I have lived in Colorado for 4 years and still had not skied Vail. I have raced my mountain bike there in the summer, but never on two skis!! Brad(my roommate) and I headed up there yesterday and I got to use a buddy pass (when you have a 5 mountain season pass, you get a limited number of buddy passes that give you like 30%+ off a day lift ticket)
Vail is one of the biggest ski areas out there. I was mesmerized by all the lifts and runs. It seemed to be like 3x the size of other ski resorts I have been to. We tackled some of the runs on the front side of the mountain, then went to the back side to ski some of the bowls. There was some good powder on the back, and I finally got over my fear of skiing in the trees (I also bought a ski helmet, which helped my confidence a little bit).
It was snowing almost the whole time we were up there, meaning the light was flat. Unfortunately, you can’t see much texture in these photos (and also makes for tricky skiing on choppy powder runs when you can’t see any dimension!)
Going through the trees reminds me of maybe free-riding on the bike. You can pick and choose wherever you want to go.
Phew! Made it down this without killing myself. I am not very good at moguls, especially the black kind. That’s something I wish to master!
B-radical.
This crazy cloud encompassed the mountain, and you couldn’t see more than 30′ in front of you. It was like descending into an abyss.
My dorky self. 🙂
One of the bowls had so much powder that if I didn’t make a ton of turns (vs traversing the run picking up speed and then turning), I’d get bogged down in the powder, my skis would disappear and I wouldn’t be able to turn. Should have opted for a fatter ski.
Shin deep!
It has been really nice doing other activities I love over the winter(like yoga, skiing, running). I’m hoping to get 4 more days on the mountain this year (for a whopping 6 days, which is the most I’ve done in one season). Considering my first race of the year is one week from TOMORROW, I’d say mixing bike racing with some skiing will be ok.
I’ve been starting to ramp things up a bit on the bike too. I tasted zone 5/super threshold for the first time since October the other day. It felt surprisingly good and I actually felt strong despite no previous interval training. The familiar taste of blood was present with each interval, followed by suffer cough later in the day. I need to go hard at least once before the race next weekend! I also enjoyed the endorphin buzz!
Speaking of riding, I better head out on the bike and up the mountain! Tonight is the Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance fundraiser banquet. I’m looking forward to that too. Last year was really fun!
