Beaver Creek Friday

We decided to have an "off site work meeting" on Friday and take advantage of some spring snow fall in the Mountains. Before the latest storm, the snow had basically turned into a oatmeal mush consistency during the day and bullet proof overnight. Beaver Creek received over 14" of fresh on Wednesday and Thursday. We had a crew of 7 people ready to "Shred the Gnar Pow". Unfortunately, I forgot my camera but took some pics with my phone.

We all met at chair 6 and took a fast run down Redtail to get over to Larkspur. Larkspur still sketches me out a bit. It's a nice big blue run with a great pitch all the way to the bottom. The problem is that it is so nice that everyone likes it. Last year in December I had a collision on the run with a skier. His helmet broke my left lower mandible crushing 4 teeth and a nice 14 stitch cut in my chin. The worst part is that he skied off without seeing if I was OK. I ended up riding down to the lift where my wife and brother were waiting. They took care of me from there... sled ride down, stitches in the clinic and surgery the next morning to wire my jaw shut for 5 weeks. Now when I'm on Larkspur I get a little nervous with all the people around me. This time, it was uneventful and we made it quickly to the bottom.

The group split in two after Larkspur. Five of us headed up Grouse to get some nice Pow in Royal Elk Glade. We traversed all the way on the cat track and through a gate leading us out of the "maintained" resort. We then hiked up to the top of a chute. Wendell went first exposing every rock with Cristin, 'Baker' and then me. I was lucky to have enough snow to make it through safely. Below in the trees, it was much better. We had knee deep sugar like powder until......WHAM!!! I hit a hidden boulder head on with my snowboard, flipped over and hugged another boulder with my side. It could have been a lot worse but it definitely knocked the wind out of me. 'B' saw the whole thing go down. Apparently, from below you could see the rock easily. Thanks for the heads up after the fact! I caught up with the rest of the group and got the typical "Dude, are you OK?...Let's go." The bruise really didn't form until later that night, but I knew it was coming.

After a couple more runs through Royal Elk we met up with Ab and the Jodester for lunch. The beer flowed like water and I quickly forgot about my aching side. The BBQ sandwich was delicious going down but made hiking through the gate above chair 8 difficult. While riding the lift up, the sky opened up and snow flakes the size of quarters began to fall. Ab and Cristin decided to take a few runs down the front under chair 8 while the dudes went for a hike. After a short 15 minute hike we decided to cut down through a glade. Like Royal Elk, the snow was like sugar and we floated through the trees. This time I wasn't the one that fell. 'B' was following 'Baker' on a line. 'Baker' uncovered a giant boulder that 'B' hit the top of and stopped cold. He double ejected and did a mid air flip. Wendell, 'Baker' and I were waiting below but didn't know what had happened. "Yo! Are you OK?"... silence.... 'B' finally answers "Just a minute.." When he finally gets down to us he says "I'm not following anyone in here!" and blows right by us. The rest of the glade was uneventful until we got into the run-out. It was a crazy roller coaster ride with banking turns on walls above fallen logs and narrow trails around open pits to a running stream. Somebody could get seriously hurt in there, I can see why the resort chooses to keep it out of bounds. The run-out led us out to Raven Ridge and down to Red Tail camp.

We decided we had all had enough and went down to the place in Avon for some Kabob grilling and beer drinking. Some of us had a lot of Whiskey and "That drink that we drink." Overall, I really can't think of a better way to spend a work day...