Chalk Creek, Colorado - January 19, 2013

Law school roommate celebrated his 30th last weekend in Vail, CO - didn't take much arm twisting to get me to go along.  The last time I went skiing in Colorado was when I was about 8 years old - I wish I could dig up some pictures of me in that neon ski gear (with a head band!)  But the goal is to get readers to come back to this blog, so let's just say I conveniently can't find the evidence.

Anyway - given the average holiday weekend lift ticket at Vail is almost equal to the down payment I made on my condo, we decided to try and get into the back country while we were out there.  Since we had zero knowledge about the snow pack, we found ourselves a guide (plug for Apex - they did a pretty solid job) and headed to Chalk Creek, an area off of I-70 about 35 minutes south east of Vail.  Turns out the guide was pretty unnecessary - there was no snow pack so not much to be concerned about - but they at least showed us a solid area we never would have found otherwise, and one of the guides stories about being a heli-skiing guide in Alaska kept us pretty entertained, to say the least. 



The weather was beautiful - 35+ degrees and blue bird skies.  We hiked up from about 10,200 feet to about 11,000 feet, had lunch, did a half run, then hiked up to the top of a nearby peak at about 11,500 feet, and then headed back to the parking lot.  Other than a shattered rental AT binding from one of the guys in our group, the day was just about perfect (anti-plug for Alpine Quest Sports - total junk equipment and no flexibility on a refund).  Let's just say Kyle got his work out in for the day with all the boot packing at altitude.  Never been so happy to have skins before. 

One other cool thing worth pointing out - was able to dig a number of snow pits and get some practice with a number of tests, especially the propagation saw test.  In the process, we got our first real exposure to depth hoar - it really is like holding hundreds of tiny marbles that just slide off of one another.  Pretty amazing, and pretty scary as well.  You'll notice in the video link below there are a few times where I fall forward a bit, that's when I punched through the top surface and hit the depth hoar, which offers no resistance.  As a result, I bottomed out on the ground a couple of times (much to my amazement, and to the chagrin of the Mantras).

Anyway, here are a few pictures and my second go pro video.  Enjoy.  I have a few pics and a some video from Vail itself that I'll try to get up in the next few days.

I made a cute joke about Kyle's broken AT rental binding.  His twin brother pushed me in the snow.  Typical twin brother monkey business.

Onward and upward. 

Kyle enjoys a mid mountain snack.  He forgot his sun glasses. 

The twins.  Guess which one pushed me into the snow.

This is me.  Plug for Great Bay Masters all the way from Colorado.  Love the team.  Lap swimming doesn't compare to hiking in the CO back country though. 

Standard group summit shot.  

This is the twin that got tired from all of the boot packing.

Another summit shot.

Brandon looks happy. 



Kyle looks ... awesome.

Enjoy the video.  As mentioned previously, I'll try to put up some more footage from Vail itself and from Kyle's go pro in the next week or so.