Doing 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.  

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Steep and Deep

Photo credit: Allie Stevens

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.  

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Earn 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.

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Full 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.  

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Anticipation

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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