Riding The Boat Once Again.

Today was my first full day back at Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus here in Steamboat Springs, and naturally it was spent on the mountain.

After passing out early from a long day spent getting here (which I'll post about soon), I woke up around 10:30 after a great night sleep ready to ride. My buddy Nate and I hit some breakfast consisting of some not very missed cafeteria food, jumped on the Yellow Line bus, and were on our way.

We didn't get to the mountain until around noon, but since neither of us were used to the epic runs Colorado has to offer, we were there in plenty of time. We started the day off right by taking the gondola up to mid mountain, then cruising down a run to another lift to take us up to the peak. As it turned out however, this was not the best idea. Down in town it was snowing nicely, which, as we soon realized, meant it was insanely foggy, windy, and snowy at the peak. With our faces frozen, we made our way downhill as fast as someone could who can only see 15-20 or so feet in front of them. However, fighting through the rough weather payed off because we ended up at a lift that took us to one of the funnest parts of the day; the roller mini-park.

We must have taken at least 7 or 8 runs through, throwing as many little spins and butters as we could, as well as riding some powder on the sides of the track. From there, we decided to make our way to the bigger terrain parks Steamboat has to offer. On the way there, we took a super fun run called Broadway, which has some fun banks and hips all the way down it, and even though it made my calves burn like no other, it was well worth it.

We then came upon a pretty empty main park consisting of only a few features, but there was a pretty fun flat box that we hit a few times. From the main park, you can continue down the same run to another mini park in the front that actually has some mini features such as some short flat boxes, mini pole jam, and a few smaller but still fun jumps. After taking some more main/mini park runs, we decided to head back to the roller park. We of course had forgotten about the fact that we needed to head back up to the peak to do so.

We jumped on the gondola and back to the first lift we took and were once again amongst the fog, wind, and snowfall. However, this time did not go so smoothly. We of course found the park by shear accident the first time, so now that I knew where we were trying to get, I screwed it up. I ended up going right too early because I still coudln't see a thing in front of me. After taking the longest, bumpiest, and most tiring run of my life, I realized I had ended up at the wrong lift. After a few phone calls back and forth with Nate, trying to figure out where we both were, we met up and decided to just head back down, since it was getting toward closing. We took the Elkhead lift back to mid mountain, and cruised back down to the main park. After a run through that, a few laps through the front mini park, and one final run through the main park, we called it a day, mostly because all the lifty's told us to.

After we were off the mountain and headed toward the bus was when we realized just how exhausted we were. This made the hour bus ride back to school even worse. It definitely doesn't normally take an hour but we left when the mountain was closing so there was a lot of people crowding on and off.

That night was a lot of fun getting to see everyone I missed over winter break and after a night of cathcing up about everyone's life, I passed out once again, getting ready to ride again the next day.