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.