Steamboat weekend

I'm back from 3 days of skiing at Steamboat. Wow, what an adventure. Here's the scoop...

I left Boulder Thursday night after picking up groceries. The drive up was very calm until Rabbit Ears pass, where 40 became snowy/icy. After sliding around a bit and driving past a flipped Jeep Wrangler and decided it was time to put El Jefe into 4x4. From what little I could see out my windshield, it looked like the snowbanks were higher than the top of mi Cherokee... once I saw that I couldn't get to Steamboat fast enough! I got checked in to our Yampa View condo just fine and crashed as fast as I could for an early start on Friday.

Friday
I got up early and was in line for the gondola before it started running Friday morning. I had been checking the weather all week and was nervous to see RAIN in the forecast. There may have been rain in town, but what I discovered Friday on the mountain was certainly not rain! I wanted to get as high as possible on the mountain, so I headed straight for the back (Morningside) lift. I found a good 6" of fresh snow and played around over there for a while. Then I decided to take the short hike to East Face and North St. Pats. Both double black diamond runs, they were steep for a short section (maybe 200 ft of vertical) and then headed into a flatter treed area. The snow was a bit choppy but deep... probably a foot of heavy snow that hadn't been tracked out much. At one point I lost a ski and reminded myself to set my DIN setting at a 6 from a 5 when I got home. It wasn't my best skiing, but a lot of fun nonetheless. Because it took a while to do laps on those, I decided to check out DeSo's Descent. Apparently I didn't make it over far enough to skiers left because I found myself at the Chute 2 gate... which meant I was in the trees between Chute 1 and 2. I took my time and decided to just go for it, but at one moment I had to laugh... which was better than wetting myself. My route choices were limited to climbing a tree down (slight exaggeration) or navigating via jump turns down tight sections. After a few 4-letter words out loud, I convinced myself to just do my best... and made it through the steep and narrow tree sections. After some packed runs from Storm Peak > Cyclone > Drop Out, I was beat. It wasn't my best day of skiing, and I wanted to save some for Sunday, so I decided to call it a day at 2:00. I rode the slush to the bottom, had an apres beverage, and headed to Yampa for the Longhorns game. No sooner had the Horns taken care of Stanford than Tony, Shelly, Ryan and Allison arrived. After a bit of unpacking (and a taste test where I proved to Ryan that I CAN tell the difference between a Whole Foods pineapple and a Wal-Mart pineapple) we headed into town and joined the party at Rio Grande for Tex-Mex. I was running on empty, so the margarita and enchiladas hit the spot.

Saturday brought good skiing and riding for Tony, Shelly and me, and tubing and snowshoeing for Ryan and Allison. Apparently Rabbit Ears pass didn't disappoint for Ryan and Allison. The mountain surely didn't disappoint us either. You can see the video recap on youtube. We spent the morning doing laps on the Sunshine Express lift area, with a nice selection of blue runs. I skied better than Friday, and was mainly focusing on fundamentals. Feeling sufficiently warmed up and a little beaten up by the wind, after lunch we ventured back over to Morningside where Shelly completed her first black run. There was still good snow through the trees, so we spent the next couple of hours doing laps there. The Morningside lift is only 542' of vertical gain, so the runs are very quick. After probably 8 runs through the trees and a bit of fresh snow I suggested we head to North St. Pats. Tony and Shelly were great sports and obliged. We made the short hike then strapped in towards the steep section. I decided to pick a slightly steeper line than yesterday, and, if I do say so myself, really skied it well. 2 guys blew past me while I watched Tony ride down, but I was able to follow their line right behind them. I was extremely pumped, and would have been happy to call it a trip right then and there. It was getting late, so we got to the bottom as fast as possible... ski patrol was cleaning the slopes by the time we made it to mid-mountain.

We made it home safe, had a great dinner, and headed to Strawberry Hot Springs to work out the kinks. The road wasn't nearly as bad as I had heard, and the water was really nice. It was a strange feeling to be soaking in a natural springs while getting snowed on. I highly recommend jumping in the freezing river and then getting back in the springs! After about an hour we decided we had had enough of the old people nudity and co-ed banter. When we discovered our stuff had been dusted with 1/4" of snow, I decided to change out of my swim trunks. In a bit of a hurry to get to the Jeep and daydreaming about how much snow the mountain was getting, I walked off without picking them up... that is guaranteed to be the most boring way anyone has ever lost a swimsuit there, but at least I didn't get an STD...

