Colorado - Loveland + Vail - March 2023

[skiincy]

TLDR: we landed in Denver Wednesday. We’re tourist. And read snow reports.

——-
on Wednesday, @Schif and I left for Denver.

Our flight was at 6:40pm, so we finished up some work then boarded an American Airlines flight. 

My brother (Brian) picked us up and we went to his house in north Denver.

On Thursday, we worked remotely, exchanged some texts with @Barb and toured around Boulder. 

As we drove towards Boulder, the golden hour hit the Rockies and it was gorgeous. Can’t seem to find that pic - although it wouldn’t do it justice.

We checked out Chautauqua Park, walked around CU Boulder near the football field, and poked around Pearl Street briefly. We didn’t see anyone stealing a mattress from their roommate in Boulder though. 

We stopped at Lifetime in Superior for a quick workout and headed back to Thornton.

We ate dinner at the house, had a Spiked Seltzer, read some upcoming snow reports from Open Snow, and went to bed early.

——

Friday was similar. We worked remotely but we stopped at Red Rocks.

We walked up and down the steps and throughout the park. Colorado’s altitude to humbling to say the least. Red Rocks was undergoing construction but it was still amazing as always.

We stopped at Total beverage. The place is huge. It’s as if Roger Wilco got his PhD from an ivy. The selection is incredible. We hit up some free samples before picking up beers and champagne.

For dinner, we went to my favorite restaurant Esters. It’s near my old house. I love the vibe but also love their fat tire nachos.

We loaded up gear and went to bed for an early alarm clock. 
 

Spoiler alert: Saturday was amazing. After 25 years of shredding the Poconos, Schif had his first powder day. And I won a Never Summer snowboard.

Edited March 12, 2023 by skiincy

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Nice Chainsmokers reference!!!

[RidgeRacer]

Hell yeah on visiting red rocks!!! I really really want to get there at some point.

[skiincy]

Saturday, March 11, 2023

All week we were getting messages from Brian.He subscribes to Open Snow.

The stoke was high. Brian, Kaitlyn (his fiancé), @Schif and myself were out of the house by 5:15am. 

the drive took 1hr 45min with the traffic and we were in the lot by 7:05am. People who left Denver late had a drive time of 3+ hours. 

I-70 was congested but stoke was still high. We got there plenty early. The Loveland snow stake was reading about 11”

 

Somehow Spotify knew our energy and queue’d up Its Gonna Be a Good Day by Nappy Roots as we were booting up. The hype and stoke was incredible.

We snagged breakfast in the lodge. Let’s have a moment of silence to admired Loveland breakfast.

Prices are cheaper than the east coast and hands down delicious.

Brian got the basin breakfast.

 

Schif got a burrito with green chili. And me & Kaitlyn split one.

more to come… I’m waiting for some videos to load 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Loveland has fantastic breakfast prices.  Mad props for being early birds..it’s all I know.  

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

@saltyant this is getting good!!!

[skiincy]

March 11, 2023 - part 2

we got in line at 8am. Chair opened at 8:30am.

lots of hoots and cheers.

some people skinned up and skied down. Sometimes it was ski patrol coming down. Here’s a video of ski patrol with the crowd clapping.

the line for lift 1 (aka Chet’s dream) was surprisingly short. quick selfie for our family text thread.

Almost immediately the four of us got separated in the lift line and just like that - no friends on a powder day.

it was deep, like knee to waist deep. It was incredible. 

@Schif will add color but it was great snow all around.

The lifts were opening gradually and somehow we got the luck where 6, 4, 8, 9, opened shortly after we got there. There was powder to be found everywhere. 

the clouds started to move and blue sky shines through.

Ski tracks were starting to form everywhere.

This was probably the most people ever in front of me. The lift lines were near non existent.

More line pics. Loveland is awesome.

I stopped briefly at the hut off of lift 8 around 11am. Still untracked lines existed. 

we eventually started skiing together’ish towards the end of the day. Cheeks are red from the wind burn or maybe it’s from the smiling.

I got this short video of Schif ripping down 9 (?) or maybe off of life 4.

 

This is already really long … part 3 coming

Edited March 12, 2023 by skiincy

[skiincy]

March 11, 2023 - part 3
 

Oops that last pic was the first run of the day line. I meant to delete it. 

——

so after my legs turned to jello, I strolled into the lodge. 

