Day 5 - Sunny east coast day @ Keystone

Got up late in the Springs and didn't make it to Lakewood until 10. Headed up to Keystone at a good clip on dry roads and took Loveland Pass. Gave a couple people a ride on the way up, and it was nice to feed back into the Karma wheel. They claim turns could be had in the lower trees, but after last week's rock debacle I decided that keystone sounded a little more laid back after all the turkey.

Met Dom around 11 and he'd already had 6 or so runs and one epic spill. It had cleared by 11 and it was bright and sunny, without any new snow. This made for scrapped groomerville with lots of ice. Montezuma lift was open, and in all I got 3 runs down around Schoolmarm and in the mini park at the top of Dercum.

@keystoneMtn

Thanksgiving sun over Pike's Peak

Great Thanksgiving in CO springs, and a nice picture of blue sky over Pike's Peak to top it off!

The Pixies play "Debaser" on LN w/ Fallon

Day 4 - Loveland Pass

Got a fair start in the morning and hit the trail sometime after 8am. Only saw two skinners on our way out to the saddle, but they had already put in a few runs. Many of the first chutes/bowls on the front looked good, and we even saw a track off the backside, but we decided to head for the top.

Beautiful weather, we took our time and had no problem getting up to the summit in just over an hour. Our run looked like this (map below):

Started at the summit 12750' and dropped west off the backside to ride a nice patch down the back of the summit, crossed over to the front (east) right at the saddle, and carefully plotted the steep face through rocky patches - just enough snow to float, got some excellent turns in there. Followed the gully out, able to ride all the way to the road uninterrupted. Saw a few people hiking in the upper bowl.

Took a quick hike the second time around, and just got a few more turns under us. Very rocky in places, only surface dust, took a pretty hard spill on some small boulders. Met a guy from MA that was filming a kicker with his friends. Looks well built and will probably be around for a while this year.


View Loveland Pass 11/21/09 in a larger map

From Explore 13S

Blue sky at Loveland pass

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

. . .

Opening Dates . . .

Vail opens this Friday 11/20
Beaver Creek 11/25

check out the skireport.com widget for iGoogle, totally hot right now

Loveland Pass Map

View Loveland Pass Ski Routes in a larger map

Random Awesome New Beck Video

Explore 13s

Day 3 - Breckenridge

Lindsey forgot her board, so she ended up shopping while I enjoyed about 3 hours on the mountain by myself. Got on the hill before 9, had about 5 runs. First couple runs were nice, 5" or so at the peak, with foggy weather and cool temps, sun and less snow at the base.

Hit the park and tackled the first kicker in the now infamous Breck Triple Line, very exciting. Time to start spinning off it.

Started to get crowded around 11am so I snuck off for a bloody mary, and headed back down to meet Lindsey. Great kickoff weekend hitting both Keystone and Breck

Phone died so I wasn't able to take/post any pics and video today . . .

Day 2 - Keystone

Hit up keystone early today with Dom. Roads were totally dry, although it was snowing a bit on the way up past Georgetown. We hit loveland pass in no time with very little if any traffic around us. Arrived early at Keystone and landed ourselves on the 4th gondola up.

It was cold early on, but warmed quickly once the sun was out. Only two variations on the main run down the frontside of Dercum. About 2-3" of fresh on top of mostly soft groomers, tracked out by our second run. By our last run at 11am it was getting icy. Unusually long lift line at the base gondola considering both the chair and midstation were open.

Park is just to the left of the main chair/gondola at the top of dercum. 20 or so features and one formidable kicker top it off, and it is fairly impressive for this early in the season.

Follow me on Twitter . . .

For live updates of the snow conditions each week. I'll be officially kicking off the season this weekend from Keystone and Breckenridge, and I'll be tweeting live from the snow!

New Animoto Videos!

I won a free night at Breck!

Twitter is so not useless . . . so I'm following all these snow related people and the resorts on twitter - it is fantastic for real time updates, and I plan to tweet a lot this weekend at Breck.

Long story short, Breck Resorts had a twitter contest today and I won a free room at the Great Divide Lodge on Saturday night! Check it out
here - Great Divide Lodge. I see two days of riding in my future . . . now to tend to those gashes . . .

Early season Loveland pass is unforgiving on equipment . . .

Ouch . . . Tuneup time

Loveland pass 8.22.09

Explore13s Promo

Check out our promo teaser compliments of Animoto.com

My Little Slice of Gnarnia

Here's a peak at last years' video teaser, footage from all over the I-70 corridor.

Day 1: 10/17/09 Loveland Pass

View Loveland Pass Ski Routes in a larger map

Riding Stats

'09-'10 Season Day Counter

first day 10/17/09
Loveland Pass: 1

'08-'09 Season Day Counter

37

first day 10/14/08
A-Basin: 7
Keystone: 13
Breckenridge: 7
Vail: 1
Beaver Creek: 2
Loveland Pass: 6 day + 1 night
Echo Mountain: 0
as of 6/6/09


'07-'08 Season Day Counter

31

A-Basin: 8
Keystone: 11
Breckenridge: 6
Vail: 1
Beaver Creek: 2
Loveland Pass: 1
Echo Mountain: 1
as of 4/27/08

Another Loveland Route Map

Loveland Pass 2009/10 here we come!

Welcome to my new blog and our first post! I'll be documenting our back country travels here, and I'm starting with this custom map I've made of Loveland pass. Yes, we've explored many of these routes, and I would suggest it to anyone with an itch for freshies!

Loveland Pass Routes Map