Poach Session.

Don't worry I don't mean poach as in poaching animals, I mean it the going on the mountain at night to take a run way.

Steamboat mountain has been blowing snow around the base of the mountain for quite some time now, but since we all were going up to Buff Pass, none of us had the idea to ride Steamboat yet. Since Buff is now inaccessible because of tons of snow and apparently a fallen tree (I haven't seen it for myself), some of us have been wanting to keep riding without having to drive two hours and pay $40. This is where the idea came from.

My friend Tyler and I both purchased skis and boots for $10 total (skis $1, boots $9) at the Ski Swap that was held at the Steamboat Elementary school about a month ago. Needless to say, we have been jonezing to ride them. Then yesterday, as we were taking in Bristol Hall with an epic view of the mountain out the window next to us, Tyler came out of nowhere with, "Let's go ski Steamboat tonight." Our friend Vince who was also with us thought this was a hilarious idea and said he would love to come with. After that I headed up to the library where I ran into fellow blogger Bobbie Jo and told her of our planned adventure and she was in too. Our crew was set.

After a day full of homework and resume finalizing to mail out to some back-up companies for SIA, I was more than ready to ride when the time rolled around. Tyler picked me up around 11:30pm to head to his place and get this adventure started. As a side note, we ended up going to the Meadows parking lot near the mountain where Tyler tried to teach my how to drive stick. It went pretty well but I have a long ways to go.

Anyway, after that, we met up with Bobbie Jo and Vince at one of the hotel parking lots up in Ski Time Square to get all our gear on and figure out the hike up to the snow. First, hiking in ski boots is awful, just awful. On top of that, we realized there is a dirt road we could have driven all the way up to the snow but we failed to realize this until we were a ways into the hike so we weren't about to turn around.

I have ridden man-made snow plenty of times in Minnesota, but not at midnight. This snow was wicked icy, lumpy, and full of weird trenches. Needless to say, being the inexperienced skiers that Tyler and I are, it was a bit tricky. We got it down pretty well, and I even hit a small kicker we found on one of the many rollers.

After we finally made it all the way down (which took about an hour), we had to make the trek back to the car. Thankfully the hike back was way easier, although it was still pretty rough in ski boots. By the time we made it back to the car, we were all exhausted and getting off the ski boots proved to be almost harder than hiking in them. So we drove off, feeling completely accomplished and stoked on what we just did.

I took a couple videos of this endeavor but unfortunately it was very dark so you might not be able to see to much but nonetheless, try to enjoy.

This first one is when we were at the start of our run looking down the icy slope.

This next video a glimpse at Tyler's first attempts at skiing in his life.


This final video is Vince throwing a 180 off one of the kickers we found.


So there you have it, hopefully you can kind of see these videos but that is a taste of some of the shenanigans you can enjoy when living near a mountain. Peace.