Rail Jam!

Apparently Dylan's crusade worked. When we got back, Pass Management had added two rails and a jump to the suite of features in the Midway Terrain Park. We call it "The Dump."

Anyway, it's nearly semi-respectable unless you compare it to any park and Colorado. We don't live in Colorado, so we'll judge it by Oregon standards. We have three boxes, two rails, a log feature (see post RE "The Feature"), and one jump. Better than what we had a month ago. Management is finally listening, which means they deserve a tiny bit of recognition. Kudos!

Rail Jam, 12 noon, Midway Terrain Park.

I apparently have some schooling to do in the world of jibbing. I thought a rail jam was a competition and told Dylan to go in and sign up. I was informed that was not the case. A rail jam is when a bunch of jibbers hang out in the park and "session" (e.g., ride over and over). Ok.

Lots of events today. It's freeheel frenzy (I declined to participate, opting to hit the powder), 80's day, and rail jam day. Additionally, they had curious mounds of snow at the bottom. What a mystery.

We speculate the the mounds are to keep the gapers from taking out the other gapers at the bottom of the hill. Or, for a major snowball fight. Or for little kids to summit and jump off.

We were wrong. We find out later that there is a snow sculpture contest. How fun!

Snow sculpture's not our deal, so we d0 a few runs to get the remains of yesterday's awesome dump.

Dylan hits the snow explosion kicker on Timburr.

Dylan is off-axis on his 3's. A problem that the photos suggest he had all day.

We head for the back side and do some shots down Cherokee, and then over to SDN.

Dylan billy goats around the cliff bands on SDN.

We then go into a monochrome world of photography. Somewhere along the line I hit something that changes everything. Everything.


Monochrome Dylan on the Timburr kicker.

Diane meets us around 11:30.

The Success kicker. The kid that went off before Dylan headed left, did a nice little shifty, hit the duff and rolled. By 11am, the remains of yesterday's dump we're getting pretty heavy and turning into a layer of gak.

Dylan and Diane scope out the Midway Park.


Still off-axis.

We go down RTS on last run. It's still as steep as ever.

Dylan coming...

Dylan going...


Dylan Parker, snow gorilla.

We leave around 1:30 again--before all the festivities start. I'm suffering anxiety for playing hookey and need to get caught up tomorrow before the new term starts. Adding to the complication is our performance at the Living River art show opening at the Hult Center on Thursday, April 1. We need a little rehearsal to buff up the delivery.

We'll kick it out, and hopefully the weather will cooperate and we'll get one last day in next weekend before they close.

Best (powder) day of the season

So far at least.

Last week when we were in Colorado people kept asking what it was like to ski in Oregon. My response was pretty consistent: our area is smaller, we get spring conditions year round, and most importantly, we get some killer powder days. Today was one of those days.

I really should have worked today, and I might regret skiing eventually, but not right now. The weather patterns this week were typical of this year: sunny early in the week and then some rain in town with a couple inches at The Pass which melts into the pack immediately. So I got kind of excited last night to see the forecast was calling for 6" above 3000' and 12" above 5000' (The base of Willamette Pass is 5200'). I was also skeptical since we've had a few false alarms this year on the pow front.

I got up at 7am to check the snow report. The DOT is reporting 2", the ski area 4", but it is raining hard in town. Plus it's cold. All good signs. We head out. The snow starts falling around 2500' and the road is snowpacked around 3000'. Trucks are trying to spin out in front of us as we ascend the pass.

When we get there, a good 6" has accumulated in the parking lot. On the mountain: 9" to 14" on the front side and up to 24" on the back side.

Yes, the snow is plentiful.

Amazingly plentiful. We were so happy to have gone up today. We were also very cold... it was flat out blizzard conditions.

Dylan attempts shelter from the storm behind the drift. With limited success.


Dylan gets lost in the clouds on High Lead

Rooster Tail!

Snow explosion

Float

It's deep!

Deeper than it looks!

Gotta love the knee deep. Lots of face shots today to go along with it.

Still snowing, still shredding.

Despite the fact that there is virtually no base in the trees, we venture down Cherokee Ridge. Awesome!

Dylan's got snow all over his face.

Here's some mini films on Northern Exposure. It was so cold my camera battery was on the verge of dying all day and I didn't want to take my gloves off to shoot. I've got country hands with my gloves on and somehow switched the resolution to tiny. You'll get the idea--that the snow was more than 2' deep!

SDN.

By 12:30 we were freezing. The snow kept falling so we did a couple more runs. By 1:20 we were done.

