A month in Winter Park

[Barb]

Love that picture and your reports.

[method9455]

Thanks, when it gets sunny up here the pictures come easy.

 

Last night we got a surprise 5" at WP, but I had planned to go to Steamboat today. Steamboat only got 1" though. Not sure what I'm going to do yet.

[setagehtta]

Kevin, you do realize that you have completely ruined skiing/riding for yourself when you get home. I can't imagine wanting to go to the poconos after being out there for so long. Once late February comes along and you get the itch to ride again, you're going to be sorely dissapointed in everything... Make the most of it out there!

[nick malozzi]

Glad to hear we are finally getting snow up there and that the 40 is getting to be good to go. I remember when Glenn took me in there. It was my first time riding out here and it reinstated my love of snowboarding. I was actually starting to get pretty apathetic about snowboarding after spending so many years on the east coast. Dropping that gate though was without a doubt a game changer and it made me look at riding so much differently. This picture is by no means a great shot of someone shredding or anything of that nature; it is one of my favorite pics I've ever taken though because it reminds me of when I pushed that thing open and was hooked:

 

Edited January 27, 2010 by nick malozzi

[method9455]

Glad to hear we are finally getting snow up there and that the 40 is getting to be good to go. I remember when Glenn took me in there. It was my first time riding out here and it reinstated my love of snowboarding. I was actually starting to get pretty apathetic about snowboarding after spending so many years on the east coast. Dropping that gate though was without a doubt a game changer and it made me look at riding so much differently. This picture is by no means a great shot of someone shredding or anything of that nature; it is one of my favorite pics I've ever taken though because it reminds me of when I pushed that thing open and was hooked:

 

 

Yea man it changed my world for sure. When you get up here Sunday we're dropping it again. Glenn showed me toufers and the lower mushroom patch today and it was damn fun too.

[method9455]

Decided to go to Steamboat on Thursday

 

A mesa we saw on the way up

 

 

 

There was lots of fun stuff to jump off of like this giant snow drift (i guess) and my first legit cliff, Glenn and crew were saying the cliff was 10' high, I figured more like 6-8'

 

 

Plenty of Aspen forests, even though Steamboat has significantly less snow right now than Winter Park the terrain is not as rocky and the trees have fewer bushes and stumps so it rides like there is a bigger base than WP. There are some cliffs and big smooth boulders but that is really it for rocks, where as WP has jagged stuff popping up everywhere.

 

 

In the afternoon it started snowing a bit, this is the top of the mountain

 

 

 

Overall I thought Steamboat had some really fun terrain. Lots of stuff to jump of off and slide on. I think Winter Park has more advanced terrain. Steamboat is also all below treeline. The glades are wide open and are cool with the aspens, but WP is more technical. There is nothing like the Cirque or the trees under the Challenger lift at Steamboat. Intermediate stuff seemed about the same. Maybe a little more vert for some lifts at Steamboat but the trail layout is weird and there are more non-high speed lifts than at WP. Even with less snow it seemed less tracked due to being significantly further from Denver than WP. It is about 2 hours further than WP so almost the same distance as Vail from Denver. The town was really sweet, I could actually see bringing non-skiers there. It was a blast and it helped to have a local showing us around that one of the guys in our crew knew so we made the most of our day up there, if I lived in Denver I would get the WP+Steamboat+Copper pass and take some weekends up there for sure.

[Johnny Law]

FKNA man! First real cliff, slackcountry, big pow days, good crew to ride with...I don't know your age or your responsibilities at home but you should stay out there.

 

Incredible trip...really makes you think....

[nick malozzi]

Yea man it changed my world for sure. When you get up here Sunday we're dropping it again. Glenn showed me toufers and the lower mushroom patch today and it was damn fun too.

I'll be there Sunday for sure. I'm stoked that there is actually some more coverage. I need to get in them trees and cut loose. Feel like the coverage has made it hard for me to be able to do that. Nice to hear you are stepping up your game. It is hard not to when you are following Glenn around.

[method9455]

Friday and Saturday had very similar weather, warm (35-40ish) and really sunny. If you took off your goggles you could barely keep your eyes open. It was basically spring.

 

I met up with Glenn and he showed me some new lines near the Sunnyside lift. There are some cliffs visible from the left side of the lift so we went to check them out, unfortunately they landings are not quite ready.

 

Looking from the top of a decent 15+' cliff while holding onto a tree.

 

 

A neat chute in the cliff, although I think it actually ended in a smaller cliff anyway.

 

[method9455]

I'm home, unfortunately. I have the last few days of updates once I find the wire for my camera again. In a nutshell we skied Loveland, some more side country, a lot of bumps, and almost got killed. I also broke pretty much all of my snowboarding gear in the last 3 days. Got home in one piece, arrived to emails saying the start of the semester was delayed until Tuesday because winter session finals are canceled friday and saturday, meaning I have some extra time to recoup which is sweet.

 

I'll probably be at Blue on Thursday for my 30-somethingth day of skiing this year. I haven't really looked at the weather for the east coast in the last month, are we having a good year or a bad year in PA? It seems like it has snowed like crazy in DE this year but I didn't hear about much snow from my parents in NJ.

