Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Crested Butte Vacation Day 5, 6 and 7

Monday morning we woke up to 3 new inches of snow with a forecast of snow ALL DAY LONG!
By the time we made it on the slopes there must have been at least 6 or 8 inches already and we learned very quickly that powder is hard to ski in!!! Even though they had groomed the trails the night before it really didn't matter today!

Tips for Skiing in Powder:
- Lean back and keep tips up
- Go fast on flat parts so you don't have to pole as much
- Ski on tracks already made so it's easier for you
- Be prepared to fall


 Mom and I went down Panion's Run as our first blue in the powder! It was tough; we screamed and laughed the whole way down and then she fell and put up a big cloud of powder and I couldn't even see her! Then I fell! Stephen took the run next to us and he could hear us screaming through the trees!


Before lunch, Stephen, Mom and I decided we wanted to ski Paradise Bowl in the snow and powder. It was quite the challenge even getting there! We took the Bushwacker run and it has a big downhill and then uphill right after it so even in normal conditions you HAVE to go straight down just to make it up the hill. Well in LOTS of powder you can't do that. So we took it slow and at the very end we all went straight down in hopes we could make it at least partially up the hill. Well....we all bit the dust!! Out of the seven people that went down the hill the same time we did, four of us fell.

We finally made it to Paradise and it was VERY windy and REALLY snowy! We had to keep stopping because 1) the wind was slowing us down and 2) it was whiteout conditions and we couldn't see anyone in front of us! So after that adventrue we decided we stick to the greens and easy blues the rest of the day!
This is not the Paradise Bowl, but you get the idea of the whiteout conditions.

The men were much more adventurous in the afternoon and challenaged International and Paradise again. I''m pretty sure they all fell as well and Dad even got checked out by the Ski Patrol. Don't worry, he's fine, just really sore in the neck.

And look at that! Just in time, the bulldozer came and cleared our driveway as we pulled in.


 After skiing and poleing in the powder and snow I think we all went to bed at 8:30 that night!

The next day, was our last day of skiing and it was near perfect conditions with a total of 15" of new snow! Everything had been groomed so it was Colorado's Best Corduroy! It would have been even better had they received just an inch of powder on top of it. Anyway, the high was like 13 and it was a bit windy so this day we all doubled up on the hand and foot warmers and braved the mountain!

Unfortunetly, 3 lifts were closed because there wasn't enough business to keep them open. Ergh. Eric and Stephen skiied the blacks again and the girls just kept skiing their favorite slopes over and over! Stephen and I cut the day short by about 30 minutes and did a bit of shopping and had some hot cocoa.
We were literally the 5th car in the parking lot!

Back at the house it was time for some hottubbing, packing up, leftovers, mario kart racing and cards!

Wednesday, we all left the house by 7, had breakfast at the Village Inn at 10, I slept the whole day in the car, we had dinner at Cracker Barrel and were in bed at our house by 12:30am!

My favorite row of trees.

Crested Butte Mountain

We don't know when we'll all be back to the ski resort as a big family and it may not happen again for years. Perhaps the next vacation will be on the beach!

1 comment:

Liz said...

A great summary of our week!! You guys are cooperative traveling companions, too. Thanks for coming along with us. And doing some of the driving.