7 April 2011
A few weekends ago (11-13 March) I went up to Keystone for a ski weekend with some friends from church. I’d been looking forward to it for awhile, partly as an opportunity to get better at skiing, but mostly as an opportunity to hang out with people and get to know them better. I also used it as motivation to go ski shopping again, and I bought a pair of Rossignol Avenger 74 skis at REI for 43% off that week (they were the same ones I had my eye on a few weeks ago at 33% off).
I rode up there on the Friday morning with Kyle, Katie & Danielle, and we hit the slopes around 10am. They were all experienced skiers/boarders, but they decided they’d stick with me. After seeing me handle the bunny hill (which is at the top of the mountain, interestingly enough), they were confident I could take on a blue. It was a major struggle making it down the blue slope, as I fell about 20 times (the runs at Keystone are quite long, and about 3000 feet elevation change). The others suggested that I stick with blues so that I’d learn faster, but I wanted do a green next to try to regain some confidence. They decided to stick with me, which I appreciated, though we quickly got separated on our second run, which was down a very long green (Schoolmarm). Schoolmarm was much kinder to me — I only fell about 10 times. I also liked it a lot more because I could relax and just take in the gorgeous scenery — and the view from the top of Keytop Mountain was absolutely stunning. Anyway, aside from all the falls on both morning runs, I had to take short breaks frequently because my legs were so tired and (quite visibly) spasming so much. It was quite annoying, and made it kind of difficult to stop! Kyle, Katie & Danielle wanted to do another run before lunch, but I decided to sit that one out — my legs wouldn’t have let me do another run just then.
While I fell about 30 times total in the morning, the afternoon was much better, as I fell fewer than 10 times on those two runs combined! On the last run we took, which was a mix of greens and blues all the way from the top, I fell two or three times up near the top, but then didn’t fall at all on the last three-quarters of the way down the mountain! I felt like I was finally starting to “get it,” especially since I was able to stay in control even on the blue sections! Kyle, Katie & Danielle had all been giving me encouragement throughout the earlier runs, so they were also glad to see me improving steadily and noticeably. That last run down the mountain was, without a doubt, the most gratifying run in my very short skiing career. 
That evening everyone else showed up, and we had 14 people sleeping in the 8-person condo. It was a lot of fun.
Most everyone went up to the mountain on Saturday, but I was too sore and wanted to save a little money. The three or four of us who stayed behind that day planned to go snowshoeing, and we even got all dressed and everything and made it to the end of the parking lot before we realized that none of us had a car. Small detail, haha. So instead we all went for a walk more nearby. That night after everyone got back from the slopes, I got to play some “hand and foot” too! It’s always fun when I find out other friends know how to play that card game too.
On the Sunday morning, despite a fresh coating of 3-4″ of snow, we all decided to head back to Boulder in the morning instead of going skiing again. Everyone was kind of tired, and didn’t really feel like paying exorbitant rates for half a day of skiing. I would’ve happily gone skiing again that day, but I was also fine with saving 80 or 90 bucks.
The whole weekend was a lot of fun, and I’m really glad I went. Skiing still isn’t my favorite thing in the whole world, but I had a really good time, and will definitely go back several more times in coming years. I don’t know if I’ll end up going skiing again this season, but even if I don’t, at least I ended on a really good note this year. Even though I haven’t gotten too much use out of them this season, I think my skis and boots were a good investment. Maybe next season I’ll get to the point where I don’t fall even ten times in an entire day! And once I get to that point, maybe I’ll be able to take my camera with me to take some spectacular photos from the top of these mountains!
26 February 2011
For last Monday’s President’s Day holiday, Joel & I took a drive up into Rocky Mountain National Park to do a little hiking and take a lot of pictures. We’d hardly even started on our drive when we saw about 150 elk running along US 36 between Boulder and Lyons!
It was cold and very windy up in RMNP. It was a mostly clear day too, but snow and clouds were obscuring the Continental Divide. Despite that it was really pretty. It was especially windy at Sprague Lake, the first place we checked out. That was one coooooold, short hike.
From there we continued down the road to the Bear Lake trailhead, where we went on a longer hike. We didn’t have snowshoes at all because we thought we were going to stay on main, well-groomed trails. And we did between Bear Lake and Nymph Lake. We took one of the trails coming from the other side of Nymph Lake. It was narrower and not quite as frequented, but prettier than the other trails. It kept climbing too. Eventually we came to a big hill with a set of snowshoe tracks leading up it, leading away from our trail.
That hill was too enticing. We scrambled up it, and were rewarded with a spectacular view of Bear Lake far below us.