In the cafeteria, Toyota had a booth where they were giving away 2 snowboards daily and a big raffle at the end season for a car. 

so. you enter your info on an iPad and you can get sunglasses, a buff, or hand warmers. So we all snagged a cool pair of Loveland shades.

then you go to the table where there’s a bunch of stickers. And if you turn over one with a Toyota logo, you win a free Never Summer snowboard.

I was like - really? So you just flip it and you get to walk away with it?

and that’s what happened 🤷🏼‍♀️

crazy thing is … my brother won a Never Summer splitboard early season at a ski party. Then gave it to @Schif. So kinda funny that we’re 2 for 2 in snowboard giveaways.

this is the women’s proto type 2 with custom graphics of the Colorado C from the state flag.

I haven’t snowboarded since 2012’ish. since we’re going to Vail for a few days, I’m going to put bindings on it and take it for a spin. 

All in all - amazing day.

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

powder day to remember + a free snowboard.
…

anyway - Saturday ended with me giving Schif a quick tour of downtown Denver including the Union Station (because trains), Coors Field, Larmier Street, 16th Street, and LoHi.

at the house, we had some air fryer chicken and veggies then headed to bed by 9:30pm for some more Sunday skiing.

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Nice report, I was just gonna say you could sell the snowboard but I didn’t know you also snowboard.  

[skiincy]

2 hours ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

Nice report, I was just gonna say you could sell the snowboard but I didn’t know you also snowboard.  

I may give it to my brothers fiance since Brian gave the splitboard he won to Mike. We’ll see… 

[skiincy]

In the words of @GrilledSteezeSandwich and @saltyant this is getting good.

Sunday we skied Loveland with about 4-6” of new snow yesterday. I’ll write more later.

Monday & Tuesday we’re working remotely and staying in the Denver area.

Then —> next skiing adventure is Vail from Wednesday - Friday with @Schif

and these are these are the upcoming reports..

I don’t know what “sneaky fun powder” is but I’m pumped. 

 

General Colorado snow forecast is snow on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

 

And this Vail specific report shows Wednesday - Friday as well.

[saltyant]

March 20-24 are when I'm skiing the Breckenridge perder so this is getting good 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

50 minutes ago, skiincy said:

I may give it to my brothers fiance since Brian gave the splitboard he won to Mike. We’ll see… 

That would be a nice wedding gift.    Also I don’t think anybody here knows who Mike is…

Edited March 13, 2023 by GrilledSteezeSandwich

[skiincy]

1 hour ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

That would be a nice wedding gift.    Also I don’t think anybody here knows who Mike is…

the snowboarder formerly known as shifdawg

[Schif]

Here's my 2 cents on the happenings of the past few days. 

Saturday at Loveland was out of this world good. 15 inches minimum but definitely spots where it was knee deep. Face shots to be had for the majority of the day. Lots of hoots and hollers. Le Tits McGee for sure. The vibe from the minute we got there to the minute we left was so on point. Banjo music playing in the lodge while the stoke meter was at the point of bursting for all the hardcore people eating breakfast that got up at 430am. 

We started out along with everyone else on Chet's Dream and took a nice completely untracked blue cruiser. I made a wrong turn and wound up back at Chet's where I was in a decently long line when the rest of the crew made their way over to Chair 6. I was a little nervous after that first run. My legs were on fire and I was definitely breathing hard. That went away as fast as it came though and i felt great the rest of the day. I made my way down to 6 and caught up with them. Lapped 6 for a bit, untouched snow the whole time before we moved over to Chair 4.

First run on that I forgot that there is a midstation so I got off early but it didn't matter. Fresh untouched snow was everywhere to be found. Back up 4 a few more times until the sign at the midstation said Chair 8 was open. I took Sunburst Bowl down to the Zip Trail got to 8. 8 might have been the most consistent fun laps of the day. There was just so much untracked snow to be had it was amazing. The woods below Hook em' Horns were super fun as was the wide open spaces above that. On my second run here I was carrying too much speed into the trail that funnels to the lift and got bounced on a bump and took a nice little tumble. People were having some pretty good crashes all over but the snow was so soft you just popped back up and kept on going. 

Around 12 or so we noticed that they were finally loading people on Chair 9 so we took the long catwalk traverse from 8 down to 4, up 4 and then more fantastic floaty, slashy, deep turns in beautiful snow to get to Chair 9. This one takes you up to the top of the ridge and is a slow quad with a defunct midstation. The weather up on the ridge was pretty terrible, as it usually is. Wind was really rough. Worth the trip though as we went a little way skiers right off of the top and dropped into Primer Bowl for some insanely good turns. Just being at the top like that takes a lot out of you since it's so cold and windy so the rest of the crew dropped back down below and I headed up 9 solo. I hiked the ridge for a while and dropped into Jelly Roll. It was around 1:30 at this point and the mountain was getting mostly skied off so I cruised all the way back down to the lodge to meet up with the rest of the gang. 

