breck pics

More good stuff like this can be found here.

Thanks again to Aunt Glo and Shannon for the place to stay. The town home is fantastic and we had an amazing time.

breckenridge days 3-4

Sunday morning we woke up, had breakfast at the Blue Moose for the second straight day, Lelaine rented her snowboard, and all of us attacked the mountain. Emily is the best skier in the group and went with Jeremy and me up the gondola to Peak 7. Lelaine took advantage of the fact that we were staying right on a run so she honed her snowboarding skills on Four O'Clock. It provided a good way for her to practice without having a lot of people to avoid on some of the green slopes, not to mention that she could walk right into the condo to take a break anytime she wanted.

After a couple of runs down Peak 7 Emily and I went up the t-bar near the top of the Peak 8 summit (at nearly 13,000 feet, the lift that services the top is the highest in North America) for my first foray into a bowl and big powder on what I had heard were a few manageable blacks. For me, this was a BFD. Another advantage of going so high is that the views are supposedly amazing. I say supposedly because we were in the middle of a cloud that was producing a lot of snow, so visibility was virtually non-existant. It was erie being above the tree line with the white sky blending into the mountain. A big drop off of the ridge to start out the run kind of psyched me out, but it went well. Pika is very wide, and I have never been in such deep, ungroomed powder. By the time I got to the bottom, I was mentally thrilled, but my legs were screaming.

Jeremy's and my legs were turning into jelly, but both of us thought that we needed to get as many runs and possible in before calling it a day. After a much needed rest, the three of us went down blues and a couple blacks on Peak 8 for another couple hours. My favorite in that group, and I think Jeremy and Emily's as well, was Spruce. I also really enjoyed Claimjumper. Because Jeremy and Emily had to drive back to Denver Sunday night, we ended up saying our farewell on a run - they headed back to the condo to pick up their car and I tried to get a few more runs in.

Breck is massive. We spent almost two full days skiing and had only been on two of the four peaks. I headed over to Peak 9 and got a couple runs in. Although I hoped to also venture to Peak 10, my legs weren't cooperating and it was nearing closing time, so I had to call it quits and ski back to the condo.

Unfortunately Lelaine had fallen and hurt her knee earlier in the day making walking difficult, but she was still able to snowboard. I watched her go down the run to see all the progress she made while focusing on Four O'Clock run.

We were both tired and sore, so we had a quiet and relaxing night just hanging out in the condo. Monday morning we woke up, packed, stopped for breakfast in Dillon, and then drove to Denver.

There have been a handful of vacations in which the day after returning all I do is think of how much I want to go back to where I was. This was definitely one of those trips. We need to make a ski trip out west a regular occurrence.

breckenridge day 2

Saturday morning we woke up early, rented skis, and Jeremy and I headed up the mountain. The altitude wasn't treating Lelaine well, so she decided to take it easy reading by the fireplace, walking through town, and getting a massage.

have skied more this year than any other year, and it is definitely paying off. We took the gondola from town to Peak 8 and started with a nice green. After the warm up we stayed on blues all day, hitting nearly every blue on Peaks 7 and 8.

I was pretty much on cloud nine all day, but a couple runs were particularly stellar. In the early afternoon we started going through the trees and deep powder near Wirepatch, then headed left for Monte Cristo, which is at the very end of the resort. I thought something was wrong and the run was closed, because Monte Cristo had been very recently groomed and there was no one else around. We rode down the whole way and didn't see a single soul - it was like we were on our own private mountain. As soon as we got down we went back up the lift and repeated the run. This time, Jeremy took a pretty bad fall...and by fall I mean he flipped while in the trees and nearly hit a rock. I missed it, but managed to take many pictures of him while he was getting up. The pic on the right is Jeremy picking himself up. Notice that there is no one else within sight.

After lunch at the base of Peak 7 we skied for another hour or so and then headed back to Aunt Glo's place. One of the best parts about it is that it is ski-in from the 3.5 mile long Four O'Clock trail. I have never stayed in a ski-in condo, and it will be hard to stay anywhere else now that I have been able to go directly from slope to couch or hot tub.

Jeremy's girlfriend Emily drove in from Denver and we went out to dinner. Jeremy and I were sore from skiing and Lelaine still hadn't completely adjusted to the altitude, so instead of going out after dinner we stayed in and watched TV.

breckenridge day 1

Work has been pretty hectic recently, which explains the lack of fun things to write about, but a ski trip to Colorado made it well worth it. We stayed at my Aunt Gloria's place in Breckenridge, which was awesome.

It was Lelaine's first trip to Colorado and seeing the Rockies. We arrived in Denver late Friday morning, rented a car, stopped downtown for lunch at Steubens (another Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives find), and headed west for the mountains.

My friend Jeremy was spending the weekend with us but wasn't scheduled to arrive until 9pm. We hadn't seen Jeremy in two years until last month when he was in DC for a weekend visit, so it was nice to get together again so soon.

So after unpacking and settling into the condo in Breckenridge, we drove over to Vail and I showed Lelaine where the family used to go every summer. I haven't been since 2005, but a lot has changed. Lionshead and Crossroads now look like Beaver Creek. We even heard a few people on the bus talking about Fritz having to relocate Swiss Dog to Avon because rent in the redeveloped Lionshead is now way too high.

Once back in Breckenridge we met Jeremy at Swiss Haven for fondue. They claimed to be the first fondue restaurant in the US, and although that seemed dubious, it was pretty good. It helped that they have bottles of Rochefort 8 to wash it down.