An Interesting Day on the Slopes

I love this sign.  Not that we hit a tree today, but it might
been a better outcome because at least it is fast...

We have been coming to Breckenridge at least once a year for almost 20 years now.  In that time we have moved houses three times, upgraded our ski's at least that many times and memorized just about every nook and cranny on the mountain  (I say almost because there are some runs that even we aren't crazy enough to attempt).  And in all of that time, with all of the technology upgrades and all of the things that could go wrong, we have never experienced a day like today.  Not that today was necessarily bad, but it sure was interesting.  It was our Perfect Storm.  One we never would have have imagined would occur when we left for the gondola ride this morning.

We awoke to cold temps and a perfect snow falling.  None of us were eager to get our usual first tracks start because of the temp, but the 5" of fresh powder that fell overnight made it impossible to skip a ski day due to cold.  In hindsight, maybe that would have been easier.

We hit the gondola, strapped the skis on and finally queued up a little before 10 am.  We had decided before hand to make our way to the top of the mountain to avoid the crowds that inevitably gather at the base these days between Christmas and New Years.  Smooth sailing and inches upon inches of fresh champagne powder lulled us into thinking this was going to be one spectacular day of skiing.

Looks heavenly, right?

And then, for some reason, we decided to leave Peak 8 (shown above) to try some runs on Peak 9 (the runs next door). Our first mistake.

We get to Peak 9 and finish a run or two.  And then decide that we should start heading back to our home Peak.  This is where all hell breaks loose.  The only, and I mean only, way back to Peak 8 is the Super Connect.  We reach the lift and find it closed for business.  Closed!  They are diverting everyone to the only other lift accessible - Beaver Run.  At the base.  This means all hotel rentals, all beginning skiers and those of us that wanted to take the Super Connect are all funneled into 4 lanes.  About 1000 of us.  Or about 30 minutes of standing in line, in ski boots, waiting to sit for another 10 minutes to get to a lift, that will take you to another lift to get back to where you need to go.

But we did it, got on the lift and planned our route back to home (because at this point we were tired).  We were going to hit Volunteer, run it to Shock and then run it home on Trygves.   It was a great plan until we hit Volunteer and found it roped off.  Ok.  We had a Plan B.  The next run down would give us the same outcome.  Yet, it was closed too.  Once again we were headed to the ONLY lift that could get us back to where we wanted to go...And the line was about an hour long once we got there.  

Making a quick decision we decided to climb the hill to our left that would put us on a different run, that might take us back to where we wanted to go.

This picture is misleading.  The climb was about 150 yards of straight uphill. In ski boots.  Carrying your skis and poles.  At this point I knew I had gotten my cardio in for the day.  Little did I know, I was just about to get in some interval upper body work with the cross country skiing I was about to do.

We hit the top, looked at the run and realized we only had one choice.  We were on a run called 4 O'clock.  Aptly named because back in the day, when the ski lifts closed at 4 O'Clock this was the only run that took you back to town.  Guess where we were headed?  Yep - back to town and no where near the Peak 9 we wanted to get to.  The best part was that our fatigued legs got a rest after climbing that huge hill and I got some great pictures on the long, slow slopes.

We crossed the bridge - one I thought I would never get to cross because there has never been any reason for me to ski into downtown (seeing as we live uptown).  But sometimes the challenges you face give you opportunities to see new things.  And we saw new things today...

We popped our skis off for the second time in an hour, crossed the tunnel and walked to the gondola.  And, of course, it was stopped for repairs on a car for about 10 minutes.  We waited in line, again.  And finally boarded it, sat quietly and rode back to the house, all the while contemplating how our perfect powder day turned into our perfect storm.