Powder Days

I went up to Breck today for what turned out to be a heck of a day of skiing. As the photo below shows, the day started off quite well. This rainbow was actually almost nearly a full circle once the sun rose a little more. There was an arc that went from mountain peak all around the hazy, morning sun and on around to the next peak. I tried to capture the whole thing on film, but the sun was too bright at the center of the frame for the shot to come out.

We were on the mountain about ten minutes after opening and headed straight for the t-bar above Peak 8. The very top brought us to wide-open fields of powder. It was really the first time that I have ever skiied in that much fresh snow. The snow was waist deep in certain patches, but for the most part I would guess there was 6-10 inches of powder. I skiied with some folks who were really good boarders and skiers. Following them over and over definitely pushed me to ski harder than I would have probably pushed myself on my own. The top third of the mountain was fields of powder with plenty of drops, leaps, trees, and jumps for the experts to display their skills on. Then the bottom two thirds was a long, fast (mainly) groomed run with lots of rolling little hills that let even me catch some air. We repeated the process all the way from top to the bottom over and over.

But it wasn't all perfect. It was overcast all day to the point that we were skiing through clouds a good part of the day. And it was cold. Really cold. On the t-bar, once we got up to the tree line, the wind blew hard. It was so cold that any exposed skin burned when the wind hit. But it was worth it.



Jonathan 12/19/2002 11:13:00 PM