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James

Out There
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It's that time again.
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Coming into Denver at sunset Friday.

Today Abasin was completely packed. Instead of being the third to last car allowed in the Last Chance lot we did a u turn and went to Loveland. Loveland was mildly packed. Parked in the Valley lot.

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Oh Loveland there you are ^. To the left is The Valley, closed for the season, the road is Rte 6 up towards Loveland Pass. The lift is the who knows what but it's a number or a bird. There was more than one person skiing there. Really.

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Gorgeous weather to be out. Actually, some clouds would be nice to quiet the sun which was totally out of control. These little clouds were helpless.
Here's the Ginny Lee warming hut. Byo meat for the grill. There's a story to it:
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Back up to the top of the highest lift. John Lennon's number '9'.

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That's Keystone. In the distance upper right is Breckenridge. They say it's always windy there.

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Wait, another person! @mdf journeys into the vast landscape.
The snow on the way down for a bit was in the somewhat interesting category.
 

Doug Briggs

"Douche Bag Local"
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How was the snow off of the ridge? Yesterday it looked beautiful but felt like crap. I didn't even give it a try. Groomers were very nice.
 

Doug Briggs

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Yesterday was pretty nice as long as you stayed on piste. The sun and warm temps on Friday had cooked everything apparently from the Ridge on down. I didn't go up Chair 9 to find out the hard way, I just stuck my skis in some of the ungroomed at the top of 4 Chair and said 'no way'.

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Any tracks you can see were done the day before and were preserved for eternity.

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A picnic at Ptarmigan roost with red wine, brie, fruit and a loaf of bread sealed the deal.

Later on I went to Red Rocks to see Phil Lesh and Friends with Leftover Salmon. Truly a fun filled day.

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20180505_190957.jpg Leftover Salmon

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Phil Lesh and the Terrapin Family Band
 

mdf

entering the Big Couloir
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I liked the snow off the ridge. It sounded wet -- really wet-- but it didn't feel that way.
 

nay

dirt heel pusher
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Loveland closing day. Started crispy and got to sticky on piste and manky off piste pretty quickly once the morning high clouds moved east.

So the only resort was to head up high. That’s a lot of snow for closing day.

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3 laps on Rookie Road - the groomer off the top that laps back down to Chair 9 - while the reef softened. High alpine slush GS.

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Met up with @James and @mdf on Chair 8 (and missed @mikel except for a quick chat passing on the lift).

I was only laying here for artistic purposes.

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Then a stop for lunch and a change of skis for those two to wider/longer, and back up 9 to catch the ridge cat. We snagged the last four spots in the 1:45 ride - second to last of the season.

The boy and me.

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The why are we hiking? hike.

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The steeps were quite a bit better than we expected, and then some terrain unskied from the last storm firmed up and skied almost like dense powder. A last descent treat.

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Shelling avy runs were skiable (^^^tail upper left).

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Sweet last turns. Until next season.

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And last Chair 1 ride as we know it.

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mikel

Making fresh tracks
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It was a pretty good Luv closing weekend. Unfortunately due to my stupidity I ended up being the poster boy for why copious amounts of sunscreen are required when it's sunny.

@nay I got your message about lunch but not until I was on my way back home. Some cohorts from Copper skied up to 9 right after I saw you and convinced me to make a run with them so back up 9 I went. We ended up going all the way out to Porcupine? and skied down ending up by 6. On my previous trip up, I did see you and your son stop on the way down from the ridge. I was kind of out in no mans land and tried hard to catch up to you but no luck. I did hear one of you saying "that was awesome" so I figured I was close enough to catch up. There was a bit of a traffic jam where rookie and the run from 4 join together. I never made it over to 8.

Nice meeting @James @mdf and Chris. Sorry Chris it was @Chris Geib correct? @James it looks like the intel report from A Basin was only about 50% correct. All of Pali is open except the newly added stuff. Zuma does have stuff closed now. If @Philpug brought a Citadel let me know what you think. I did send you a pm :D


Seems like we all took the same random shots this weekend.

Top of 9 looking east

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Avy work @nay mentioned

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Keystone and Breck off in the distance

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Just a great weekend with some good snow.

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mdf

entering the Big Couloir
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We had another great day at Loveland yesterday. We met up with @Chris Geib in the morning. We were a bit nervous about the untracked/ lightly tracked mashed (maybe whipped potatoes?) on the upper mountain , but Chris skied off like it was no big deal. We followed, and it was actually lots of fun if you went fast and committed to your turns.

