There was no one on the road when I made the 45 minute trip east down I-70 to Breckenridge at a 7:45am. I stopped in Frisco for a bagel and, because it was the second to last day of the season, I was able to park right next to the lifts, above the lifts actually so that I got out of my car, put on my gear and skied down to the 6 seater Quicksilver Express.
My first impression of Breck was that the bottom of the mountain was etremely flat. The chair hummed along the shallowest grade terrain I have ever seen at any resort. But at the top of the lift, Breck shoots up and is as steep and wide as any place I have ever skied. I started on the southernmost slopes, Peak 10 and worked my way across the mountain.
The snow was absolutely perfect, especailly for spring. The base at Breck is 1000 feet higher than Vail, so this wasn't that much of a surprise. Other skiers were few and far between so I felt like I had the whole mountain to myself. It was also freezing cold, the sun tucked behind dense clouds, the snow lightly falling and the wind whipping over Lake Dillon and up the valley. The resort lived up to its nickname, "Breckenfridge", but I was prepared with longunderwear and a neck gator, and since the conditions were so excellent, I hardly noticed.
Breck is comprised of four major peaks, named numerically 7-10, with only seven being closed on this day (because of a race that I will get to later). Above the peaks on the extreme north side of mountain is Imperial Peak, serviced only by "The T-bar."
For those of you not in the know, a t-bar is a surface lift. It is shaped like an anchor which you stick behind your butt and it litterally drags your ass up the hill. Normally t-bars (if they are still around, most have been replaced by chairs) serve the flatest terrain, but not at Breck. At Breck it's the opposite. At Breck it's serves the severest, steepest expert terrain on the mountain. I have a few theories as to why this is, but the one that makes the most sense is that it's the surest way to keep idiot gapers off the top of the hill.
I travered to the t-bar with some trepidation because a) I was alone b) it's fucking steep c) there are no trees up there so there is absolutely no protection from the wind and d) I hadn't been on a t-bar in more than 15 years.
No matter. This was probably going to be my only chance to ski Breck so I sucked it up and went. Now the t-bar is no picnic. It's like riding a chair lift which is completely relaxing. It's work getting up the hill, even though the t-bar is doing most of the heavy lifting. You have the keep your skis pointed up the mountain and you thighs take a heavy beating especially if you get a bar that pulls one direction or the other. Then there's a 30 degree turn about a 1/4 of the way up which is no picnic. The top is so steep you're just hanging on for dear life and you reach the summit and you can let go of the t-bar it is with and incredible sense of relief that you made it. However that's nothing compared t the dozens of poor fuckers who were walking up beside me. That's right, walking.
There were several hundred hearty souls taking part in the Imperial Challenge, a grueling three-stage race testing competitors endurance as they bike and hike from the town of Breckenridge at 9600 feet to the top of Imperial Bowl on Peak 8 at 12,998 feet. The race warms up with a 10K mountain bike ride from the town across Peak 7 to Peak 8. Next comes a 2500 foot, wind testing ascent of Peak 8 to the top of Imperial Bowl, right past the t-bar. Last, racers descend to the base of Peak 8 on skis or a snowboard.
These poor people were suffering pretty hard by the time they got up to the t-bar. They were evenly divided between snowboard, alpine and nordic. Some had their skies or boards strapped to their backs, some used snowshoes, some telemarked their way up the slope. All were exhausted. The competitors were streched thin along the a line stetching from the base of the t-bar way above to Imperial Peak looking like marching ants as they hiked the last stretch to the snowy summit. I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. I would take the t-bar up, ski down, and on the subsequent ride up would pass the same racers again and again. It was tough to look at and inspiring at the same time.
The snow at the top was unbelievably good. It was powedery all over the place and you could find fresh trackless snow at the edges of the runs. But the several trips up the t-bar wore me down and I could only make 6 or 7 trips before my thighs told me it was time to take a break at the lower elevations, but not before I skied the steepest run I have ever been on in my life.
If you get off the t-bar an head to the right, there's a catwalk that turns into a single body wide track for several hundred meters and if you take it far enough, you will no skiers and completely untracked snow on grades that looked like 60%+, but it's hard to tell with you knees knocking and head pounding from fear. Or so the cowardly skiers tell me.
I found myself there, looking down the piste and thinking, what the fuck am I doing here. A few deep breaths and I plunged in. The snow was maybe five inches deep, but the pitch was so severe that I picked up speed like a rocket and could only manage three turns before I hit the bottom some 500 meters below going probably 50 miles an hour. Damn that was fun.
I went down to the bottom of Peak 8 to watch some of the racers finish and it was like there was a different microclimate down there. The sun was out, the mercury had risen well over 40 and the snow was turning into that corn meal consistency that I had come to know so well over the last weeks of the season at Vail.
I had gotten something like 17 runs in the morning. I only managed 8 more before I was totally drained and had to call it a day. But it was a great day.
On the last Friday of every month Jen performs at one of the local Middle Eastern restuarants, a place called El Morocco in nearby Pleasant Hill. When we were dating I would always go watch her and it was fun to sit back and see her entertain the crowd of diners.
After a winter snap that brought 2 feet of new snow over four days last week, spring has come back to wreak havoc on the bottom part of the mountian again. This shot of lower "Bwana" is from the base of Lionshead looking up along the route of the gondola. This run has been closed for more than a week, but it had been looking somewhat winter-like, but is now postively a disaster. It looks like some giant has been wiping his ass on the lower half of the mountain. It's really disgusting.
On Brian's last day at Vail, I had to work, which sucked, because the mountain was gloriously covered in 9 inches of spanking new snow and I wanted to do nothing more than ski all over the place. Instead we got only 2 runs in the morning before I had to photograph the 
My brother sent me a link to this 
