ResQgeek

We have completed six full days of skiing.  It seems weird to complain that it wasn't cold enough, but really, for a ski vacation, it has been much too warm.  I am impressed with the grooming crews, who are doing an incredible job of keeping the conditions on the mountain reasonably decent.  They have had almost no new snow through the month of January, and I don't know how much further they'll be able to stretch the 100+ inches they got in December before they need to start closing trails.

Our last two days both started with us enjoying some fast runs on the hard morning snow, while they were still empty.  As more people found their way onto the slopes, we moved into the trees for a while and finished each day working to improve our skiing in the moguls.  We have skied hard this week, pushing ourselves and our comfort zones, and I think we all have made some improvements to our skiing.

We are packing tonight, even though we don't head home until Sunday.  We need to check out from our condo tomorrow morning and we are staying in a hotel tomorrow night so our daughter can attend the Bridgestone Winter Driving School (http://www.winterdrive.com).  She will have a whole day of learning to drive in snowy and icy conditions, including significant time practicing driving on a frozen track.  It actually sounds like it should be fun, and I hope that she will learn how to drive safely in winter conditions.

It's been a weird week.  Between my colleague from work being here with his family, and the Pentagon Ski Club group that is here, we've found ourselves spending more time than normal skiing with other people.  We still had plenty of time to do our own thing, however, and it really has been a full week.  I am beginning to look forward to being home and getting back to the normal routine.

This afternoon, we skiied with a work colleague, who is also at Steamboat with his family.  He is a friend and a supervisor (though not directly my boss).  His kids were in lessons today, so we joined him and his wife for lunch and then set out to ski a few runs with them.  I thought he might enjoy a little challenge, so I led him off trail in the the Morningside Park area of the resort, away from the nice groomed trails and into the trees.  I picked a spot that wasn't very steep and where the trees were pretty widely spaced.  He seemed to be enjoying himself, right up to the moment he hit a bump he didn't see because of a shadow and took a pretty nasty spill.  As we gathered him and his equipment, I realized that the rear binding for his right ski had come off the ski.  Of course the ski brake is attached to that binding, so the ski was sliding away down the slope, and my daughter had to chase it down.  Luckily, I was able to reattach the binding to his ski, and we skied with him to the base area, so he could take the skis back to the rental shop to exchange them for a different pair.

Watching him crash was a scary moment, especially since skiing in this area was my idea.  Luckily, he wasn't hurt, and we managed to get him safely down off the mountain.  I have never seen a binding come off of a ski on the mountain before, and as bad as his crash seemed, I don't think it was bad enough to have damaged the binding.  I think these bindings were already damaged before he started using them, and the crash simply revealed the underlying flaw.  I'm just thankful that everything ended up being okay.

After our snowmobile adventure last night, no one seemed to be any particular hurry to hit the slopes this morning, so we got off to what was, for us, a late start.  By the time we got up the mountain, it was probably about 10am before we made our first run.  The upper portions of the resort were shrouded in clouds for much of the day, so we did a lot of skiing in the trees, where the visibility was better.  We also spent a lot of time working on our mogul skiing skills...my daughter has decided that she is a ski instructor and is determined to make a marked improvement in this, my worst ski skill.  I was getting frustrated because I would string together a set of nice looking turns and then would struggle to do anything right for the rest of the run.  I know I am getting better, but the progress is uneven and anything but steady, so I find myself getting impatient.

We ran into a several members of the Pentagon Ski Club here today.  It has been a while, but we used to travel with this club, and they have a group here for the week.  It was nice to see some friendly faces, and we found out that they are going out to dinner tomorrow night.  I sent an e-mail to the trip leader to check on the details, and it looks like we'll be joining them for dinner tomorrow.  It will be fun to catch up with those members we know from our earlier trips witht the club.

We made it to the mountain earlier today than we had managed so far, early enough, in fact, to squeeze in a short run before our lesson began.  We hoped that our daughter would be grouped with some more advanced skiers, so that she could challenge herself and ski parts of the mountain that her mother and I might not be comfortable attempting.  Unfortunately, she was the easily the best skier in the group lessons today, so she was grouped with her parents and three others who were about our skill level.  We spent the day working on our mogul skiing skills, trying to master the basic skills that would allow us to ski in the bumps without it feeling either like a death trap or an extreme workout.

Our instructor was excellent, and she had a way of explaining what she wanted us to do that made it easy to understand.  Implementing her suggestions was a bit more difficult, but by the end of the day, I felt like I had made some measure of progress towards being a better skier in the bumpy terrain.

Tomorrow promises to be our first bluebird day, a clear, sunny day under blue skies.  Skiing with my good camera is a bit of a pain, since it is bulky and heavy, but the promise of potentially capturing some great photos will motivate me.  I expect that we will also spend a fair bit of time on mogul runs, trying to practice everything we learned today.  I'm a little worried that the only things my daughter learned today were new ways to torture her parents!

This is my wife's first holiday season without her mother, who played a such large role in her holiday activities.  I knew this would difficult for her (after all, she's still struggling to come to terms with the loss of our daughter four years ago), so I suggested that we consider going away for Christmas.  We did some searching, and found a deal on a condo rental in Winter Park, Colorado, and built a ski vacation around that.

