Breckenridge
Tuesday 4 January 2005

Weather

Story of the Day

With snow forecast all day, we decided to stay relatively close to our hotel, and returned to Breckenridge. I was suffering from a cold and sore throat and sore ribs. Chris was starting to come down with the same cold, so this was not going to be our best day ever. As we left the hotel, there was a light dusting of fresh snow on the ground.

A light dusting of snow on the ground

Much heavier snow on arrival at Breckenridge

We started the day skiing off the high speed 6 pack on Peak 7. Snow conditions were variable, with fresh snow falling. The snow was patchy. Riding the lift, we passed through snow showers.

Below Independence Chair

When we first skied across towards Peak 7, the T-Bar up to the highest point in the resort was closed. After three runs, we noticed that the indicator at the top of Independence suggested that it was open and one run down looked reasonably skiable. After some discussion, we decided to give it a try. Neither of us really likes T-Bar lifts, but we did want to go to the top at least once. As expected, the lift was hard work on the nears and the conditions at the top were pretty "primitive", with quite a lot of wind and a "wind groomed" slope. Visibility was poor and the surface, even on the groomed slope, was unpredictable. By the time we reached the bottom, we had no desire to repeat the experience and decided that a coffee break was called for to get warm.

Looking down Pika from the top of the T-Bar

Looking down Pika from the top of the T-Bar

After our coffee break, we decided to try to reach the highest point on Peak 8, up the slow twin chair 6. At the top we were lost in the mist and had to work pretty hard to find a route down. It was ungroomed but not too difficult.

An unidentified lift in the gloom

Chris on Lobo

That was enough challenge for a while, so we made our way over to Peak 10 for some cruising down the "blues". Fresh snow was making these runs a little harder work than they would normally be. After a couple of runs, we took the "extreme green" Lower Lehman down to the bottom.

I got tangled up in a heap of beginners at the top of the Quicksilver six pack. Someone got off the lift sideways and dropped onto the back of one of my skies. I stopped abruptly and fell which did not do my ribs much good at all. After a couple more cruises in the Peak 10 base area, we stopped for a while for lunch.

After lunch we headed back to Falcon lift on Peak 10. Here Chris and I split up. I wanted to do Cimarron; Chris didn't. Maybe he was the sensible one. The run was moguls top to bottom, complicated with snow making that produced piles of wet power at intervals down the slope. I made it down the moguls OK, but the discovered a long flat run out which required a lot of poling and stretched my ribs far too far. When I met Chris again at the bottom of the lift, we agreed that enough was enough. Conditions were getting worse and we weren't really enjoying ourselves. By the time we got back to our car it was 2:30, so we did have a reasonable day.

Lots of snow at the end of the day	Lots of snow at the end of the day
Lots of snow at the end of the day

Runs

Last updated: 19/05/2005