It was still snowing hard in the lot when we left. As we got on the highway, the temperature started to increase and the road was a bit slushy. Watch out for those semis, they'll crush your truck!

Looks like we might have a repeat tomorrow. We're definitely there. If it isn't, then I'll whip out the tele's for the free heel festival. If it is, I'll stick with what I know and what is fun.

What we did today.

Day 7: The Final Turn

20 March 2010, 9:00 am

We get up and it is cold, cold, cold, to put it in the terms of a classic Little Feat song. Like 5 degrees cold. I act like it might get warmer and underdress and spend most of the day wishing I would have worn another shirt. Nothing a little hard skiing can't fix.

Kayla, Brian and Diane on the Gondola to Lower Beaver Creek Mountain Express.



Diane and Dylan hop the Upper Beaver Creek Mountain Express to the Rodeo Park, while the rest of us head over to Arrowhead (more specifically, the Arrow Bahn).

Beth shows off on Cresta.

Kayla rushes past the Aspens

Brian flies fast as he has for the past few days.

The houses are big over at the Arrow Bahn. It must be the "Bahn" part that creates all of the value.

After a few runs, we work our way over towards the main Beaver Creek Mountain. We link up with Diane and Dylan, who is working the park.

Dylan's pipe skills are improving.

So are the team photographer's...

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The lines are short today because it is so cold. We head up top to the Zoom Room and a 4.5-mile, 4000 foot descent to the base. Dylan hits the kickers all in a row. I ski down beside opting for photos since my 2gb memory card is nearly full of videos.

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He then heads for the other features...boxes, rails and logs.

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We finally get to the bottom, where Jay and Ruthanne are waiting. With chow (thanks!)

Dylan gets into a french fry/water war with Kayla. They never grow up.

Kayla plots her next move with Brian.

War is over!

Most of the group quits for the day, but Dylan and I go back out for some more punishment in the cold cold cold park.

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We call it a day around 3pm since the plan is to head over to Vail Village and hit the shops. We meet the alpenhorn dude down on the plaza in full regalia.

Ricola!

That concludes the skiing part of our Colorado adventure. Four resorts, seven days in a row, lots of lift rides, tons of vert, awesome jibbing in the park, one killer powder day, and good times with family and friends. That is pretty much the best one can expect from any ski vacation. This one delivered.

But wait, there's more. No blog would be complete without a little editorializing. So here goes.

Ski Disney

Vail and Beaver Creek are some of the best ski resorts anywhere. The resort part is what makes them different from say, Winter Park, Copper Mountain, or our home mountain, Willamette Pass. It's an element that doesn't impress me much. It might be because I am not wealthy, but I'm not sure that would make a ton of difference. Vail and Beaver Creek are enclaves for very wealthy people.

Wednesday at Vail, we got in the maze at the Eagle Bahn gondola (they have a thing for the term "bahn" at these resorts... I'm not sure why). The line was actually pretty short as far as Disneyland lines go--the maze started outside and then continued inside. The gigantic line of people in ski school that alternate with us regulars at nearly every lift, doesn't help much. Then there's the villages. They go for the faux-european look, kind of like Disneyland. And there is money. Lot's of money. And lots of people that prominently display their wealth. I'm sure someone is impressed, but I don't think it is Diane or Dylan.

You can have a condo in the clock tower for a cool $3-$4 million. Or the house below off the Arrow Bahn for say, $10 million.

I can't even relate to that kind of money, since these would be second or third or more residences for many owners. My hope is they earned it honestly.

$98 lift tickets pay for squads of groomers, lots of lifts, and hot chocolate and cookies at BC. The grooming program at Vail and BC are second to none. It is truly impressive what they do with the snow--they can make bulletproof ice into ideal packed powder.

You gotta have a cool hat if you wanna roll with the rich dogs.

Dylan is on his way. He hasn't lost his edge yet, since he's still wearing his bandanna. Furs and styling boots don't hurt either.

The, new and, um, improved? Lionshead square.

I think I liked the old Colorado funky better. That didn't include an ice rink with a skywalk though. It must be essential to someone's resort experience.

I could go on, but I won't. I appreciate the mountain for what it was originally made for and I guess I can suffer to share it with a bunch of wealthy people who are the ones that keep it running. It's definitely life and skiing on a scale that doesn't exist in Oregon.

That's all for the Colorado experience. Thanks to everyone who made it possible--especially my parents and sisters that put us up, put up with us, fed us, and let me drag them around at warp speed. Thanks to old-time ski buddies Pete and Tom for a few hours of great fun and remembering what good friends you are. Thanks to Kayla for showing us around her place in Denver. And thanks to Colorado!