Vail
So... Vail, the Valhalla for skiiers and boarders (as was quoted from Fodor's guide to the Rocky Mountains), what more can I say? With 5268 acres of mounatin space, 34 lifts, and 16" of snow in the past 7 days, Vail is well... Vail. It is in a class by itself. It has a plethora of off track, unmarked trails. It has plenty of blacks and double blacks to break your neck on. Basically, if I could spend a season there I would. So, interesting story time, or will I continue to rant? Ok, story time:
When we last left Colorado, my lungs were burning with the fury of a Texas brush fire. We made our trek to Vail, a mere half an hour from the 3K site. We were scheduled to stay with friends in the Valley. Once we arrived in Vail, we (Sweet) had already called our people three times to no avail. So, we did what any tired travelers would do after running a 3K race and then walking an additional 3K in snowshoes and freezing in the 15 degree weather without warm beverages, we went to the marquee business operation for the United States: Safeway. Okay, we went to the Safeway b/c there was a Starbucks inside. (It's Vail, there's a Starbucks everywhere. They served Starbucks at the lodges on top of the mountain for Pete's sake.) So, we drank our assorted caffeinated beverages and waited. We waited, and waited, and then avoided some psycho girl that Sweet knew, and waited some more. Sweet continually called our hook up and the messages got funnier. It was reminiscent of Office Space when Lumberg continually calls Peter. We also witnessed some guy running his business, whatever it might be, from the Starbucks portion of Safeway. That or he was buying illegal goods, but that could have been his business. So I'm not sure. I digress (you can tell I've been hanging out with DLMWS, my stories seem to ramble for hours. Here is a real aside, Sweet told a story that I swear was 15 mintues long. Then he retold the same story that night. We all gave him blank stares for the second time around).
So, we finally arrive where we are staying for the night: an amazing house in West Vail with 6 or 7 bedrooms and a bathroom every 10 feet. This house was pimp. So, we walk in the front door and are met by a cloud of some herbal smell. Now, I won't say what the smell eminated from, but it rhymes with "mead". I saw the bag of "mead," and it looked like a giant "mead" popsicle. It was probably close to a QP, for those of you who know what that is. So, we hung out and ate at the "mead house" and finally passed out, only to wake up to loud music and carousing at 1 AM ish. I felt like I was back in pledgeship when people would come through the cold dorm at 3AM drunk and loud. So, a brief smile crept onto my face. It quickly faded as I passed out again.
I awoke to the sound of a phone ringing, only to realize it was my own. I didn't get to it in time, but I did see who it was and wondered why said person was calling. Congrats Mike. Biz is awesome. Another one bites the dust. There are still 11 of us hanging tough. (13 if you count the MIAs) Keep strong fellas.
So, fast forward to us on the mountain. It was all good, until we got to the back bowls and realized that a cloud had settled on the mountain. Visibility: poor. We also had to get to the other side of the mountain to get to the bowls that we wanted to ski. So, we had to go down a run to get us to the other side. Easy right? No, we chose a black with multiple mogul runs with 4 inches of powder covering icy moguls. Oh, and we couldn't see 100 ft. due to the fog. So, we got down after many trials and tribulations. Yes, I hit the ground more than Paris Hilton's underwear on Valentine's Day. It was not pretty, but we made it.
For the next 2 hours we had some good runs. Pynner and I decided to hit the head and wait for Spoo and Sweet to finish a run or two. So, we treked to the lodge only to discover that it was in a white-out. We lunched and decided to head down the mountain (some people had soccer games to play). So, outside the lodge the visibility was 100 ft. We got to the first run and the visibility was 75 ft. On the way down, the visibility got to 50 ft. Suddenly we were in the middle of a blizzard trying to navi down a run that we can't see. We hardly saw each other. It honestly looked as if we skiied into a bottle of white-out. There was no color separation: all white. (So basically Sweet was right at home. Aryans...)
We hurried down the mountain, took some pics, and loaded up cars, only to run into bumper to bumper traffic all the way to Denver. A normal 90 minute drive took approx. 4 hours. On the bright side, Sweet and I got a healthy dose of exhaust for a couple hours and got cut-off by a guy who had "I kill Tail-Gaters" on his bumper. How fitting. Then Tiny danced on him.
