Flat Landing

I tried skiing off the roof.

December

December in Colorado was a little more disappointing than usual. There was just enough snow on the ground to make dirt biking and mt biking not too fun, but not enough snow to offer any good skiing.

Usually, we have a B-day ski day for Wayne's birthday, but this year it was a B-day hike day on Bergen Peak outside of Evergreen.
From the peak I could use m 8x zoom and see downtown Denver.

From the same place without any zoom, downtown is behind the dark ridge in the middle. Pretty crazy zoom.

Then after Christmas, Pam and I headed to Winter Park to meet up with her Aunt and nephew and niece. Her Aunt fell and twisted her knee pretty good and took the ski patrol toboggan ride down. I think she is mostly ok now, she was suppose to get an x-ray today to make sure things are as they should be.
Today brought 8" of new snow to Winter Park and we were lucky enough to get a piece of it. We didn't even know it was suppose to snow, so it made for a great surprise.
We made our way into the trees to find that it was almost waist deep, but with no bottom but rocks and down trees.

Wayne, working his way down over the rocks.

Pam, showing us how to keep our tips up in sketchy terrain.

Me. What happens when you don't take notes from Pam's technique.

Laramie, WY

At the beginning of June, me and Pam headed up to Laramie for some biking and some skiing. We went to Curt Gowdey Park which built about 25 miles of new single track since I went to school there. The trails were all pretty fun and flowy and a few of them were pretty technical. The best of these for me was riding EL Alto counter-clockwise. There plenty of huge rock slabs to ride on as well.

Trying to ride one handed and take pictures, like I have seen Wayne do. Not a good idea when things get technical, but I managed to survive.

They even put cows on the trail for us to ride through, but they do leave a few obstacles behind. Pam yelled at me for chasing them so I had to turn around and leave them alone.

The corner assist.

Waterfalls.

The western way of keeping 29ers on the trail and from making go-arounds.

Wyoming Vultures.

Sweet car on the side of the road on the way to Christie's.

The next day we headed up to the Snowys and hiked on Meadicine Bow Peak. There were some crazy snowmobilers high marking on Old Main, which is pretty steep and they were up pretty high.

Then we got some hail on our way up.

We did two runs, one we had to hike the rocks a bit, the other was straight up the face in the snow.

Pam is in this picture hiking but hard to see, center leftish.

We were able to ski all the way back to the car which is on the road at the top of the picture below, but we had to do a lot of zigging and zagging and a few small climbs to stay on the snow.

The exit lead us thru a few bushy sections, but it was better than hiking out.

Super fun trip. I always look forward to these in Wyoming at the start of summer.

Cameron Pass

Last Saturday Wayne, Pam and myself drove up to Ft. Collins then West to Cameron Pass to meet up with Christie who was driving down from Laramie for a day of back country skiing. It was a great time, weather was good, but the snow was pretty crusty at the top, in fact, it was near bullit proof in some places.

Wayne, Pam, me on the drive up.
Christie.Mokie and Bandit.

Wagon train on the way up.

Lunch break midway up.

Throwing snowballs for Bandit.

Switchbacking the steep stuff.

The snow was so hard it was easier to take the skis off and boot pack it.

Pam slipped out on the hard snow.

Christie took to the boot packin' too.

At the top, looking off the back side.

Wayne and Christie getting ready to go down. You can see the road and parking area below, where we started.

I love my 5x zoom on my camera, the above and below pix were taken from the same place.

Then we all came down...some harder than others!

UP!

And DOWN!

Sweet trip despite the snow conditions. 7 hours of driving for a long hike and one run. But still all worth it.