Colorado Snowboard Blog 11/22/09

Posted by: Dave Berry | Nov 22, 09

What a weekend. The towns of Winter Park and Frasier have really made me miss the mountain life. Friday night was pretty out of control even by my standards. I rolled up to Frasier on Friday with two partners in crime, I'll call them Romeo and Sanchez to attempt to prevent anybody's dirty laundry from getting out. We have a good friend who lives in a pimp ass condo in Frasier so we blazed up there. Sanchez and I were smashing beers the whole way up. I've gotta say, if you can get up the night before a riding sesh then do it, stupid. There wasn't any traffic on I-70 so we made it there pretty quick. After getting the grand tour of the condo we split out to a party at another condo. This party was sick. There weren't that many people there but the dude to chick ratio was well in our favor. Too bad that I've got no game what so ever. We kicked it at the party for a while then when they ran out of beer we bolted to Winter Park to ride out the night at a bar. We landed at a place called Ullr's and it was badass. $2 PBR's and mad chicks, but once again I've got no game. All hail Ullr! I was good and toasted at this point but when last call went down we bounced over to yet another party. Things get foggy here, but Romeo instructed me to try and remember the letter "B" that was on the wall of the building and Sanchez told us both to leave him there. He was about to chop some ham with this chunky chick. I thought it was hilarious, but at 3AM after drinking for somewhere around 10 hours everything is hilarious. Thankfully Romeo was taking notes in his phone so we could find this place in the morning, rescue Sanchez, and hit the hill. At some point at this party I was sitting in a chair in the kitchen and a dog walked up to me. I leaned over to pet it and I face-planted on the lineoleum. There wasn't a chance for me to get my hands up. I still have a knot on my right eyebrow from it and it hurts. Yes kids, alcohol makes you stupid.

The next morning Romeo woke me up from my spot on the couch and we geared up. We still had to rescue Sanchez from an apartment that we sort of knew where it was located and didn't know anybody that lived there. Thanks to Romeo's notes and me remembering that "B" on the wall we found it pretty easily, however finding Sanchez proved to be more taxing. Thankfully the door wasn't locked so we walked right in. There were three bedrooms in this place and of course he was in the third one, confused and naked in a chunky chick's bed. Even now as I'm writing this relatively sober it's hilarious. Romeo threw him his backpack and told him to gear up. I went outside and had a smoke because it was hard to control my laughter.

We tried to hit up some close parking but it was all full, so Sanchez and I rode on Romeo's tailgate down I-40 to another lot where that stupid new open-air gondola is at. That was kind of sketchey but like all dangerous things in life it was fun. Upon inspection of the new gondola I have come to the conclusion that whoever designed the thing was probably stoned. It does get you from the parking lot to the village, but when you get to the village you still have to walk a pretty long way to the lifts. I don't understand why the gondola doesn't just take you to the lifts or up the hill. I also learned from our friend that the damn thing cost over 7 million dollars to build. Why didn't Winter Park invest in more shuttle buses or expand parking? The world may never know.

We got riding around 9:30 and I learned that with my pass I have 10 $55 vouchers to burn over the course of the season. Not too shabby. The snow was total garbage thanks to sunny weather and high temps over the past week. It looked like hardpack so we ripped down to the base expecting our edges to hold. They didn't. There were ice patches all over the place and it was impossible to spot them so we were washing out left and right. After just one run all of our asses were bruised so we decided to take a break and get a breakfast burrito. We hit up this little joint called Coffee and Tea in the lesson/season pass building. Sanchez got a bloody mary and the hippie bartender hooked him up with this awesome vodka that he infused with garlic and rosted jalapenos. It was amazing. I got a solid burrito with rad pork green chili on it.

We hit the hill again only to meet the same result. At the time of this writing Winter Park only has three runs open and Mary Jane is still closed so there was no escape. Of the three open runs only one was a blue. The point of this story is that you should probably stay away from Winter Park until they get some more snow and runs open. Just go to Loveland instead. Loveland is killing it this year.

Shred Hard.

Dave Berry.