Colorado

I do believe I am thoroughly addicted to Colorado. I love the weather, the people, places, activities, and services.

Two weeks ago Zippy and I packed up all our gear nicely in the back of the truck along with 1/4 cord of wood, covered it with a tarp, a cargo net and left for Lyssa’s house. This time we didn’t go alone. We brought Lyssa with four of her Wolf hybrid puppies with. I’m not a huge fan of wolf mix dogs but Lyssa’s Wolf/Malamute puppies were really nice to travel with. And of course being puppies they were fun to play with and cute as they come.

Yoda ^_^

We stopped a lot but it was a comfortable trip across Kansas with the pups. We dropped Lyssa off at Jalva’s in Como Colorado n’ swung back over to my brother Matt’s house in Fountain. We scheduled this trip to coincide with Matt’s 2 week leave from Iraq since last time we came out he was over seas. After partying with Matt, Crystal, Amber, Liam and my Dad celebrating Liam’s birthday at Matt’s house for the weekend Zippy and I headed for the Mountains.

Without a doubt one of my favorite places in America is the Frisco/Silverthorn/Dillon area of Colorado. It’s a huge tourist attraction but I wouldn’t mind finding my way out there and not coming back. We spent most of Sunday hanging out with the locals and meeting new people. We partied until long after closing time with the Mexicans at El Toreo in Frisco before crashing out.

Monday was our first day to hit the slopes which worked great with Matt’s schedule so Matt, Crystal, Amber, Liam, Zippy and I all met at Cooper Mountain Ski resort for beers and skiing! I had already been snowboarding by the time Matt and company cought up with us so I quickly got Matt strapped up in my extra snowboard and we hit the lifts. Sadly, I thought we were on a different lift so Matt went down a couple miles of intermediate (blue) areas his first time on a snowboard. After once down we went back to the bar for some liquid courage while Amber, Crystal and Zippy went snowboarding in the practice area / bunny hill. Mountains can be a pretty wild place to learn to snowboard if you don’t take lessons. I’m a great snowboarder but not so great a teacher.

After our first day of fun came to an end and we pulled some little ricer race car out of the Cooper parking lot since it was snowing most of the day, Matt went home and Zippy and I headed off to find some more good local hot spots to entertain ourselves the rest of the evening.

We actually wanted to do some winter camping but most all of the appropriated camping sights in Colorado seem to close in the Winter. This however didn’t stop us. We camped most of the time and signed up for Silverthorne’s recreation center for showers and other amenities. The recreation center in Silverthorne is off the charts with Olympic sized swimming pools, indoor and outdoor hot tubs, Yoga, Gymnastics, and just about everything else you could think a recreation center would offer. It was great. We only stayed in a hotel one night because we wanted a jacuzzi and balcony to facilitate being lazy for a full day.

We spent a day at the Breckenridge ski resort trying out a bunch of their runs that weren’t open the last time we were there. They have a green run that travels 5 miles! Talk about a perfect leisurely trek down a mountain with killer views.

Now for the drum role. VAIL! Vail isn’t just a fluffy name like I previously thought. Vail is without a doubt some of the best snowboarding I have experienced. They have true 360 degree skiing. You can take lifts up and practically get lost coming back down and I’m not sure if it was just a lack of aggressive skiiers but nobody had touched any of the wooded area and the glades in between them. I spent a LOT of my first day in Vail crushing perfect powder.

This is one of my trails through the trees. A picture of perfection.

Untouched.

Zippy dodging trees w/me.

Vail was so awesome that we went back for another day. The second day however Zippy learned to snowboard! We went and bought her some boots and she learned to snowboard in Vail! I have two snowboards but I think Zippy is going to claim the orange one. hehe. She got good quick. I spent the second day in Vail testing my bone strength tearing up black diamonds and double blacks. I however learned one extremely valuable lesson. EVERYONE wants to go down black diamonds and doubles but they go down sideways! They plow snow which turns the hard trails into sheets of ice. I learned the hard way by taking two single blacks straight on. I was in rhythm with the moguls and hauling ass. I would launch off the lips that provided as barriers of blue n’ green trails going across the blacks and land quite a ways down the next black aggressively handling them until I launched off the guard lip to a double black. I cought quite a bit of air before hitting nothing but plowed ice from previous people going down the hill sideways. My board wouldn’t cut into the ice so I hit the ground pretty quick and tumbled half way down the steep hill. I didn’t really feel the damage since my body was buzzing with adrenaline from eating up two blacks prior to falling. It’s an unexplainable rush cutting through moguls, trees, and taking huge air jumps in to black terrain.

It was a perfect last day on the slopes. I will be going back soon.