abc
Well-known member
I was supposed to fly back from Denver to JFK on Sunday, Jan 5. But when I turn on my phone at the end of the day Sunday, there were one voice mail, one txt and one e-mail of each from Jet Blue. All telling me my flight was cancelled!
:-o
Not that I was all that surprised. The storm had totally screwed up all flight schedules and every airline were affected. Earlier in the day, I checked to see what my options were in case my flight were cancelled. And was alarmed to find no seats available till Wednesday!
Now that my fear had become reality, I was stucked ... of all places, in Summit County, Colorado!
The phone messages saved me from the 2hr traffic jam on I-70 back to Denver on a Sunday afternoon. There's only one thing to do: get prepared to ski 3 more days!
I wasn't overly thrilled by that prospect. Why? You see, I've been skiing non-stop for 10 days straight by that point. And at least 3 or 4 of those were powder days. I feared it's hard to top those. Plus, all my friends were going back to work and I'd be by myself on an empty mountain...wait, empty mountain... we pay extra for that! hmmm...
It had started to snow late Saturday and continued all day on Sunday. By then, there were a good 6-8 inches fresh snow and not too many people had skied it. (Sunday was bitterly cold and blowing snow so many of the holiday crowd had stayed away)
So I found a cheap place at Frisco to stay the night. Because I was still trying to get back to NY before Wednesday, it means I was only booking one night at a time, which means I would be packing and unpacking each and every day. I was out of clean clothes, and more importantly clean socks. So laundry in the sink was in order. Hair dryer double as clothing dryer.
Monday dawn bright and sunny, a blue bird day! I pulled into the parking lot at 10 o'clock and it wasn't even half full. :roll:Everyone else was either back at work, or probably camping at Denver airport waiting to get a seat to fly home. One of my close friend works for Jet Blue and told me there would be no flights on Monday as they re-shuffle their planes and crews back to a decent location to re-start their operation. So no need to waste time to fight for seats that doesn't exist. Tuesday would be the earliest I could even try to get out anyway. Today will be a 100% focus on skiing!
Booting up in the center village locker room, I got into a quick conversation with 2 other skiers also getting ready to head up. One of them was a local and a telemarker. She invited me to take a few runs together. Figuring she must know where the good snow usually are, I gladly accepted.
The groomers all got a think carpet of snow on them. It's hard to choose which one to cruise on. Just let the ski go where it's pointed! Pure bliss! After a few "warm-up" runs, we headed to the top. Some of the bowls were still not open. They were still blasting the slopes. Never mind the cat. We dropped into Copper bowl. That turned out to be nothing but wind crust. So we worked our way east to Resolution and Alpine lift. That's where we found limitless soft snow, either untouched or pushed into baby bumps. "Like skiing cream cheese" as one woman puts it!
No liftline to speak of. It's always ski right on. Lunch time we had the table to ourselves. By 3 o'clock, the non-stop skiing had done their job on our legs. We reluctantly call it a day and turn our back to the still spinning chairs and empty runs.
After the skiing, we went out for a drink (I bought for my "guide"). And I was invited to go back country cross country skiing the next day if my seats doesn't magically materialize.
After shower and some more in-the-sink laundry, I place a call to Jet Blue and sat down for a long hold. 55 minutes later, I got a seat on the Tuesday night flight back to the east coast. That still left me plenty of time to do that back country skiing during the day. I went to bed a happy camper.
The next day, we headed out at some civiliezd hour (I took the chance to start packing to get prepared for the evening flight) and at a leasurely pace up a wide gulley between Keystone and A-basin. It was just the right slope for our skis to just slide up without having to harringbone. With peaks all around us all bathed in glorious sunshine and white clumps of snow on the evergreen. It was just picture perfect. Along the way, my friendly guide share story of local history, and also pointed out all the lines high up on the slope that can be skied when condition is right. Plus a couple of avalanche path to avoid, I wouldn't have regconized them on my own.
We climbed for about 2 hrs until it starts to get steeper and narrower. Since neither of us bought our avalanche kit, we turned around and enjoy the easy downward slide on soft fluffy snow! All in all, a very enjoyable day and I got a lot more than just skiing out of it.