We headed to the airport yesterday afternoon, and arrived at our condo late last night, after a delay on our flight to Denver and a tight connection to our shuttle.  I didn't sleep well last night, probably because of the altitude, which is typical when we come out to Colorado.  Apparently no one else was in a rush to hit the slopes this morning, as we didn't get on the snow until almost 10am.

It snowed all day, giving us great powder conditions all over the mountain.  However, the wind picked up as the day went on, and by the end of the afternoon, it was blasting us and blowing the snow around, seriously reducing visibility.  For all the skiing we did, we barely scratched the surface of what this resort has to offer, and I'm looking forward to exploring more.

From Steamboat 2010

We got our latest start of the week this morning. We all slept in a bit later than other mornings, so that it was after 9am before we made our way onto the mountain. We headed over to the Sunshine Peak to enjoy the long fast runs over there before the lift lines began to get long. It was a beautiful, sunny morning with gorgeous blue skies. After making a few runs, we headed back to the top of the Gondola lift to meet the local family that owns the condo we're renting. They came out to ski for the day, and we skied a few runs with them. However, our aggressive skiing style clashed with their more laid back style, so we soon parted ways.

We spent much of the afternoon skiing in the trees in the Morningside Park area on the back of the mountain. The sun had warmed the snow, making it harder to ski in the powder, but there were lots of tracks through the trees, so that wasn't a big problem. We practiced our mogul skills as we skied around the bumps and trees. As we rode the lift back up, my daughters held bits of bread in their open hands, and the birds would fly down from the trees to eat.

All too soon, it was time to head back to the lower mountain for our final runs of the day. We now only have one more day of skiing left before we have to pack up and head home.

From Steamboat 2010

We actually set an alarm clock last night, because we wanted to be up early to take advantage of a perk associated with our status as repeat customers at the ski resort. A limited number of people are allowed up the mountain before the lifts officially open to make "first tracks" on the slopes. Normally, this is a $50/person option, but our tickets were free. So, by 7:30, we were out of the condo and ready to ski.

We met up with our guide, an instructor from the ski school, and he escorted us up the mountain and had fun with us while we made three very long runs to start the day. We were the very first people down several trails, and it was fun to ski on the freshly groomed mountain almost alone, before other skiers tore up the snow. The morning was beautiful, with some low, thin clouds that provided a gorgeous rainbow over the treetops.

All too soon, the lifts were open, and other people started arriving on the mountain. We headed off to ski other parts of the mountain, mostly skiing in the trees and moguls, practicing what we'd learned in lessons yesterday. Even though this is our fourth year at this resort, we still managed to ski some areas for the very first time today.

We made a very long day of it, pushing to catch the very last lifts up before they closed, including a long race down the front of the mountain to catch the last lift ride. I can't help but think about how much my skiing has improved over the last four years, and how intimidated I used to be by some of the trails and conditions that we so casually skied today. It was probably one of the best days of skiing I've enjoyed in a long time.

Skiing day two! We actually made it out of the condo early enough that we had to wait a few minutes for the lifts to open. We headed straight to the top of the mountain, and skied some of the more challenging terrain. We discovered a jump in the middle of one run, and went back to give the girls a chance to try it. Both girls need to work on their landings, but the younger daughter demonstrated her complete lack of fear, taking the jump as a speed that made me very nervous. She made a monster jump, but the landing won't win any style points!

We then headed off to ski the powder in the trees. We eventually made our way to the Morningside Park area on the back of the mountain. We enjoyed skiing between the trees in the powder. On the way up the lift, the girls pulled out the bread crumbs they'd brought along and held them out on their palms. The birds would swoop down from the trees and land on their hands to eat.

After lunch, we met up with Billy Kidd for a free ski clinic. He explained how we can improve our skiing even when we are just standing still. He emphasized that your stance in very important to the way you ski. It was a good, if brief lesson, and we spent the rest of the afternoon practicing as the snow began to come down ever harder (which suggests that tomorrow might be an excellent ski day!).

Today was a gorgeous, albeit cold, day for skiing. Yesterday's powder was largely groomed into submission, creating beautiful, smooth runs that were perfect for speeding down the mountain. The cold weather helped keep the snow from being sticky, which also contributed to the ideal skiing. We bounced around the mountain, carving graceful turns on the wide, groomed cruising runs, and working our way around the trees and bumps in the glades. We had to take a couple of breaks to warm up, but managed to squeeze in a full day of skiing, staying out until the lift operators told us it was time for our last run. The skis are packed in the van, and we're packing our bags, planning to head out on the road early tomorrow morning.

When I checked this trail report this morning, I was a little disappointed to see that only 9 trails were going to be open today. However, given the condition of the runs that only had natural snow, it was understandable. The first runs of the day were a bit icy, as yesterday's rain had frozen overnight. But the open runs were all groomed, so we enjoyed some fast runs. By mid-morning, it had started to snow, and it continued to snow steadily throughout the day. The accumulating snow made the runs soft, but visibility got steadily worse. By the time we came off the mountain at 4pm, there was about 3-4 inches of new snow on the ground, so maybe tomorrow we can ski some of the other trails.