiking.

canoe trip, phoenix az, flagstaff az

Thursday I started my 2 day canoe trip. I thought I could rent a kayak but they didn’t offer that. It took some convincing of the owner to allow me to go out by myself. When I told him I’ve been to the boundary waters twice he was pleased to let me go. I parked my car at Moabi Regional Park, and he picked me up form there and drove up river. The first day is 12 miles back to the park. I started out at about 9:30 and finished at 1:30. This day was very easy. Just right down the river, no real features at all. There was a wind pushing me along the way. When I got back to Moabi Regional Park I unloaded and had some lunch. I thought it was going to take a lot longer so I drove back into needles to use a hot tub. The town is very weird, most of the places are boarded up and the people seem a little off. Then I drove back to the park and called it a night early.

The second day of the trip was great. Cooler morning but by about 10 it was 70 and sunny. This was a great part of the river, and one of the last places of untouched river front. It went from desert to steep mountains and cliffs. The path was very windy with calm water. I started at about 7:30 and ended at 2:30. I ran into a group of kayakers on the same path as me. They were from Canada; I had them take a few pictures of me. There is another stop along the way that was an old Indian tool making area. Here there was tons of Indian drawings on the rocks. I was way ahead on time so I tried fishing, again no luck. This was disappointing because you could see the fish. I saw like a 36 inch cat fish, 2 turtles, a ton of carp, some stripers and a beaver. The outfitter picked me up and took me back to my car. I left right away and headed to phoenix AZ. I have a friend there, Mike, he goes to ASU. He lives in a really nice place, it an apartment with all college kids. There’s a gym, pool and of course hot tub. We went out to the bars that night and meet some more of his friends. At about 2:00 am we went to the casino and I won $140.

The next morning we went to the gym and the hit the hot tub. We just hung out for a while and shared stories. We met up with 2 of my other friends who flew down to pick up a car and drive it home, trevor and Kevin. Trevor used to live here and that’s why his car is down here. That night we went to a few parties and ended up back in the hot tub at like 3:00am.

Sunday we got up and hiked Camelback Mountain. It was a really cool hike but I forgot my camera. The hike was a mile and a quarter climbing 1400 feet. A lot of the trail is just rocks you climb up and over. There were 2 stops they have railing imbedded in the rock and you have to climb up those. We didn’t do much the rest of the day.  I went to the store and picked up some things to make food for the road. We just watched some movies

Monday I made all the food for the week and decided to leave that day with Trevor and Kevin to go 2 hours north to flagstaff AZ. There we know another friend from high school, Steph, Trevor is a good friend of hers and we could all stay there for a few days. Monday night she took us out with some of her friends and roommates to show us the town.

Today I was able to go snowboarding with one of stephs roommate and 2 of her friends. It was really fun but the wind was so rough that there one point where I came over a peak and it almost stopped you. I might try to go back when I drive back down after. After that me and Kevin went to visit steph at work, which just so happens to a brewery/bar.

 start of the trip

 its still cold in the morning

 the area way in front is what i did the second day

 a plane flew over really low

 the start of the second day

 cool rocks

 this is when i met the kayakers

 they were digging out part of the river

 the indian paintings

i took this from the top of the mountain snowboarding. it over looked another mountain