Sweet Home Colorado

Well, since I haven't blogged for over a year, and everyone has been asking to see the pictures from my little snowboarding adventure in Colorado, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to jump back into the blogesphere. (I think I used that term correctly)

2/24/09: Day 1 consisted of waking up early (4:00am), loading up Mark's Ford Escape and hitting the open road.

Few of you may know this, but February 24th is actually National Pancake Day, so of course we had to make a pit stop at the International House of Pancakes (that's IHOP for all of you breakfast lovers) where they were giving away free short stacks. We found an IHOP just outside of Des Moines Iowa and stopped in to show our support for N.P.D, but who can eat just a short stack, of course you have to order a side of eggs, bacon and orange juice to complete the meal. With our bellies filled and our minds in the mountains, we jumped back in the car for the next leg of our 15 hour ride.

2/25/09: Breckenridge Colorado, Mark (left) and Seth (right) riding the gondola to the base of the mountain. Mark lived in Breck for a year after graduating college and still has a few friends living there who were gracious enough to give us a place to stay after arriving in to town.

"Top of the World"

This is an amazing picture of my right boot, oh yeah and a couple of mountains in the background.

"Roads, where we're going we don't need roads"

Sometimes if you want to get the fresh tracks, you have to hike a little bit. Scroll down to see where we're headed. (Did you notice the absence of trees? We are roughly 12,000+ feet above sea level)

"Diamonds are a Man's Best Friend"

So this is where we were walking to. I haven't seen this many diamonds in one place since I was shopping for a wedding ring.

"Chef Coreyardee"

After a long day on the slopes, we checked in to our condo. Way too nice of a place for us three snow bums. We also did a little grocery shopping, which I have to admit, is a bit amusing watching us three guys walk around a grocery store trying to think of everything they need for a week. Let's just say we had to make at least two more trips back to the store to purchase things we forgot. In the picture above, you can see our first nights dinner. I whipped up a little Three Cheese Stuffed Shells, garlic bread and Cesar Salad.

2/26/09: This is how we all felt the next morning. A combination of the altitude, a day on the slopes and possibly a little alcohol, it was a rough start to day three but, we were headed to Vail, so it didn't take too long before we were back on our feet and ready to go.

"Are We There Yet?"

If you have never skied/snowboarded out West, the runs are quite a bit longer then we're used to in the Mid-West. Mid slope breaks are quite common, here's Seth and I catching our respective breaths preparing for the rest of the way down slope.

"Lover's Leap"

Ummm......yeah. So, we went down this run, and although it's sort of difficult to see, that is about a 5 - 8 foot vertical drop on the right side of the picture which is the start of this shoot. After that, it doesn't get too much easier, but boy was it a blast.

2/27/09: Beaver Creek - Oh how I could go on and on about Beaver Creek, but I can pretty much sum it up in one word - AMAZING. It was snowing like crazy this morning and the wind was howling which is a brutal combination at 11,000 feet, but we were able to find some relief on a run on the back side of the mountain called "The Glades"

"Who Goes There?"

So about half way down the run, we noticed this little sign. Oops. We actually missed the GIANT sign at the top that said something to the effect of "You are now entering an un-patrolled area, ski at your own risk...blah...blah...blah.

"I Didn't Know Darth Vader Snowboards"

So at this point it was snowing so hard, that by the time we went down the mountain, road the chair back up, all of our previous tracks were filled in with fresh snow. I have never boarded in powder like that in my life, it was unbelievable.

"Is That All You Got?"

Ok, so there is a long story that goes along with this picture. It's a story about a man, his snowboard, a tree and a cliff. I won't go into all the details, but as you can see, I made it down. We'll leave it at that. If you ever want to know the entire story ask me sometime, just make sure Heidi is not around.

Later in the day the sun came out and it was absolutely gorgeous. I highly recommend Beaver Creek to anyone that is making a trip out to Colorado. Plus, I hear it's the new hang out for movie stars, which I'm sure people mistook us for while we were there.

2/28/09

"Roll Back The Clocks - It's For a Good Cause"

As I mentioned above, Mark still has some friends out in Breckenridge and they happened to have signed up for a benefit to raise money for Cancer research. They had some open slots on their team and asked us if we wanted to join. We said sure, little did we know that their team name was "Breckenrad" and their theme was a throwback to the 80's era of skiing. We found a used sporting goods store and helped outfit ourselves and the rest of the team in some radical once piece snow suits. I have no explanation for the pink hair.

"Fly Like an Eagle"

Here's Mark doing his best Spread Eagle, the ultimate in 80's freestyle skiing. Although you can't see it in this picture there was probably at least 50 people standing at the bottom of this hill watching his Gracefulness catch massive air.

You know how after a trip to the casino, people say that breaking even is like winning. I would have to say any ski/snowboard trip that you can return from on your own two feet, was a successful trip. There were some bumps and bruises along the way, but all and all we pretty much came home unscathed and had a fantastic time in the process.

That pretty much says it all, of course I left out the boring parts and the parts I don't want want published on the Internet, but other then that, there ya go a blog post.

Corey