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Winter Park
It's skiing time!
Before the trip, Nate and I spent quite a while trying to figure out how we were going to pay for skiing. Gas for the silver beast is expensive, but the cost of skiing makes that look like playing the penny slots. One of the solutions we found was the Rocky Mountain Super Pass, which is a season pass to Winter Park and Copper Mountain, Colorado, with half price discounts to many other resorts. Since we had all of our ski gear in the van and we were headed right through Colorado, why not start the season early and get some turns in?
We rolled into Winter Park around 11:30 am and proceeded to tear the van apart looking for all the ski gear we had stashed so well. After much cursing trying to put on cold ski boots, we were finally ready. One of the other ways we plan to save money skiing is by doing a little backcountry. Normal alpine ski setups don’t work so well in the backcountry, where there are no chairlifts to the top. What that means is it’s time for me to learn how to Telemark ski. For those of you who may not know what that is, Telemark skis have bindings that only hold down your toe, leaving your heel free to move up and down. While enabling easier travel in the backcountry, Telemark also enables monster faceplants, especially for novices (i.e. me). Nate leant me his Tele gear for the day, and without further delay, I was off to faceplant heaven. It’s been awhile since I’ve learned a new snow sport, and learning to Tele put me in my place right quick. It actually went okay, and a thorough check at the end of the day revealed no broken bones or bruises, so I call that a success. We’ll see what happens on day two.
After proving how manly we were in the sub-zero temps the night before, we opted to not freeze ourselves again and went down to Denver to stay with Eric and Kate, my suitemates from school. Dinner that night was something I don’t think Mexico ever imagined, and might only be possible in Colorado- Elk Burritos! One of our staples on the roadtrip is burritos, which we eat several times a week without fail. Combine our stash with Eric’s freezer full of meat, and you get a meal concocted in guy heaven. They were actually pretty damn good!
After a night spent without cold toes, we felt recharged enough to head out for another day of skiing. This time we headed over to Copper mountain and switched setups; me on the alpine gear and Nate on the tele skis. This combo proved to work much better, as Nate is a way better tele skier than me. The rest of the day went without incident, as we spent some time learning the mountain and trying to stay warm. By the end of the day, my legs were done.
With one more day to fill before heading to Portland, we had to decide between biking or skiing. We saw that the weather back over in Moab was good, and with only one day left to ride before we drop the bikes off, we jumped in the van and headed back to Utah for a little biking before we switch over to skiing for good.