12/29/08

Day 16

Conditions: Packed Powder
Location: Keystone, CO

Steph baptized her new alpha snowboard today. It was a pretty special day from the start. We are so proud of the little Alpha.

The forecast predicted high winds, so we gave up on Breckenridge and the T-Bar for the day and went to Keystone. (Interestingly, there were not high winds, and we are pretty certain we missed the opening of the T-Bar, despite our obsessive plotting.)

Truth be told, we were expecting a ho-hum day. We took a Cat ride up to Outback bowl in the morning. We found great snow and had a great run. It was definitely worth the $5 each to ride as opposed to hike.


The cat takes riders above and beyond the limits of a chairlift


Wait, why is Steph carrying both boards?

We spent the rest of the day playing in the trees. We were surprised to find tons of powder. We even discovered a hidden glade, which Steph named Shakespeare’s Glade because all the trees were orange and the snow was white. (Well, the trees were orange because they are dying from some beetle disease, but the name is not changing.)


Steph takes a run down the newly discovered Shakespeare's Glade.


We took a ton of video footage and made a full day of it.

Highlights:

- Finding and naming Shakespeare’s Glade
- Outback Bowl Cat skiing

Lowlights:

- The line lifts were long in the afternoon. But we rode single and it didn’t really affect us.
- Steph hit a tree…with her head…hard. Thank goodness for the new (and now dented) helmet.

Après Ski:

We went to the South Ridge Seafood Grill, the best restaurant in Breckenridge. The owner is also the chef and everything is made from scratch.

Days to go: 34