Ski season! We made our first trip up to Monarch this season to check out the conditions.
Continue reading‘Tis the season
Skiing
Not the adventure I was looking for
Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing a fair amount of uphill skiing at Monarch. I really enjoy the effort involved, getting the heart rate up in the cold mountain air. And it’s fun seeing the ski resort from a different perspective and at a slower pace.
Continue readingLifts? Where we’re going we don’t need lifts.*
* Chapeau to Doc Brown.
Greetings and happy 2022. May it be less of a shitshow than 2021, although the way things are going, it doesn’t look promising.
Although there are clearly more pressing matters in the world these days, I wanted to talk about something else on my mind: learning new things.
Continue readingDoing my snow dance
To say this winter is starting off slowly would be a huge understatement. Denver has yet to experience their first snow, breaking the record for the latest first snow set back in 1934. And since it stopped snowing last spring a little earlier than average, Denver is closing in on its longest streak of no snow set back in 1887.
Continue readingSteep and Deep
The month of March is certainly making up for what has been an otherwise ‘meh’ snow season in Colorado. I woke up Wednesday with intentions of going for a bike ride but with five or so inches of fresh snow at the house and Monarch reporting nine it seemed like skiing would be the better option.
Continue readingPow x 2
Bluebird Day
Winter is finally getting with the program around here! We got two straight days of snow followed by an evening of single digit temperatures which makes for light, dry powder the consistency talc covering everything like a soft down comforter.
Continue readingEarn your turns
Over the past month and a half, snowstorms in the Sawatch have been few and far between. Conditions up at Monarch have been an unpleasant combination of wind-blown hardpack and exposed rocks. Not wanting to break bodies or equipment we’ve been doing far less skiing that we had hoped. In fact, over the past two weeks I’ve spent way more time riding my fat bike than my skis. Then on Monday the high country got 5 inches of fresh powder and with the solid base already laid down we headed up to Monarch to check it out.
Continue readingFull Circle
I don’t remember exactly when I took up skiing but I think it was sometime around middle school. I certainly didn’t grow up skiing. No one in my family skied so it wasn’t like we were going to Vail every Christmas. It was more like I had seen a few Warren Miller movie clips on TV and the whole thing just looked so cool so I pestered my parents about it like only a pre-teen can pester until they relented.
Continue readingAnticipation
For me, one of the best things about being back in Colorado is having four honest-to-God seasons again. In Houston things go from hot and damp to cool and damp with maybe a week of sunny dry weather thrown in in March and November to serve as spring and fall. Leaves in Houston don’t change as much as they get old and fall off. And for the more part, things are green year-round.
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