Colorado, part II

I feel much better today, after using my blog last night to vent the many frustrations I harbor surrounding racism. Thanks for the catharsis.

Now, I'm ready get back to more important stuff, such as posting photos from last weekend's trip to Colorado. In part one, I took you with me from Albany to Denver to Boulder, and on a walking tour of one of the west's most pleasant medium-sized cities.

Today, we'll get down to what's really important: shredding Aspen's sweet powder.

For those of you who don't know, Aspen is comprised of four ski areas: Aspen, Aspen Highlands, Snowmass, and Buttermilk. There's a whole lot of terrain between the four ski areas, and there's no way that you can ski even a fraction of the slopes in the two days we had. So, we decided to spend day one at Snowmass. Throughout the whole day, we didn't ski the same trail twice, a rather impressive accomplishment, especially for someone from back east, where such feats are unheard of. I didn't bring my camera along on the first day, but had it at the ready the next day.

On day two, we headed to the Aspen Highlands, where we did repeat some trails, but only because we found a couple stashes of untracked pow-pow deep in the woods -- stashes that were too sweet not to visit a second time. (OK, OK -- since I know that there are real skiers reading, I'll admit that my impressions of what "untracked powder" is may differ from the norm, but, like I said, I'm from the east. I maintain low-pass standards when it comes to snow.)

Anyway, as you'll see, the highlight of the day was hiking 700 vertical feet to the sumit of the Highland bowl, and decesneding through its steeps and deeps. It was a singular experience, and my only regret from my time in Colorado was that we didn't have time for a second crack at the bowl.

And now, onto the photos:

Eric and Tom on the lift
Getting ready to ferrett out some fresh tracks
It was sunny and in the mid-30s to low-40s on both days we skied

Here's a view from the lift
This is average terrain for the highlands:
very steep, very bumpy

Here's Eric making quick work of some moguls
I did my best to keep up on the bumps,
but my rented boards wound up being a bit too long

Here's Tom on the same moguls
Tom's only been skiing since 2006
He's a quick study.

Then we hiked to the bowl
Eric is contemplating the long walk
It was a bit of a walk, but well wort it

Looking up at the bowl
from the highest level accessible from a lift
It's not as long a walk as it looks

Here's Tom beginning the long walk
On the steep sections, steps in place were spaced kind of awkwardly
It was fine for my long legs, Eric had some trouble

The scene on the summit
Eric tops out
Note the Tibetan prayer flags

Here's the view from the summit
These mountains beg to be played in
Can you count the possible lines?

Another view from the summit
There's a whole world off the backside of Aspen Highlands
If I'm ever good at skiing, I'll go back and shread those slopes.

Here's some guy getting ready to drop in
This is the view back toward the east
Aspen is really out there...

Team shot on the summit
Eric thought we should have removed our helmets
But, I say helmets are hardcore.

Then we got ready to drop into the bowl
The snow wasn't fresh, but there was pleanty of it
It came down in a mini-slide as we descended

This is what we were dropping into
Can you see the bottom?
It's down there...

Back at the base, this guy greated us
That's one big snow man!
I'm pretty sure he's a football player

That's it for part II. After our day at Highlands, Eric and I said goodbye to Tom and headed to Leadville to visit our friends there. I was originally planning on showing those photos here, but Leadville is important to me, and although I didn't take nearly enough photos while there, it deserves it's own post. I'll be getting back to my top- and bottom-lists tomorrow, so come back for the final installment from Colorado on Sunday. It'll be worth it!