One of the unfortunate side effects of skiing at places like Vail and Beaver Creek is people like this:
We arrived at the Eagle/Vail airport just before them and watched as ten of them decamped from two vehciles, one for them and one for their luggage. There were 18 pieces, many the same sickly pink color as the bismuth I had bought for my lower GI issues apres Mexican food in Edwards. You can see the color better here.
Amongst these bags were not a single ski bag. Not one. What the fuck were these people doing here, clogging up our infrastructure with their damnable fur-covered bodies if they weren’t even skiing? By the way, I love the look of absolute horror on the face of the young girl in the middle of the frame. She of the waist length fur. She’ll probably graduate to full length when she hits 18.
So, I managed to get through a week of flinging myself around Vail and Beaver Creek with nary a scratch. I skied hard and i skied fast and I had tons of fun. I almost got away unscathed, but on get away day (a day we didn’t even ski), I almost managed to destroy myself.
We were playing around and taking photos on the pirate ship that sits at the base of Vail Village. The deck of the ship is covered with snow and it’s super slick, but I got it in my head anyway that I was going to take the slide that escapes from the bow and I managed to slip off the side of the ship where the webbing leads up to the deck. Fuck that hurt. I jammed my left thumb trying to keep myself from going ass over tea-kettle, which I did, but I scraped the shit out of my left calf along the gunwhale, or what there was of one.
I felt like a fool. It’s a good thing very few people were around to see it.
Like none other
Here’s Russ jamming down a virgin powder slope in Vail’s Legendary Back Bowls(TM). This is probably on Ricky’s Ridge in Sundown Bowl right behind Game Creek. Sometime it’s hard to tell exactly where you are in the Back Bowls–they are so wide open. This the was out first visit to the Back Bowls on this trip (other than several visits to Blue Sky Basin. The sun was shinning. The was 6-8 inches of fresh powder on the ground. It was about as close to perfect as you could hope for.
in 2004, I worked at Vail Lionshead Sharpshooters for about 4 months. Since then, Lionshead has gotten a massive facelift. It really needed to updated. The village was built in the 60s and looked it. I was just worried that my favorite restaurants in Vail, DJ’s and Les Delices de France (aka The French Deli) wouldn’t survive the facelift. DJ’s sadly seems to be MIA, but the French Deli is alive and kicking.
It was good to see Daniel Bouvier, the curmudgeonly yet pleasantly gregarious proprietor, working behind the counter. He used to give all Sharpshooters a generous discount, so I was a regular. I told him how glad I was see that the Deli was still around and that I had been fantasizing about his pate sandwiches.
He said that business couldn’t be better. The construction at Lionshead was way behind schedule and he’s been feeding all the workers. He hoped that it would take another two years the finish the work. I wished him good luck, then devoured my scrumptious pate sandwich.
I’m leaving Colorado this morning. Details to come.
What Happens When the Season is Ending and 125 becostumed, IQ-Challenged, Alcohol-Fueled, Adrenaline Junkies Try to Ski Across a 50 Foot Pond Filled with 39 Degree Water? Well, You’ve Got Vail’s World Alpine Pond Skimming Championships.
39 FUCKING DEGREES!!!!! Better them than me.
More pictures to come. I promise.
UPDATE (29DEC05): Finally, the pictures are online. OK, they’ve been online for a long time. I’m just getting around to updating this post now through. Hope you like them.
With only two days left in the Vail ski season, it’s time to assess this little Colorado adventure.
Can you caption this photo? The winner gets a year supply of pisupo* and the undying admiration of your peers.
*since no one should eat pisupo, a year’s supply consititues zero cans