November Powder.. what???

Sunday Kate and I actually left early enough to make it to the mountain close to opening. We decided to go to Copper Mountain since they were getting "a foot and half of snow." Of course, this turned out to really be about 1.5". What I now realize, is that everyone that lives up in the mountains and especially the employees at ski resorts are way too optimistic. None-the-less, the mountain looked fairly empty and last time we had a pretty stellar time.


Not-so-much though. The U.S. ski team was practicing (initially I thought it would be cool) which caused everyone to funnel to one side of the run hoping to evade being plowed over by an alpine boarder or one of the racers going 40+ mph down the run. It was pretty sweet watching how perfect their form was...even on the ice. After about 2 hours of bulletproof (ice) suicide skiing on the "white ribbon of death," we decided to check out Breck.


HORRIBLE!!! Breck had one run open with no vert. and a million people. We did two runs there before we decided to bounce. However, we did get to enjoy some beer and lunch on the gondola ride up.


Our next and final option was A-Basin. So we left Breck, finished up my Pig-O-Beer (it's a keg shaped like a pig), got it refilled in Frisco and headed over to the mountain. When we arrived at A-Basin it started snowing like crazy!!! Not an intense blizzard, but a huge dump of big fluffy snowflakes. Needless to say, the next hour of skiing was amazing. Nothing less than crashing through 3-4 inches of fresh powder...in November!!!

So on a funny note, while Kate and I were walking to the lift at Copper Mountain there was a lady handing out free Nature Valley Bars. Now as we were walking there was a little girl (about 5 years old) walking akwardly in her ski boots to catch up with her mom who was about 20 yards ahead of her. As we took our Nature Valley bars, the lady looked at me, hands me another one and says "here's one for your little girl."

Definitely the first time I've ever been mistaken for a dad, haha.