[Timeless]

I'm home, unfortunately.

 

I give it less than a month before you are going nuts trying to work out a return trip before the end of the season.

[phillycore]

Welcome back home man.... I enjoyed reading/viewing your t/r's over the past month.

[method9455]

Kevin where are you skiing/riding tomorrow????

 

Nowhere unfortunately. Danielle was hit by someone while she was driving down rt80 and so we were at the hospital until pretty late last night. She's ok except for some bruises and whiplash but the whole thing was pretty tiring, especially since I got in late thursday and had already gone into new york city and back yesterday before it all happened.

[method9455]

Fun fact: if you go to the hospital after an accident they want your car insurance info not your medical insurance info. I had never thought about that so I went with Danielle to the hospital and left all the car insurance info in her car on the side of the highway. Luckily her parents knew this and brought the info later on but thought I'd pass that along because I had never heard of that before. Luckily the police report says it was no fault of her own so all the cost goes to the other persons insurance - car insurance in NJ is crazy expensive as it is so good hers isn't going up. She was on rt80 doing about 15mph and someone came down the on ramp at about 45 and didn't stop for the bumper to bumper traffic so whacked Danielle going at a good clip. Bumper/trunk/gas tank need to be replaced on Danielle's car and the other persons car was really messed up. But no broken bones or anything so it could have been worse, seat belt for the win.

[phillycore]

Glad to hear she's alright... We just got Holly's car back after she got rear ended literally a week before I left for Tahoe.

[setagehtta]

Kevin...Welcome back! Got the blues yet?! I would.

 

BTW, Danielle's insurance may go up anyway even if she wasn't at fault. It happened to me once. Welcome to New Jersey.

[method9455]

Whoops, I've been having fun the last few weeks catching up with people at UD and riding locally during the day I forgot about this thread. The lack of snow today needs to be replaced with some stoke.

 

First for segtahetta or anyone else interested, I got all the charges in so I have my expenditures. Mint.com makes life easy categorizing and tallying everything for me so here it is.

 

Except for food this is per person. The food is higher than exactly what I spent for myself because I didn't bother splitting out Danielle's food from mine. Whatever, most people would go out a little more often than we did. I also estimated airfare because we used miles.

 

Airfare: $350

Baggage: $150

Car service to/from airport: $120

Lodging: $450

Season pass: $369

Groceries: $520

Bars/Beer/Restaurants $220

Other lift tickets: $30

General Shopping: $50

Gear/Repairs/Tuning: $125

 

Total per person: $2384 i.e. $79 a skiing day for me there for a month.

 

I spent a little over $3k for Danielle and I to be out there, which is a pretty good deal for a two week vacation for two people. If I had left when she did I might have saved about $400 - primarily food and gear I broke. I don't think it would have saved me any on lodging and obviously not on season pass/transportation.

 

Good time to note our condo was the best of the 4 I've stayed in the last few years doing week to 10 day ski trips, and it was also the cheapest.

 

There is something to say for the big competition in Colorado. I looked into Utah and Jackson Hole and you can't even approach this price. Season passes double or more, lodging double or more, airfare was the same ($0 with miles) but thats about it.

 

Keys to it were buying the season pass fairly early and negotiating with people through vrbo.com for lodging. I got quotes from $1200 to $3000 for a 2BR condo in the same neighborhood for the month.

[method9455]

Sunday January 31st I snowboarded with Glenn and Nick.

 

The ex-pats in the flesh

 

Glenn did this set of cliffs that were pretty sweet

 

These trees are the skiers right of trestle, a gnarly bump run with a double fall line. Most people who go down it are not looking for trees so these guys were totally untouched.

 

Cameras flatten out mountains, so you can tell there was some pitch on this one

[method9455]

Dont have pictures from monday 2/1. These are tuesday 2/2. I snowboarded with Clay.

 

Did I mention there are a lot of bumps at Winter Park?

 

We dropped the 40 gate again, a little more side country can't hurt right? Clay having fun his first time through even though he has east coast carving skis without the right ski waist width for this snow depth.

 

Cliffs? Again?

 

My last turns in Winter Park - enjoyed the little mandatory huck at the top of this line.

[method9455]

The last day skiing Clay and I went to Loveland with Glenn, his gf, and two other guys he works with. Conditions were not that good, thin base and hard/icy surface. We had fun anyway.

 

We saw less than 10 people. I remember bitching about the slow lifts and small vert at the time, I sounded like Doug talking about JF. This picture doesn't make it look so damn small, but it is about half the height of WP and a tiny fraction of the acreage, and all of the lifts are regular instead of high speed. Frustrating on a day like this were you could just be lapping a high speed quad but the terrain is actually really fun. Some steep shots for sure and almost all above tree line. I would really enjoy a powder day here. The lift tickets were cheap too, $32 on Liftopia. It is about an hour ride from WP. If I lived in Denver I would definitely go for powder, but I wouldn't exactly fly out there for it. From the top you can see a-basin, breck, and keystone. Considering the drastic difference in snow & conditions compared to WP I'm extremely glad we did not choose Breck when we were looking at mountains.