More sliding on snow

Here are a few pictures from the pass on Saturday. As is often the case, the snow was fantastic, but the visibility/photo conditions were rough.



Also made a short video:

Family Ski Day

It's bad sign when you're already freezing in the parking lot. :)

But other than a few short meltdowns and (*sigh*) a slow trafficy drive down I-70, we had a blast of a day at Loveland Ski Area.

M refusing to be in the picture:

S skis the steeps on Chair 1:

Surveying the traffic on I-70:

Grampa B came along for the ride:

Z's first day on a snowboard!


My advice if you want to learn to snowboard: be eight years old and made of rubber. :)

Peter Estin Hut

Peter Estin Hut is a part of the 10th Mountain Hut System and is described this way on Lou Dawson's hutski.com: "Built in 1985, Peter Estin Hut was the third publicly funded hut added to the 10th Mountain system. Funds were donated by the Estin family in memory of Peter Estin.

Estin Hut, as it's called for short, is located in a clearing on a timbered saddle just northwest of Charles Peak (12,050 feet), with a stunning view of the Elk and Williams mountains to the south."

(Aerial Photo from HutSki.com.)

We had a strong and motivated crew of 4 and this trip pretty much boiled down to the basics: ski, eat, sleep, repeat.

Staying at one hut for three nights combined with a relatively short ski in (4.5 miles & 2,200 vertical feet) meant we could bring a few luxuries. Mainly this meant amble food and whiskey (or a few beers for me). We ate like kings with meals of shrimp pad thai, steak and chicken fajitas, almond couscous with dates, and scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon and hash browns.

We arrived at the hut by noon on Thursday. It was a nice warm relatively clear day so we spent the afternoon touring and skiing up to a high ridge north of the hut, then skiing below the hut to the south and hiking back up for dinner. That was about the last we saw of the sun.

A small front came in Thursday night and a larger one on Friday night. The snow seemed to pile up at an increasing rate throughout the weekend culminating with blizzard conditions for the ski out on Sunday.

All in all a great trip with a cool group of friends into fantastic terrain with good snow to top it off. Totals varied, but I ended up with just over 13,000 vertical feet of climbing and skiing in four days. Whew!



More pictures.

Holiday Week

Here are some images from our Christmas week.

Z plays in the final week of his roller hockey class:

You better watch out, you better not shout...:

We drove to Santa Fe just before Christmas. Got a good dose of green chile, family and (as a bonus) a full moon:



I slipped out early in the morning for a little ski tour in the old stomping grounds on the day before the day before Christmas:







The drive home on the 25th looked like this for much of the way (Salida):



Then a another great day on skis on the 26th:

Another Day in the Snow

Enjoyed a beautiful day in the mountains with the ski buddies on Sunday.


More pictures here.

Tree Cutting

We had an outstanding day of sledding and tree-cutting thanks to our friends Brendan and Julia who invited us to their annual shindig.

Never ceases to amaze me how that tiny looking little tree out there in the forest fills up your whole living room.

Photo credit: Henry A.

And a few of my pictures:


More pictures can be found here.

CP

It felt great to get out for a day of skiing. The snow was "variable" to say the least. Some good turns, some crashes, a few nice views, and some reminders of the fragile snow pack.