tseeb
Well-known member
One of my peeves this year with EpicSki gathering is the amount of time taken/wasted for lunch. The schedule calls for lunch at 11:30, but I may have been the only one there by 11:35 and most people did not arrive until noon. I did not mind sitting outside on an Adirondack char in the brilliant sunshine and watching the beautiful people go by while eating the lunch I had with but could have been back skiing at noon. Eventually some of the group came in and after I'd had enough sun, I joined them. But at 12:30, nobody looked like they were leaving so I left by myself rather than seeing how long it took the 15 or so people get ready.
I spent much of the afternoon doing gondola laps looking for shrines. I rode gondola 2 times in the morning (first ride up and then after Traynors 4 to get to lunch) and 5 times in afternoon along with one ride on each of FIS and Ajax Express. I could not find the Jimmy Buffett shrine in the Glades runs off Gentleman's Ridge, even with two trips through the W-facing area looking for, it but snow was still good out that way so trips were not wasted. On the way to the Jerry Garcia shrine, I found the Stevie Ray Vaughan shrine in group of trees above it. It took me two runs down Zaug Dump to find the Jimi Hendrix shrine even though Tony Crocker and I had been to it two years ago and I could see from the gondola on the way up. Hendrix's shrine is less elaborate than it was then. My afternoon also included a stop at Bonnie's where I think I got the last piece of Apple Strudel sold that day. Even though it had already been put away, it was still warm with flaky and crispy crust and they scraped all the whipped cream out of the bowl and covered my strudel with it. It really was too much, but I finished it after taking a break halfway through to take pictures of three ladies who were asking for volunteers. My last gondola ride was minutes before 3:30 close. I passed the John Denver shrine, then climbed to top of Ridge of Bell. I skied that until the sun ran out, then got a few more turns in sun on Face of Bell before returning for Ridge where snow was better. My watch counted 29,330 vertical.
On Sunday, my friend from El Jebel and I rode his two snowmobiles from 9:30-1 in area S of Sunlight and W of Basalt. We did a big loop, took a lot of breaks and our ride was over 30 miles. The only part we repeated was the narrow access trail that followed a gas pipeline that went straight up and down hills. It was my first time snowmobiling and we had a blast although I bruised my lower left leg and slightly hurt the pinkie of left hand on my only ejection and also found some dark dry patches on my cheeks shaped like the bottom of my googles from not totally covering up while going up to 45 mph in the cold sunshine. Then after a trip to the store, we hosted a Super Bowl party with over 20 people plus two very mobile 1 year-olds, two 5 year-olds, more kids and 6 yappy dachshunds (2 older ones live at house where I was staying). We all went nuts for Heinz commercial with racing dachshunds with buns, and of course since it's Colorado, with the Broncos win.
over.