All in all this was a 15/10 day. 

Edited March 13, 2023 by Schif

[Schif]

Some pics

 

 

 

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Looking like a powder day tomorrow at Vail for Schif and Nancy..the radar is juicy AF

[saltyant]

On 3/13/2023 at 3:35 PM, Schif said:

Some pics

Glad you did some cool non-skiing activities on your ski trip. If I do that on my ski trip, like visit The Mint, everyone loses their minds.

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

27 minutes ago, saltyant said:

Glad you did some cool non-skiing activities on your ski trip. If I do that on my ski trip, like visit The Mint, everyone loses their minds.

Does the Mint in Denver at least have a decent snack bar and gift shop?  If they have a cafe, like at the Whitney museum in New York City in New York State home of Times Square, it would be mad steezy if they gave a mint with the cheque or William..perhaps even an Andes crème de menthe…

Edited March 16, 2023 by GrilledSteezeSandwich

[skiincy]

2 hours ago, saltyant said:

Glad you did some cool non-skiing activities on your ski trip. If I do that on my ski trip, like visit The Mint, everyone loses their minds.

Hahaha but to be fair - we’re also working remotely and not completely on vacation mode while in Denver.

[skiincy]

Sunday, March 12, 2023
——
5:30am
Thornton, CO

The gang left for Loveland at 5:30am. It was a struggle bus as the clocks sprung forward.

We arrived to Loveland early at 7am.

Brian & Schif got the basin breakfast with gravy. I got the burrito with green chili.

We stopped in the ticket window for our ridge cat card. 

And we’re in line by 8:10am, about the 4th chair or so. Me & Brian rode up with a liftie who told us to hit up Spillway to Richards Run.

Schif took Tigers Tail to Cats Meow which is skiers right after you get off the lift. He said it was dust on crust.

Brian & I had an amazing fun on Spillway & Richards. I did it twice. 

We migrated towards 4, ptarmigan (aka Parmesan), 9, and 8.

It was a powder hunt and so fun. Here’s a short video that my brother took of me & @Schif

around 11:30am, Loveland started bombing runs around on the ridge. It was pretty cool to see the dynamite and the watch/hear it run out.

the yellow is a group from the ridge cat and the pink is some dynamite and avalanche mitigation 

Even at 11:30… between the 8 and 4, we kept finding some powder stashes

at the end of the day, I felt like this kid though.

we had some cuties and a beer. This beer was rad. It’s a raspberry blonde.

then Loveland chili cheese friends 😍

 

After Loveland, we drove back to the Denver area. We went to the gym mostly for the hot tub - steam room - sauna and cooked dinner at my brothers’.

Edited March 16, 2023 by skiincy

[Schif]

3 hours ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

Looking like a powder day tomorrow at Vail for Schif and Nancy..the radar is juicy AF

Update: it's raining at the base of Vail. Hopefully the rain/snow line is slightly above 8k feet. 

[skiincy]

Monday, March 13, 2023

Butler Gulch / Jones Pass Trailhead

 

@Schif and I worked remotely in the Denver area. Shut down our computers at 3pm MT and packed up the car.

since day lights savings time just happened, the sun sets at like 7pm’ish

so we drove to Jones Pass Trailhead / Butler Gulch for a quick touring sesh.

I’ve done this a few times, read the avy reports, and knew we were going to stay under treeline. The goal was mostly to exercise and try out the new gear.

as we got there, the Jones Ridgecat Tour company was loading up their bus of people 

and here’s Schif splitboarding it up past the ridgecat.

There were a few others touring. It was a mellow go but glad we got out. 

We’re basically like cody townsend and elyse saugstad if they were out of shape Pennsylvanians without a TGR deal or sponsorship.

Mike skinned up a short section to hit up some powder turns.

then we headed back to the car on the cat track as it started to snow.

we snapped a photo at the bottom … talked about the Henderson Mine and molybdenum, then headed into Idaho Springs.

we strolled the Main Street of Idaho Springs. I snapped this photo because I know this forum has train enthusiast and then we got a small beaujoes pizza (“Colorado style”).

 

[toast21602]

Love the train photo 🙌

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

My spidey senses are thinking maybe Schifdawg proposes to Nancy at the top of Vail…