After a little more exploring up this lonesome trail, we decided it’d be best to come back down to the “main” trail. Pretty soon that “main” trail ended entirely with no tracks. We could still kind of see where the trail went, though, and knew that as long as we went downhill, we’d eventually hit Bear Lake. In other words, we weren’t lost; we were just trying to follow a seldom-used trail, hehe. Usually we were only breaking through foot-deep powder above the packed trail base below, but occasionally we’d unknowingly step off the packed trail and be up to our waist in snow. Joel wished we had snowshoes, but I was having fun breaking the trail and finding the way down to the lake. Mind you, I had jeans on, not snowpants, but that wasn’t bothering me. I was having a blast!
Eventually we did make it down to Bear Lake, which afforded some more really nice views, like this one.
And this one, from the other end of the lake, looking back towards the hills we came down from (on the left).
After getting back to the car, we took a drive up Trail Ridge Road, or at least as far as it’s open in winter. There were some more great views, including another elk sighting on our way back down.
What a gorgeous way to spend a holiday, even if it was a bit cold and windy! I look forward to several more trips to Rocky Mountain National Park while I’m living just an hour’s drive away!
24 February 2011
When most people think of Colorado, they probably think of skiing and snowboarding, and for good reason. In order to fit in culturally, it’s practically a requirement to go skiing or snowboarding a few times each winter (at least it seems that way). For me, that meant I needed to learn how to ski.
Now, I had skied twice before in my life, both last winter, once at Spirit Mountain outside Duluth, Minnesota, and once at Tussey “Mountain” outside Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. The only instruction I had was from Alex when we went to Spirit Mountain. Those first two times were part fun, part frustration, mainly because I had difficulty figuring out how to turn, and therefore had trouble controlling my speed. On the crowded, narrow green slope at Tussey, I even ran into a couple people that day. Not good. I knew that I’d be best served by getting an official lesson at one of the ski resorts out here in Colorado.
Because I’m planning to go skiing several times, I decided to buy some of my own equipment. What several people advised me to do was get my own boots, even if I didn’t get anything else. By purchasing boots, I can get ones that fit my feet well, unlike rental boots, which usually aren’t great quality and don’t fit terribly well. So the REI here in Boulder had a winter clearance sale last week, at which I got a pair of new ski boots on sale for 33% off at $300 (reg. $450). I had initially planned on cheaper boots, but they simply didn’t fit as comfortably. Skiing’s not a cheap activity, but if I’m going to invest in equipment, I may as well make good investments. I had my eye on a pair of new skis at REI that were also 33% off, but by the time I decided to pull the trigger, they were gone. Oh well.
Then I thought I had a line on a pair of used skis from a friend at church, but on Friday night I got the run-around from multiple places while trying to get the bindings adjusted to my new boots and newbie skiing ability. Because the model number on the bindings is highly stylized, there was some confusion on whether they were recalled or not. But anyway, on my second visit to REI that evening, they determined that those bindings, even though they’re only three years old, are neither recalled nor indemnified by Atomic. Basically, because Atomic has advised people not to ski on those bindings because they’re “too old,” most ski shops won’t do any work on those bindings. It seems like a money-making scheme by Atomic to me (and to the people at REI, by reading between the lines), since bindings cost hundreds of dollars and these are only three years old. Anyhow, I’ve decided not to buy these skis (or any Atomic skis, for that matter) as a result. I’ll keep looking for other deals elsewhere. As it turned out, not having my own skis only cost me $5 up at Eldora because of how they do their lesson/lift ticket/equipment package, so that wasn’t a big deal. When I’m not getting a lesson, however, renting equipment is not cheap.
So on Saturday I rode up to Eldora (about 25 miles west of Boulder) with my roommate Randy and one of his friends. It was a fantastic day weather-wise up there, with bright blue skies and temps around 40 degrees. I didn’t bring my camera though, since I would’ve had to leave it in the car all day anyway. Once I get better at skiing so that I’m not falling so much (and get a pocket-sized camera or smartphone), then I’ll start taking some pictures on the slopes.
Randy and his buddy went skiing/boarding together on the blacks while I went to the morning “yellow” lesson. Yellow is one level above never-ever skied before, and that was the right level for me. It was a two-hour class with two other students, so we all got a good amount of attention. He started us out with the “wedge” and “wedge turn” on a very shallow slope (not even the bunny slope). Then we went down the bunny slope a few times. My first time down I fell several times, and the instructor told me to concentrate on keeping my upper body relaxed and still. And voilá! My second time down I didn’t fall at all. After a few bunny hill runs and improving wedge turns, we went down greens a few times. There the instructor was trying to teach us parallel turns, by picking up or sliding the ski we weren’t cutting the turn with. I frequently fell while trying to do that — picking up my ski just didn’t feel natural to me, so I mostly tried to maintain control with the wedge and wedge turns down the greens (which was exhausting). At any rate, by the end of the lesson I could tell I was getting better and gaining more confidence, so the lesson was really valuable for me.
