Helluva day...

Speed is your friend. ~ Common saying among gofasternators

Today, Luke and I headed up to the Basin (against my mother's recommendations, I might add). See, she has a thing for staying indoors when the guys on the weather channel start spouting nonsense about high-wind advisories, winter storm watches and the like. I happen to believe proclamations of this ilk are calls to get off that couch and get out there. So, accordingly, I did.

Loveland Pass was closed so we had to go through Eisenhower and through Silverthorne to get up there, but man... it was SO worth it. Great snow conditions, coupled with no one on the mountain made for mass chaos.

Luke and I are planning to do the Enduro - A Basin's yearly charity event in which teams of two compete to see which team can complete the most laps on Pali in a 10-hour period. Teams ski the North side of the mountain and are required to do each and every run in a specified order. No fair just selecting your favorite (and fastest) route to the bottom, you have to ski the bumps, steeps, chutes and everything in between. The record, 70 laps, is held by Jamie Olber and Ollie Holmes and was set at last year's event. Do the math... that is an average of 7 runs per hour. The lift ride (in case you were thinking that might not be too tough), takes about 7 minutes, so for every 7-lap hour skied, you are sitting on the lift for 49 minutes. Um.... yeah. Sick.

Today, Luke and I were really just scoping out some of the runs with which we are a lot less familiar and trying to see how fast we could ski. We also paused to jump off a few rocks just for fun. It's not all business out there on the slopes.

I ran out of steam after about 3 hours or so (still recovering from this wicked cold) so we went back to 'Zuma to see about making some fresh turns but Elephant Trunk was shut down for some reason. The jury is still out on 'Zuma Bowl for me but if it takes the pressure off the front side of the mountain (which it seems to be doing), then hey, I love it!

Post skiing we headed back to Boulder to mount up my new sticks. I bought myself a pair of K2 Hell Bents for my birthday because I have been such a good me to me this year. Tomorrow, we're heading to Eldora for their maiden voyage. Frankly, after today, I can't wait.

On the way back to Boulder, Luke's truck ran out of gas. Fortunately, this event took place in the parking lot of the gas station so we were able to push him the rest of the way to the pump. This happened to me once in highschool, actually. I coasted down the hill, through the parking lot of a Kenny's Shoe Store and across 4 lanes of traffic into the gas station. Pretty sweet. I think I even made it back to class on time but can't remember for sure.

Ok... more news tomorrow. Planning to ski a little, go to a movie, and play the rest by ear.

~stubert.