Tseeb arrived this morning after an all night snow driving marathon from Denver. The January 3-4 storm was similar to the previous one Dec. 31. Both followed the recent pattern of flowing northwest to southeast from Canada through Montana. Western Colorado areas catch the edge of these systems with 4-6 inches, while the favored areas to the northeast like Steamboat, Vail and Winter Park get twice as much.
Tseeb is staying with his college ski club classmate Steve, who live in El Jebel 15 miles downvalley from Aspen. It snowed most of the day and was fairly cold, so no pics today. With the moderate new snow it was a "low angle powder day," so we started with Burn runs on Sneaky and near the chair.
Steve was eager to show us the recently opened Burnt Mt. area East of Elk Camp. So we headed over there via Alpine Springs. Burnt Mt. requires a hike slightly steeper than the one up to Hanging Valley. This of course cuts down skier traffic and since the Long Shot glades there are marked blue it was prime territory for a day like this. The upper third was spread out and I was soon cruising untracked at far skier's left and separated from everyone else. Eventually I hit a rope boundary and was funneled to the bumpy middle section. My legs were soon burning and toes cooling off as I worked my way down the long runout to the Two Creeks base. Longshot has signs marking the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 marks of the 3,300 vertical run.
I went into Two Creeks lodge to warm up, watching out the window. Steve arrived in a few minutes, but I was worried about Liz, who had cold feet on the first day in her new Head Raptor boots. I had exactly the same experience on my first day in new boots 2 years ago at Mammoth, but that was on manmade groomers. Fortunately Liz showed up within 10 minutes, while Tseeb was unexpectedly missing. Soon we got a text that in search of some freshies he had skied into a ravine and was slogging out. With dense trees and some postholing it took him 45 minutes to get back to the trail.
We took the very long Two Creeks chair up to Elk Camp for a late lunch. After lunch Steve and Liz skied to Venga Venga tequila bar in Snowmass Village while Tseeb and I got to High Alpine lift just before it closed and had a final blue powder run on Green Cabin.
Sunday Jan. 5 had a predicted high of 6F with some wind up top, so after the past 7 days we decided to take a break. However Liz needed to go back to Highlands for boot adjustment. As in my case 2 years ago volume needed to be increased so as not to restrict circulation. Since the weather today would bea perfect test for cold adaptation, Liz was persuaded to take a couple of runs after the first adjustment. It was only a couple because wind chill at the top of Cloud 9 was -29F! We'll be back at Highlands tomorrow with Tseeb and Steve and maybe for more boot work.
Tseeb is staying with his college ski club classmate Steve, who live in El Jebel 15 miles downvalley from Aspen. It snowed most of the day and was fairly cold, so no pics today. With the moderate new snow it was a "low angle powder day," so we started with Burn runs on Sneaky and near the chair.
Steve was eager to show us the recently opened Burnt Mt. area East of Elk Camp. So we headed over there via Alpine Springs. Burnt Mt. requires a hike slightly steeper than the one up to Hanging Valley. This of course cuts down skier traffic and since the Long Shot glades there are marked blue it was prime territory for a day like this. The upper third was spread out and I was soon cruising untracked at far skier's left and separated from everyone else. Eventually I hit a rope boundary and was funneled to the bumpy middle section. My legs were soon burning and toes cooling off as I worked my way down the long runout to the Two Creeks base. Longshot has signs marking the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 marks of the 3,300 vertical run.
I went into Two Creeks lodge to warm up, watching out the window. Steve arrived in a few minutes, but I was worried about Liz, who had cold feet on the first day in her new Head Raptor boots. I had exactly the same experience on my first day in new boots 2 years ago at Mammoth, but that was on manmade groomers. Fortunately Liz showed up within 10 minutes, while Tseeb was unexpectedly missing. Soon we got a text that in search of some freshies he had skied into a ravine and was slogging out. With dense trees and some postholing it took him 45 minutes to get back to the trail.
We took the very long Two Creeks chair up to Elk Camp for a late lunch. After lunch Steve and Liz skied to Venga Venga tequila bar in Snowmass Village while Tseeb and I got to High Alpine lift just before it closed and had a final blue powder run on Green Cabin.
Sunday Jan. 5 had a predicted high of 6F with some wind up top, so after the past 7 days we decided to take a break. However Liz needed to go back to Highlands for boot adjustment. As in my case 2 years ago volume needed to be increased so as not to restrict circulation. Since the weather today would bea perfect test for cold adaptation, Liz was persuaded to take a couple of runs after the first adjustment. It was only a couple because wind chill at the top of Cloud 9 was -29F! We'll be back at Highlands tomorrow with Tseeb and Steve and maybe for more boot work.