After a lunch break I went back out to the greens by myself to get in more practice. Eventually I noticed that on the steeper parts when I was going faster, I was naturally doing the parallel turns by sliding my foot most of the time, without even thinking about it. That realization made me pretty happy! Even so, I still fell 1-2 times on average on each green run, which isn’t too bad for a beginner like myself (and with only a single half-yard sale, haha). I tried a blue run a couple times, but that was enough steeper that I promptly fell four or five times on my first attempt. Green runs are definitely where my ability level is at right now, but I’m totally fine with that. I accomplished what I wanted to that day: getting noticeably better and more confident at turning/controlling my speed, and getting fairly comfortable on green slopes. I still have trouble turning on the steepest green terrain, but hey, I’m learning.
After that day at Eldora, I was very tired and sore, but now I feel much more confident and far less apprehensive about skiing. I’m still cautious, but I definitely have less apprehension than before. And I’m looking forward much more now to the weekend at Keystone with friends from Calvary in mid-March. Also, on Monday Eldora just came out with a deal where any pass or lift ticket from any other ski resort will get you a free non-Saturday lift ticket at Eldora, so if that’s still going on after the Keystone trip, I’ll definitely fit in a free day of skiing! Now that I’ve gone skiing once out here, I finally feel like I’m taking at least some advantage of living in Colorado in wintertime!
10 February 2011
Last Saturday I went snowshoeing for the first time ever! I hadn’t yet done any winter sports in Colorado, so I was eager for the opportunity to get out and do something with friends. I went with a few of the guys from the Calvary Young Adults Group, namely Joel, D, Andrew, Richard, and Kyle. We drove up to Brainard Lake (elevation 10,300 ft), which is about an hour’s drive west-northwest of Boulder. I came down with a bit of a sore throat a few days earlier, but it wasn’t too bad, and I wasn’t going to let that deter me.
It snowed the whole time we were up there, and some of the forests were so quiet and so snow-laden that it made me and others think of Narnia. It was absolutely gorgeous. Snowshoeing was a ton of fun, but snowshoeing for seven miles at over 10,000 feet elevation for this first-timer had me totally knackered. The uphills in particular took the starch out of me, and made me so hot that for awhile I took off my hat, gloves, and opened my coat. The first mile was mostly downhill, but then the next three miles were mostly uphill. I was definitely the slowest one in the group, and required frequent short breaks. After we took a short, very cold, but much-needed break for lunch at Brainard Lake (which wasn’t visible because of falling and blowing snow), the last three miles of the loop were much easier, partly because they were more flat and downhill. But again, it was a great experience, and I totally loved it even though I was quite sore for the rest of the day!
The drive back home to Boulder was an interesting one, though. The snowstorm had made the Peak-to-Peak Highway pretty bad between Ward and Nederland, and then Hwy 119 going down Boulder Canyon from Nederland to Boulder was a gigantic sheet of ice. A really windy road that descends 3000 feet in 20 miles is extremely treacherous when it’s a sheet of ice. We were going about 5-10 mph most of the way down, and still had three or four incidences of not being in control of the vehicle for a short time. We saw several people skid out in slow-motion (or saw evidence of people having skidded and hit the guardrails not much earlier). There was one skid-out several cars in front of us that led to a chain reaction of skidding, in which Joel (who I was riding with) had to slowly skid into the opposing lane to avoid hitting Andrew in front of us. That was really close! By the time we were approaching Boulder, we even saw a transit bus in the ditch, wedged against the cliff. That was easily the worst road I’ve ever been on. Finally once we hit the Boulder city limits the road wasn’t icy anymore, just slushy. Boy were we ever glad to be at the bottom of the mountain and off that treacherous road!
The snowshoeing exhaustion and icy road stress certainly led to a good and early night’s sleep for me!
11 January 2011
We finally got a pretty decent snowfall here in the Boulder-Longmont area on Sunday, the first substantial snowstorm of the season here (or at least the first that I’ve been here for). It was tricky driving to and from church in the morning, with snow coming down so hard for awhile after church that visibility was down to a quarter-mile. ‘Twas a good day to sit inside, make some eggs and sausage for lunch, and watch playoff football all afternoon!
When I woke up Monday morning there were about 7-8 inches of powdery snow on the ground, under crystal-clear blue skies. I could tell from our window that the mountains were coated in white. It was gorgeous! It was also pretty cold, only about 3 degrees, but I absolutely had to take advantage of the spectacular conditions and get some photos. So after getting back home from dropping off my car at a shop a mile or so down Lookout Rd here in Gunbarrel (more about that in a later post), I decided to walk a couple miles the other direction up Lookout Rd to the top of the hill. Here are some of the wonderful views I was treated to:
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Now this is more what I expected Colorado to be like in the winter! Hooray for snow!
I really should sign up for ski lessons and take advantage of the snow, but car problems and an upcoming conference in Seattle might force me to hold off until February…