My friend at Jet Blue just e-mail me to send in my hotel bill for those 2 days and the rental car receipt. Looks like I'm likely to get those reimbursed. So free skiing for 2 days. Sweet lemonade!
:-o
Not that I was all that surprised. The storm had totally screwed up all flight schedules and every airline were affected. Earlier in the day, I checked to see what my options were in case my flight were cancelled. And was alarmed to find no seats available till Wednesday!
Now that my fear had become reality, I was stucked ... of all places, in Summit County, Colorado!The phone messages saved me from the 2hr traffic jam on I-70 back to Denver on a Sunday afternoon. There's only one thing to do: get prepared to ski 3 more days!
I wasn't overly thrilled by that prospect. Why? You see, I've been skiing non-stop for 10 days straight by that point. And at least 3 or 4 of those were powder days. I feared it's hard to top those. Plus, all my friends were going back to work and I'd be by myself on an empty mountain...wait, empty mountain... we pay extra for that! hmmm...
It had started to snow late Saturday and continued all day on Sunday. By then, there were a good 6-8 inches fresh snow and not too many people had skied it. (Sunday was bitterly cold and blowing snow so many of the holiday crowd had stayed away)
So I found a cheap place at Frisco to stay the night. Because I was still trying to get back to NY before Wednesday, it means I was only booking one night at a time, which means I would be packing and unpacking each and every day. I was out of clean clothes, and more importantly clean socks. So laundry in the sink was in order. Hair dryer double as clothing dryer.
Monday dawn bright and sunny, a blue bird day! I pulled into the parking lot at 10 o'clock and it wasn't even half full. :roll:Everyone else was either back at work, or probably camping at Denver airport waiting to get a seat to fly home. One of my close friend works for Jet Blue and told me there would be no flights on Monday as they re-shuffle their planes and crews back to a decent location to re-start their operation. So no need to waste time to fight for seats that doesn't exist. Tuesday would be the earliest I could even try to get out anyway. Today will be a 100% focus on skiing!
Booting up in the center village locker room, I got into a quick conversation with 2 other skiers also getting ready to head up. One of them was a local and a telemarker. She invited me to take a few runs together. Figuring she must know where the good snow usually are, I gladly accepted.
The groomers all got a think carpet of snow on them. It's hard to choose which one to cruise on. Just let the ski go where it's pointed! Pure bliss! After a few "warm-up" runs, we headed to the top. Some of the bowls were still not open. They were still blasting the slopes. Never mind the cat. We dropped into Copper bowl. That turned out to be nothing but wind crust. So we worked our way east to Resolution and Alpine lift. That's where we found limitless soft snow, either untouched or pushed into baby bumps. "Like skiing cream cheese" as one woman puts it!
No liftline to speak of. It's always ski right on. Lunch time we had the table to ourselves. By 3 o'clock, the non-stop skiing had done their job on our legs. We reluctantly call it a day and turn our back to the still spinning chairs and empty runs.
After the skiing, we went out for a drink (I bought for my "guide"). And I was invited to go back country cross country skiing the next day if my seats doesn't magically materialize.
After shower and some more in-the-sink laundry, I place a call to Jet Blue and sat down for a long hold. 55 minutes later, I got a seat on the Tuesday night flight back to the east coast. That still left me plenty of time to do that back country skiing during the day. I went to bed a happy camper.
The next day, we headed out at some civiliezd hour (I took the chance to start packing to get prepared for the evening flight) and at a leasurely pace up a wide gulley between Keystone and A-basin. It was just the right slope for our skis to just slide up without having to harringbone. With peaks all around us all bathed in glorious sunshine and white clumps of snow on the evergreen. It was just picture perfect. Along the way, my friendly guide share story of local history, and also pointed out all the lines high up on the slope that can be skied when condition is right. Plus a couple of avalanche path to avoid, I wouldn't have regconized them on my own.
We climbed for about 2 hrs until it starts to get steeper and narrower. Since neither of us bought our avalanche kit, we turned around and enjoy the easy downward slide on soft fluffy snow! All in all, a very enjoyable day and I got a lot more than just skiing out of it.
My friend at Jet Blue just e-mail me to send in my hotel bill for those 2 days and the rental car receipt. Looks like I'm likely to get those reimbursed. So free skiing for 2 days. Sweet lemonade!
