South Arapahoe Peak, CO 9/8/01

As some of you probably knew, a winter storm hit Colorado this weekend. As some of you can probably guess, I took full advantage of it. <BR> <BR>For the past few days I had been glued to the TV news trying to figure out when, where and how this winter storm was going to hit CO. I had my hopes up and was ready to go skiing Friday morning. I woke up to frost on the deck and a light dusting in the mountains but not enough to ski on. But as I watched the news I learned that a substantial storm was on it's way and would start sometime Friday night. They were calling for 3-6 inches in the mountains and that seemed more than enough to take a few crappy first turns of the season. I watched License To Thrill, I ordered a new ski video over the Internet, I did a snow dance, I did anything to appease the snow gods to bless with me snow on Saturday. At 11:30 I spotted my first snow flakes mixed in with a cold, heavy rain. My thermometer read 44.1 degrees. It was hard trying to sleep with the temperature so high and the fact that I felt the way a 6 year old does on Christmas Eve. <BR> <BR>My alarm went off at 5:45. It was still dark out so I tried to go back to sleep. I couldn't stand it any longer and I got up at 5:57. I went upstairs, looked outside and YYYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Snow. And more than I expected. Six inches were already on the ground and it was coming down hard. I brewed the coffee, threw the Gore-Tex on and was out the door. I stopped in at the Mountain Bakery before heading up Eldora. I figured Eldora was my best bet considering there was only a few inches on the ground and it's only ten minutes away. Since there was no base layer of snow to speak of, grass would be the best alternative. But dammit! Eldora had a gate across the entrance and I couldn't get in. Time for Plan B, only there wasn't yet a Plan B. So I headed back into Nederland and headed for Sugarloaf Road where I spotted a bald hill a month ago that seemed to hold promise for some good turns. But when I got over there I couldn't find anything skiable. Plan C - head for South Arapahoe Peak. <BR> <BR>I started up the dirt road and after one mile there was only one set of tracks in the foot deep powder. After another mile I was on my own. I picked up a hiker and we blasted the next four miles laying down first tracks with my truck, pushing through downed aspens and just trying to stay on the road. We got to the trailhead and I was blown away. Close to a foot of pow! <BR> <BR>I threw the skins on and started up the trail following in the tracks of the hiker who left about ten minutes before me. It was incredible. Every pine tree in the entire valley was fully loaded with powder, making it look more like February than September. Almost all of the underbrush was already covered up. However, the aspens were all bent over, having not yet lost their leaves. In fact they hadn't even begun to change color! <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/9/1198.jpg" ALT="I was skiing next to aspens that hadn't even begun to change color. It was amazing. What a thrill."> <BR> <BR>After more than an hour of skinning I finally came across a tempting bowl. The trail split it roughly in half, so I headed up a little farther before cutting back to get in from the top. I put the skis on, pushed off... and nothing. My skis were sinking in and there was actually so much snow that it was preventing me from skiing down. So I straightened them out and headed straight down the fall line. I finally got going and launched into a tele turn before immediately falling. I repeated this some more until I made it down to where the trail intersected the bowl. So far the skiing was awful. I was scraping down to the base and I couldn't link two turns without falling. But then I pushed off into the lower half of the bowl, and salvation. I was still scraping bottom, but it wasn't that bad at all. I began linking parallel turns. Near the bottom I was getting blinded by faceshots - in September! Next run was more of the same, more blinding faceshots and snow cascading up and over my chest. After climbing back up to the trail I decided to leave since I was exhausted and I'd mangled the hell out of my rock skis. <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/9/1199.jpg" ALT="This is a picture of me a couple of turns after dropping in below from the trail. Can you see my legs? Hell no, because the snow was so deep! Who ever though you'd get faceshots in 18 inches of powder in September?"> <BR> <BR>You can imagine my surprise when my roommate Dave appeared from around the corner on the way down. I hadn't mentioned skiing with him and hadn't left him a note saying where I was. But somehow he found me. So I headed back up. We took another three runs, the last one being the best. I was able to link perfect powder "S's" down the fall line through untracked knee deep powder. Every turn resulted in powder cascading up my chest and over my shoulders. It was amazing. Just unbelievable. Not only had we made turns in September, but they were exceptional powder turns. Not this contrived crap of skiing five turns on a half inch of frozen precipitation or skiing a Mctrail covered in man made death cookies. This was the real thing.