Summit County Shred.

Sorry for the lack of blogs recently but school hasn't been treating me too well time-wise, but I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you about the magic that's been happening in Summit County, CO. Over the past couple of weeks, some friends and I have been riding in Summit, so I thought I'd give you the low down on some adventures some of us here at the Alpine Campus have been having.

Adventure #1:
The first time I got to ride in Summit this year was last Wednesday when Tyler, Eli, and I decided it was time that I got my Summit Pass and that we rode some early season park. We began the day bright and early (and I actually mean bright and early, not just early for me) at 6:30am when Eli and I struggled to get ready in the dorms for Tyler to pick us up at 7. After arranging the boards in the front seat and cramming Eli and I into the back of Tyler's little Honda, we set off to ride.

The drive went very smoothly with a quick stop at McDonald's for some grub. Once we got there, I prepared myself for the huge hit to my bank account I was about to take. Even though $420 is a crazy good deal for getting unlimited riding at Keystone, Breckenridge, and A-Basin, I still don't enjoy spending that much money at one... but it's definitely worth it.

It felt great to finally be able to take a gondola up and take some actually long runs at a mountain again, not to mention Keystone has arguably the best park in Colorado. Unfortunately for us, the high schools in the area had this particular Wednesday off of school for Veteran's Day, so the mountain quickly became very, very crowded. After realizing just how many people were pouring into the lift line, we debated for a bit on what to do, and decided to go ride at A-Basin, which is only a few miles down the rode from Keystone and is covered by our Summit Passes.

This proved to be a very good idea. As we pulled in to the parking lot with a clear view of the lift, we could instantly tell we made the right choice just by the barely existent lift line. I will admit, A-Basin's park is very small, but still has some fun features that we lapped all day, and most definitely got more runs in than if we stayed at Keystone. So after an awesome day, we called it quits, grubbed at Burger King, and headed back to the Boat so Tyler could go to class and Eli could go to work.

Adventure #2:
The following Friday was our round 2 on Summit County, with high hopes it would be as fun as Wednesday... and it was. This time it was just Tyler and I who went since Eli was already in Summit with some friends of his, and thankfully we did not start out quite as early as the time before. Also, we had Tyler's Subaru this time, so needless to say we had a bit more room in the car.

The original plan was ride Keystone, since we figured a ton of people would still be in school and at work on a Friday, but unfortunately the parking was almost as full as Veterans Day. Upon seeing this, and remembering how much fun we had a A-Basin, we decided to head there again, and once again we were not disappointed to see short lift lines.

On this trip to A-Bay, we decided to head to the top, since they have a two chair lift open so people can take a run all the way down. This ended up being a very poor idea. The day was already pretty cold, and as soon as we started up the lift, the wind increased heavily and it felt like the temperature immediately dropped. Below is a little video intro we recorded while we were at the top to give you a better idea of the cold.

And as I said in the video, I did a little filming a Tyler riding as well as him filming me so here's a couple quick videos of us buttering our way down to the park.






Despite the cold the day ended up great, and the craziest part ended up being the drive home. Towards the end of the day, it started snowing pretty heavily, so needless to say the roads weren't the greatest for the drive. On the way, we saw a car go flying off the road, over a ditch, and through a barbwire fence, another car whose back-end was pretty much completely gone, and on top of that, we had a deer jump out in front of us, slip all over the ice and flop around for a bit, and end up taking off to the other side of the road. Thankfully for us and the deer, we saw them early so Tyler was driving very slowly and didn't end up hitting it. After that the drive was smooth until we got to Rabbit Ears Pass when we realized the roads were one solid sheet of ice. We ended up in a line of cars going at most 20 mph following a semi, but we had no problem with that since it was better than sliding off the road. So we eventually made it back to The Boat, ready for another adventure to Summit.

Adventure #3:
Just yesterday was my most recent adventure into Summit County for some shred. This time, Tyler, Eli, and I went with my roommate Bacon and his friend from back home Adrian. Adrian is on his way to Big Sky to work for Boyne Sports, so he made a weekend stop in Steamboat to hang out with Bacon and ride some Colorado mountains.

It all kicked off with some breakfast at the cafeteria and then cramming into Adrian's Forester for the drive. I slept for pretty much the whole ride so I assume it went smoothly. When we arrived, there was not a cloud in the sky, so we all geared up, getting more excited to ride. We saw a couple friends from CMC on the bus from the parking to the mountain which was pretty cool, and when we got to the base, we were stoked to see virtually no lift lines, so we could tell it was going to be a good day.

After a few laps through the park and down the long run they have open at Copper, we ended up having a rail session with some other students from CMC. Needless to say, a ton of students who are jonzing to ride at Steamboat spend their weekends riding somewhere in Summit County.

So after a long but really fun day in the park, we packed up the car once again, and headed out. On the way back, we stopped at a thrift store for ski and snowboard gear called Recycled Ski and Sport that Bacon had been telling us about for weeks, and it ended up being as awesome as he said it was. I bought a $200 Cappel jacket for only $50 because it had a couple rips and stains on it, so I was super stoked. After that, we grubbed out at the Safeway next door, and made the drive back to Steamboat. Once again, I slept the whole ride, but we made it back in one piece so I assume it went smoothly.

And there you have it, hopefully this gave you a little glimpse of the fun to be had all over Colorado and that it made you want to come to school out here even more. Peace.