TR: Seattle To Santa Fe and Back; 20 Consecutive Days of Skiing
Seattle Snow Basin Silverton Wolf Creek Taos Ski Santa Fe Silverton Telluride Silverton and back.
(pictures below O pantless ones...)
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First off, props to the people who extended their love:
MD9, Meats Of Evil, GT40,
Silvertonians Wellers and Bosworths,
The Brills for all their work and love and the guides @ Silverton for patience with this slow old fart and his children,
Kendall Mountain Center,
Frank Zappa for the tour and company at Wolf Creek
, DPS for the best skis evah made (circa 2006 200 cm Lotus 120s),
BrianH @ Taos & Santa Fe
, Meadowskipper @ Ski Santa Fe,
Mike and Mike @ the Camel Garden in T'ride
, Iceman, SFB.
Apologies if I've spaced others, I have severe roadburn.
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Monday Feb 4, 2013.
Rolled fat black studded rubber roadslaps on the Pirates Volvo over that flat knobbled cement thread out of Seattle 2/4 around noon; drove to La Grande Oregon on pleasant mostly snow free roads. Grabbed a snooze at the Royal Motel in La Grande, Safeway sandwich and some bitters for dinner. Klonk.
Tuesday Feb 5, 2013
Drove out of La Grande with some of that purple mountains majesty stuff reflecting off the Elkhorns to the West and the Wallowas more subtly to the East. The fat creamed concrete ribbon wound past the Burnt River then over the Snake for the first of maybe a dozen more times in Idaho. Dunnt dunnt dunnt dunnts bzzzt bzzzzt bzzzzt. From I-84, the Ms Eubonics state teases with peeks of peaks over the dry wastelands. Sad wrecks season the interstate proximities. Speed limit is 75 mph, so blazed at 80+. Rolled into Ogden to hook up with Clan Carne', Meatdrink9 and Meats of Evil.
Wednesday Feb 6, 2013
Railed around Snow Basin in soft pack zippy groimers and some fun bumps. 2+ flakes out of four (**+/****) on the ski quality experience scale. Meats Clan Papa GT40 showing how to ski fast in a slow zone. Fun day ends early by 1:00 with me slipping the sled S through SLC to Spanish Forks then SE over Soldier Summit US6 past Price to Green River I70 then Grand Junctio, Co on a clean tarmac tongue with partly blue skies. Damn Red Mountain Pass snuck up and clocked me with another goddamn snowstorm. What is it with that pass? Plowing though 8-10 inches going up the exposed side from Ouray. At leat there were no semis this time. Settled into Silverton around 9:00. Dumping. W00t. Major props to the Meats clan for all the love, madness and ripping times and turns.
Thursday Feb 7, 2013
Back to Silverton, first time in 2013 and it just plopped 10+ inches of fresh little fairy crystals on top of the previous weeks 20+ basebuilder. -10F in town. Bitter cold in the morning lot sorting scene. Hiked up to Left Cabin and let it rip with a bunch of huDge honking face blaster GS pure pow corking turns, welcomed back to my best place on earth. Yo Pedro. Subsequently flatlunged it up to Tiger Claw to get a slasher into Rope Dee 1, then over into Nighmare where a trench had ripped out on skiers right 8 feet wide, 4 feet deep to rock and 30 feet long. Managed some other Tiger variations and beer thirty came none too soon for one who lives at 400 foot elevation. ****/**** day. Felt so good so beat. Sweet to be back.
Friday Feb 8, 2013
Silverton again with wind reset. Weird North winds had been blowing which set up some N exposure with tricky windpack and redeposit on S. aspects. Bitching cold still. Skied mostly minimal hikes on Cabin/Raff/Riff/Waterfall/Mando and Simmons through Tiger. Wild snow. Shockley is da mang. ***/**** day. Tired with thin sleep at altitude.
Saturday Feb 9, 2013
Finally got some more decent sleep. Guzzling water, eating Avalanche bacon and egg burritos. The sun and wind are setting up some weird and tricky snow. I opt for the medium groups there so as to avoid the often overly self confident "hard chargers" in the self professed fast groups. More fun skiing lower mountain hikes with woods and S faces in the lee of winds with best snow. ***/****
Sunday Feb 10, 2013.
Colorado opens for the first time in 20 inches and we're the first in. Blower facebombs of super light snow in the upper before the choked reins in the speed for the remainder of the run. Sweet stuff. 100 Acre Woods is on the bill; no time for Eyore. Snow starts late afternoon. Drive back to town, consult the local weather oracles (thanks Jim!) ands headed towards Pagosa Springs by 6:00. Barreled headfirst into one of the worst driving experiences: start wars eye zots, blinding spindrift and oncoming semis that left swirling plumes of whiteout for 30 seconds after passing. Dizzy driving. Harrowing. Dug into the Pinewood Motel in downtown Pagosa Springs and passed out.
Monday Feb 11, 2013.
Wolf Creek reports 26" overnight on top of 22+ inches of previoius 2 day accumulation. Fathoms of snow. Wound up the pass in more whiteout conditions and wandered around at the top looking for the parking lot until I drove down the other side a bit. Duh award for me. Met up with Frank Zappa after a couple laps on the Treasure chair and continued to ski among the deepest days I've ever had. Got icicles on my nipples. Not just face shots but more like a powder plaster to the face applied at speeds in excess of 10 mph, guessing glimpses to negotiate the few trees until the slog on the flats looking for another skiers trench. FZ lead me around, both of us laughing and oooing and ahhing at the madness of the depth. Yes, WC is flat, but man that was a day. *****/**** ++ awesssssssomeness. Split and rolled on down to Taos and checked into the Abominable Snowmansion then had a bite at Sabroso and bed while it continued to snow. Grazzyass FZ!
Tuesday Feb 12, 2013
Up early in iterated bitter cold blue, dusting of new, got a good spot in the upper lot and watched the village wake up. Good coffee from the cart and then up Als and down into West Basin for a flew slashes of refreshed leftovers. Taos is a real jewel box of aspects and pockets so I had to sample a few before hiking up to Longhorn and that burning thigh bumpfest. Damnn that thing is long. Then 2 more mogul mashers down Als before heading back up top to check out the ridge. Last time there was 1985. Chatted up a local betty on the lift about hiking the ridge who quickly ditched me once up there. As I was clmbing was talking to some dood who turns out to be TGR poster BrianH. So we rip around some more before Brian decides I'm not a complete asshole and offers crash space in Santa Fe. After a high octane beer at the St. Bernard (Jean and Dadou missed) I tailed BrianH back to SF. Dinner...crash... ****/****
Wednesday Feb 13, 2013.
Meadowskipper had kindly extended SSFe hospitality and gave me the grand tour. First time @ SSFe for me and it's a hill with a ton of character. Road up from town among the windy-est ever. Rolling loops and curves sway slosh bank tilt yaw heel woah on that road. Only place so far without new snow, but their glades r00l and some fun groimers too. Tons of thanks to both BrainH and Meadowskipper for the great times. ***+/****. At about 1:30 I folded the ski tent and heeled, yawed and pitched back down the access road to the interstate and scooped up the family at ABQ International to thunder back to Silverton. Quick late night sushi stop in Durango before rolling up over the white wall (see Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale) to Silverton endless winter.
(TBC)
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