Conditions: hey, my lungs don't hurt as bad, but I still have something living in them.
Music: Against Me!
When we last left Colorado, my lungs were burning with the fury of a Texas brush fire. We made our trek to Vail, a mere half an hour from the 3K site. We were scheduled to stay with friends in the Valley. Once we arrived in Vail, we (Sweet) had already called our people three times to no avail. So, we did what any tired travelers would do after running a 3K race and then walking an additional 3K in snowshoes and freezing in the 15 degree weather without warm beverages, we went to the marquee business operation for the United States: Safeway. Okay, we went to the Safeway b/c there was a Starbucks inside. (It's Vail, there's a Starbucks everywhere. They served Starbucks at the lodges on top of the mountain for Pete's sake.) So, we drank our assorted caffeinated beverages and waited. We waited, and waited, and then avoided some psycho girl that Sweet knew, and waited some more. Sweet continually called our hook up and the messages got funnier. It was reminiscent of Office Space when Lumberg continually calls Peter. We also witnessed some guy running his business, whatever it might be, from the Starbucks portion of Safeway. That or he was buying illegal goods, but that could have been his business. So I'm not sure. I digress (you can tell I've been hanging out with DLMWS, my stories seem to ramble for hours. Here is a real aside, Sweet told a story that I swear was 15 mintues long. Then he retold the same story that night. We all gave him blank stares for the second time around).
So, we finally arrive where we are staying for the night: an amazing house in West Vail with 6 or 7 bedrooms and a bathroom every 10 feet. This house was pimp. So, we walk in the front door and are met by a cloud of some herbal smell. Now, I won't say what the smell eminated from, but it rhymes with "mead". I saw the bag of "mead," and it looked like a giant "mead" popsicle. It was probably close to a QP, for those of you who know what that is. So, we hung out and ate at the "mead house" and finally passed out, only to wake up to loud music and carousing at 1 AM ish. I felt like I was back in pledgeship when people would come through the cold dorm at 3AM drunk and loud. So, a brief smile crept onto my face. It quickly faded as I passed out again.
I awoke to the sound of a phone ringing, only to realize it was my own. I didn't get to it in time, but I did see who it was and wondered why said person was calling. Congrats Mike. Biz is awesome. Another one bites the dust. There are still 11 of us hanging tough. (13 if you count the MIAs) Keep strong fellas.
So, fast forward to us on the mountain. It was all good, until we got to the back bowls and realized that a cloud had settled on the mountain. Visibility: poor. We also had to get to the other side of the mountain to get to the bowls that we wanted to ski. So, we had to go down a run to get us to the other side. Easy right? No, we chose a black with multiple mogul runs with 4 inches of powder covering icy moguls. Oh, and we couldn't see 100 ft. due to the fog. So, we got down after many trials and tribulations. Yes, I hit the ground more than Paris Hilton's underwear on Valentine's Day. It was not pretty, but we made it.
For the next 2 hours we had some good runs. Pynner and I decided to hit the head and wait for Spoo and Sweet to finish a run or two. So, we treked to the lodge only to discover that it was in a white-out. We lunched and decided to head down the mountain (some people had soccer games to play). So, outside the lodge the visibility was 100 ft. We got to the first run and the visibility was 75 ft. On the way down, the visibility got to 50 ft. Suddenly we were in the middle of a blizzard trying to navi down a run that we can't see. We hardly saw each other. It honestly looked as if we skiied into a bottle of white-out. There was no color separation: all white. (So basically Sweet was right at home. Aryans...)
We hurried down the mountain, took some pics, and loaded up cars, only to run into bumper to bumper traffic all the way to Denver. A normal 90 minute drive took approx. 4 hours. On the bright side, Sweet and I got a healthy dose of exhaust for a couple hours and got cut-off by a guy who had "I kill Tail-Gaters" on his bumper. How fitting. Then Tiny danced on him.
Conditions: hey, my lungs don't hurt as bad, but I still have something living in them.
Music: Against Me!
posted by runrMD08 at 5:37 AM
1 Comments:
Dr. Ray.
a fantastic post! one for the record books. it has mystery, danger, illicit drugs, and my many initials.
photos coming soon.
keep up the good work.
-DLMWS
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