TR: Aspen ski test, long.
Get up at 4:00 in the morning so we can get in a decent day of skiin after the 5 hr jaunt over Red Mountain Pass and up through Marble etc. Driving over to Silverton in the Dark and arriving in Ouray when there was hints of light was amazing.
Arrive at Buttermilk to an overflowing parking lot, and quickly figure out that there is no parking to be found so it's out to the road to find a place to ram the van into the snowbank and call it parked.
Get all suited up and figure out where to go to register, and are greeted at the door by none other than the Gamma girls! 5hrs in the car was worth that, those girls are hot and ski pretty damn well, we watched them doing a photo shoot later that day.
Anyways get credientials and a swag bag of goodies, cool wicking top, sunnies, and a pair of 180's Gloves, you breathe into them and it holds the heat. Yet to be tested, seems like a gimmick, we'll see.
Head back to the ski tents and grab the new Dynatar Legend Pro's, sweet ski, unfortunately this years new color is hunter orange. Still cool top sheet, and nice dimensions,
This was my first time to Buttermilk, the mountain wasn't exactly what I expected after skiing both Highlands and Snowmass. It's nice that they have an entire mountain to dedicate to intermediate skiers, but a bummer that was the location for testing skis.
Get through the day bs with reps and trying different skis. We head out and find our condo, and then head up to Snowmass village for dinner. Standing out waiting for a bus, it's pounding snow and we are ear to ear thinking of the morning. Bus finally arrives, and we are greeted by the first of many disgrunteled bus drivers. "I almost didn't stop, I don't think we will get going again" I reply, "tell you what we'll sit over the wheel wells and give you some extra weight" guys response, "yeah. I'm sure that will work great." We take off with out a problem and get to the base, a guy on the bus recommends The Stewpot for eats, big thumbs up. Great food and resonable prices, cute waitress too.
;)
We awoke to some sweet light and white pow, the decision to skip the show and head to Snowmass was immediate, the Big Burn was our first run and it was vitually untracked, the sides where nice and deep, just calling you into the trees off the side.
Skied off the big burn mostly and hit campground later int he day, couldn't believe how deep it was in the trees, so many untracked shots.
Hands down, Snowmass has some of the best trees I have ever skied, amazing spacing and great, continous pitches.
One more for getting the Aspen pow, responses of how good it was here,
http://tetongravity.com/forums/showt...&threadid=6442
We skied Snowmass till 2 and then headed to Buttermilk to knock out a few more skis and then try out boots after skiing.
Cool changes in the Tecnica line, and new liners for Rossi and Lange that are pretty killer.
edit
Link to Boot review
Get a pass for the night's Fisher Party which would feature a contest for who would be the next Freeze poster girl. We went and had diner at Little Annies with a few of the Dynastar guys and then headed down. Can't remember the name of the bar but downstairs off of the main plaza,we get there just in time to catch the first of numerous times of this girl degrading herself, trying to get attention. About ten girls were all introduced and asked why they should be the next Freeze girl, all pretty hot, the girl mentioned above would continually take off her shirt, rock the bra for a bit and grind this 4ft 60 yr old man, I thought the guy was going to keel over at any moment.
Fischer was paying for booze and we were drinking fast, the rest of the night is a blur, and it's hard to hitchhike in Aspen, no one wants to pick up a drunk 6'3" guy in a hawaian shirt.
Got up yesterday morning to more fresh make turns till 11, go talk to the reps one last ime about price-points etc, and then head out.
The highway was closed outside of Ridgeway in a couple of different spots as was Red Mountain, avies were coming down left and right along with rock slides, we saw some pretty decent chunks that had fallen and dented the highway along the side as they had been pushed out of the way by the plows. Pass reopened after a couple of hours and was pretty amazing to catch as the sun was setting, saw two of the largest coyotes I've ever seen just before getting into Silverton, stil not sure that they weren't wolves.
Hung over and tired, but grinning that I left town and return to find a fresh nine inches, can't wait for the weekend.
