Another Crazy Time in Grand County, CO| The Colorado Snowboarding Blog

Posted by: Dave Berry | Dec 1, 09

I survived another crazy-ass weekend up in Grand County! Yes, I'm acting like a college kid on the weekends (minus the huge bouts of projectile vomiting) and so far it's been pretty damn rad. Now the snow at Winter Park just needs to pile up and I'll be in great shape. This episode includes a splotchy recount of our friend's rockin' party and snowboarding antics, as usual, along with a snow update. This seems to be turing into a trend around here.

So on Saturday morning Sanchez and I loaded up the crusty, rusty, and still trusty Ninety-Two Carolla and mobbed up the hill. Our ride bitched out on us and that sucked because it seemed to fall on us to bring up all the essential party items: one keg of Miller High Life, one small stereo for the garage, and our sexy asses with all of our riding gear and sunny dispositions. It was quite the feat cramming all of this stuff into the backseat and trunk of my car, and then it was yet another feat that it made the ascent over Berthoud with a full keg in the trunk. I couldn't see out of my rear-view mirror so it was kind of like The Beverly Hillbillies go snowboarding, but we didn't have any oil money to roll on, just our meager wages. We got up to Winter Park and rode for a quickie afternoon sesh. The snow was still terrible, but conditions had improved slightly from the day before and there was a little more terrain open. We didn't have any gaper incidents despite seemingly every other person up there was skiing in jeans, which is still a big no-no. We called it after about two quick hours and rolled the pile of crap over to Frasier for the party.

As best as I can remember, nothing too scandalous went down at the party, but then again I started the night off with two heavy Mountain Dew and vodka's, then Sanchez and I made a three game run on the beer pong table. It was just a simple party full of bro-dog's who only knew how to talk about snowboarding and chicks who didn't know how to talk about snowboarding. There weren't any fights or misplaced piles of vomit that I'm aware of so I'm going to call this one a good, chill party. Sanchez did pull a Sanchez manuver but it wasn't nearly as funny as last weekend's, which if you recall resulted in a morning rescue mission.  

We got back at it again Sunday but it did take a while to get going. When we finally did get on the hill, at the crack of noon, we were greeted with even more open runs and slightly better snow. Winter Park must have those snow guns running 24/7 since the last natural snow that I'm aware of falling up there was a mere trace on Sunday morning, and 0.5" last Tuesday or Wednesday. I had a few near-misses on Sunday, once again at the hands of gaper-children. Somehow I keep getting sucked into the bottleneck that dumps you down the Parkway trail on the way to the base. This bottleneck is the most sketchey part of the mountain right now but with what was open over the weekend it was hard to avoid even when I tried. It's on the east face of the mountain and it's totally shrouded in trees so essentially it's a hockey rink. I entered the damn thing and this time it was dangerously crowded. I was having a hard time turning because my edges weren't sharp enough to cut through the solid ice and I ended up almost blasting this little girl who was laying down in the middle of the run. She wasn't hurt and her family was standing all around her seemingly taking a break. This little girl almost got her lip split (or worse) by the nose of my deck because as I was trying to work my way around, slowly for once, my edge washed out on me and I damn near pierced her skull. 

The other near-miss was a lot better. We were pulling a White Line Nightmare down to the base towards the end of the day and an intersection of trails was dead ahead, just past a father and son. I got around the father no problem and was trying to thread the needle past the son when the son turned right in front of me, even after I yelled "On your right!" as ettiquette dictates. I threw on the breaks toe-side and mad hard, but it wasn't enough to stop from riding up on this kid's tails. Oops. As you can clearly tell this was not my fault which was probably why the father didn't try to kick my ass, and the fact that I didn't knock the retarded child over. I quickly asked if the kid was alright and burned off. Sanchez saw the whole thing and we both burst into laughter as we resumed the White Line Nightmare. Then we called it a day at The Cheeky Monk. If you are into Belgan beers and hella fattening food you've gotta hit this place up, if you have the money. Good times.

Ullr is sending another round of snow down to us from Canada this time and it's getting pretty damn cold. This storm is supposed to hit east of the Divide so it probably won't hit anything that the scenesters care about, and that bodes well for me because according to 9news.com three inches of blood, I mean snow, is supposed to hit in the Grand County area by the time this one's done. I just hope it doesn't hit Denver too bad because I'm already going to have to be at work early tomorrow (6 AM! DAMN!) to go shovel what little, if any, snow there is. 

If you haven't heard the mad notes on some mad notes flying into your skull-holes here in Denver you should be aware that the old-school metal band Vader is playing this friday for $20 and the mighty, albeit slightly insane, Melt Banana is playing next Monday. I believe both shows are at the Bluebird. Google them. I doubt I'm going to make either at this point because my idiot puppy ate some debris that he shouldn't have and got to go under the knife today to fix it. If you've ever had to deal with this then you know it's a lot cheaper to just put the bastard down. I didn't put the bastard down so now I'm a lot more broke than usual and my rent's due. Shit.

Shred Hard.

Dave Berry.