We had also met @mikel in the morning, but only managed to ski half a run with him. Lots of phone and text tag to meet up with him and @nay but finally managed to. Nay, his son, Chris, James and I skied together all morning. Chris had to leave after lunch.

The rest of us went up to the ridge cat. It is tight in there - more than a tram.
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It looks like there is nobody behind me because I was sitting on half a seat squished up against the door.
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It was so bright up top that I couldn't keep my eyes open for a picture....
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We skied a few more with nay and his son, then they left to do their own thing. We skied lots of upper mountain laps that @James is probably typing about right now.

Just before 4 we rushed over to chair one to get one bump run in. I wish we had gone earlier -- the bumps there were fantastic! They were big and steep, but wide and round. Great shapes.
Here James is waiting for last chair to go by. It seemed like it went past 4pm, so maybe if we had bombed it we could have gotten another. But maybe it was just a "friends and family" extension. Better to enjoy the run than rush through it.
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We got bored waiting, and skied down the rest of the way.

The end of the day was sad -- the end of season blues. But wait! The new A-Basin season begins today.
 

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Thread Starter
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James

James

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Sunday at Loveland.
Fantastic day. We stopped following random snowboarders on traverses to nowhere. We had @cgeib showing us around.
Lots of people there today. Well till about 1 ish. Then most were partying down below or gone. Pretty sunny with more clouds than yesterday. The snow was better though the glue factory started it's production early in random spots.

Yesterday we went to the info counter. They were handing out stickers.
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Wait, there's a snowcat that takes you somewhere?
Yes, but you need a free pass. Of course we had to get one. Basically it's just acknowledging you could be hit by an asteroid or run over by an avalanche and though they might be sad, it's not their fault.
Everyone said the snow yesterday would be terrible up there. The Ministry of Bad Ideas ruled for it. But we didn't know last trip up was at 2 pm and we couldn't make it. So we left it for today.

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The pass for the ridge.

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Beautiful day with fortunately, some clouds at time to keep the sun at bay. If you timed your run right there was no one. Until the zombie and crazy trains get out and go by.



Taking the Ridge Cat. Though we were packed in tighter than a tram, the ride was plush and smooth. Not like the Aspen Highlands Bowl cat ride since it's a much newer machine.

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Top of chair 1 at the end of day and 2017/8 season. Patrol and everyone waiting for last run down. This chair is also to be replaced for next year so it's the end of an era. Will they call the new chair 1.1? Or name it after a bird?
This is a really greaat area for steep mogul runs. We never had the chance to do a lot of laps here and Loveland rufused to stay open another week for us.
Loveland is great. It is the most Alps llike place I've been to in the US with seemingly vast open areas you have to find your way around. And you end up traversing a fair amount. There's some fantastic terrain. I would definitely come back. One should really check it out if you've never been. It has a lot to offer.

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That's I70. @mdf going down a mogul run off chair 1. Much steeper than it looks. I actually had snow come off the tails of my skis and hit me in the back. That run was one of the best of the day with great soft snow and moguls nice shape instead of bananas, triangles or small cliffs.

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End of day boot removal.
 
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nay

dirt heel pusher
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^^^^yes, nice to meet @Chris Geib as well, sorry for the mention fail. Without a screen name at introductions the neurons apparently don’t react.
 
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nay

dirt heel pusher
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Much fun yesterday. This thread will have to be deleted in order to preserve the Loveland secret.

My son was wearing out when we headed down to enter the Toyota/Never Summer 4Runner raffle (he dreams of a 5th gen 4Runner - once he can drive) and so we didn’t end up heading back for some last Chair 9 laps.

Some more pics.

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nay

dirt heel pusher
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Everyone said the snow yesterday would be terrible up there. The Ministry of Bad Ideas ruled for it.

This should be a running tally:

Ministry of Bad Ideas: 1
Actual Bad Ideas: 0

Speaking of ideas, these two were zipper lining under Chair 1. Excellent.

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Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
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Moved some of the posts from the Colorado thread to this one upon request.
 
Thread Starter
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James

James

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This should be a running tally:

Ministry of Bad Ideas: 1
Actual Bad Ideas: 0

Speaking of ideas, these two were zipper lining under Chair 1. Excellent.

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Yes, the Ministry of Bad Ideas was disappointed.
There were 3 fat people and one fat hill billy. Hilarious.
 

Tony S

I have a confusion to make ...
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Oooh. So sooooo envious. I went to work, got stressed out there, then paid $750 for tires I didn't think I was going to need, came home, and went for a road ride in frigid onshore wind that I guarantee was way colder than anything you experienced in your goddamn Colorado Rockies. Hi Chris! :wave:
 

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