Sunday we woke up to several inches of fresh snow at the condo!!! I was pretty tired but couldn't wait to see what conditions were like on the mountain. Shelly was pretty beat from Saturday so she went snowshoeing with Ryan and Allison. Tony and I headed for the gondola and rode up with a local dude that was the perfect combination between John Wayne and Bode Miller. He warned us it was wet (not the true champagne) but I nearly lost it when he said he had heard it had snowed a foot at the top. When we got to the top, we confirmed the rumor! Check out the youtube footage. The snow was very wet, and Morningside was closed for avalanche danger, but we had a great time on the front side. It was probably the most fresh snow I have skied all season... not just the top but the whole mountain had been hit, and there was NOBODY there :) It was definitely the most I had skied where I couldn't see my skis through the snow. It was so much work, and was hilarious to see everybody stopping and resting on the slopes. As the snow continued to fall, the clouds made it very quiet, so all you could hear was the shouts for joy in the powder. I was happy I had increased my DIN setting... I probably would have lost a ski or two otherwise. It really didn't matter what run we took, but once they opened Morningside that's where we headed. What a difference a day makes! It was fun to ski the same terrain in varied conditions. At first we couldn't go through the trees because the fresh snow slowed us down too much. Once the top had been tracked out a bit you could get enough momentum to get into the trees, and we had a lot of fun back there. We were both exhausted, but couldn't stop... so we kept going until about 2:30 and finally decided it was time to call it a weekend. We headed into town to meet the snowshoers and swapped stories over ice cream. Feeling like a zombie, I changed out of my 3-days-of-sweat ski clothes and hit the road for Boulder. As I drove into Silverthorne I waved to the Gore Range, which was getting a bit of snow... I really love that range and hope to explore it a bit this summer.

Overall I was surprised at how short the double black runs were compared to Copper, Loveland and Winter Park. I didn't really get into the Chutes, No Names or Christmas Tree Bowl at all, so maybe those are the real stashes. I will certainly be hitting those next time. It was cool to ski somewhere that had nothing above tree line, and was very good glade practice. I am definitely going back for the real champagne next winter, and I'm bringing my snorkel! I built upon last weekend's bump lesson and was turning fairly well on Saturday and Sunday. I definitely got more confident on steeper terrain, and can only hope I pick up from here next winter. I have a lot to improve on, but once I can chain my turns together better on faster and steeper terrain I'll feel confident to ski just about anything inbounds. I wasn't sure how my legs would hold up for 3 full days, but my form has improved so much that I was just fine... that would not have been the case even 2 months ago. I have 13 days on my skis so far this year, and may get one or two more, but even if I don't I have had a great winter and can't believe how lucky I am to have such great snow within a few hours of my home.

skiing update / recap

It's been a while, so I decided to write up a quick update... here's the season rundown.

My first day of the season was Dec 1 at Winter Park. After that I took one lesson a few weeks later, and have been skiing a total of 10 days this season. I was definitely a green skier to start the season, (1) having only skied a few times in my life before (once in Jackson Hole, then in Ohio and Pennsylvania) but I don't really count those since it was years between each, and (2) being 4 years between December and my last time on skies. Since then, I've become confident on intermediate runs, skied a lot of black and even double-black runs, skied a bit of powder and bumps, and overall improved quite a bit. I didn't really have any expectations coming into the season, but now find myself getting impatient with progress, and want to be able to ski anything in bounds... and immediately please, no questions asked.

I think, after this year, that skiing is probably the hardest sport I've really enjoyed and tried to get really good at. I used to be a really solid tennis player, and that came pretty natural to me. Mountain biking and even rock climbing, despite a small fear of heights, seem to be the same. Baseball and basketball took practice, but I feel were far easier to become fairly proficient in... I don't know if that counts though since I was pretty much doing both from when I could walk. Skiing, on the other hand, takes a lot of patience for me, and is very mental in the sense that the slightest loss of confidence results in a bad outing. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm pretty new to it and have come a long way in less than 4 months. Dude, keep your chin up and have fun!

Yesterday I forgot that message, and as you can see on youtube here (Darren is the voice of optimism and gracious albeit undeserved praise), powder defeated me by a landslide. Being out with co-workers was a blast, but it took me until our last hike of 3 on the ridge (wow, am I out of 14ers shape!) to feel good enough to get aggressive and ski well on a steep (meaning low-30s degrees) powder slope. That run was clearly not on film. Then I shudder watching the video and looking at my form. I was nervous with an audience and a camera (especially being really new to deep powder) but wanted to prove that I was a decent skier. The result was a far cry from the successes of weeks past. I get annoyed with people who beat themselves up a lot, but I have to admit I was that guy yesterday. Loveland is a very nice mountain, and I hope to go back next season to redeem myself. 3 days in Steamboat are coming up in 2 weeks, so hopefully I'll have much better videos to show then!

In short summary, here are the 5 main tips that I think have helped, and will continue to help me in the future, should I finally decide to abide by them:

1. Ski with your shins pressed against the front of your boots, and your weight on the balls of your feet rather than on your heels. Lifting toes helps reinforce this. It's easier to turn when you're in this stance, visualizing moving your weight back and forth from the ball of the the big toe to the ball of the little toe. You know you're doing it wrong when your leg muscles do the work of keeping you up instead of your skeleton (tired quads and calves mean bad form).
   
2. Parallel doesn't necessarily mean touching... In other words, boots shoulder width apart is not bad, despite popular belief.
3. Keep your hands out in front of you with elbows bent, and use your pole plant as an indicator of a turn. What you're essentially doing when you plant your right pole is committing to a right turn. This also helps balance.
4. Lean forward and be aggressive in your stance. Your upper body should be perpendicular to the slope, with your skis always facing as downhill as possible.
5. Wear thin socks once your boots are padded to your feet to leave room for warm air that your feet heat. Otherwise the warm air escapes your boots and your feet get cold. It even helps to loosen your boots on the lift to make more room for air. For cold hands, make a fist with your fingers in the main wrist compartment, and alternate hands.