Day 66: A Basin Skiin

I go to bed pretty early. Of course I have problems going to sleep. And I wake up a lot once I do sleep.  Part of this might be due to people being loud in the hall way. And next door.  People keep slamming their doors. They do this all night long. Jeeze! Don’t you ever sleep?  Oh well, I sleep well enough anyway.

I wake up and feel much better than last night. Maybe it was sleeping, however terribly I slept, or all the water I drank, or just having dinner. Who knows. Regardless, I again feel like my brain is attached to the rest of my body and not on vacation somewhere. That was weird. I mean I totally have days where I am not all there, but this was really extreme.

I am not in a huge hurry to hit the slopes today after my uninspiring runs last night. I shower to wash any remnants of smoking room smell off me and make some coffee. I always take my rings off to shower. They will fall off otherwise. I get out and put one of them on and then wander around with my coffee. I go back to dry my hair and see the other two sitting there. WTF? You would think it would be more efficient to just put them all on at the same time like I usually do. That’s how I lose things…. By changing up my routine.  This is why I don’t carry a purse and do my best to keep all critical items attached to me at all times.

Anyway, I manage to get all of my rings back on. I get on my ski gear and drink my coffee. By 11, I am out the door. I stop and get some fast food on the way. I arrive at Arapaho Basin 20 minutes later. Whee!!! My truck is so much fun to drive. And I am finally learning how to park it! The parking at this resort is free too! 

I get my gear on and head up to the mountain. Good, the snow is better than last night!  Still not amazing. Some powder would be nice. However, all I really want is a lack of ice. I do some runs and then find my way around to the back bowl of the mountain. From up here I can see Breckenridge and Keystone! There are so many resorts around here. I take some pictures.

I do a few runs on the back side and then decide to try some trees. I saw some people from the lift that looked like they were having fun in the trees. I go down the hill and enter the trees. I go for a bit until I find a roped off area below me. The only way to avoid the ropes is to go up. That is not happening. This is part of why trees suck. You never know what you are getting yourself into! That and if you mess up, you hit a tree. Ow.

I decide to go under the rope. Some ski areas are in national forests. This might be one of those. Going under the rope might be a bad idea…. I keep heading down the hill. There are fallen logs, bare spots, and rocks all over. This is how I ruin my skis…. I manage to avoid most of the obstacles as I slowly make my way down and back to the in-bounds area. I make it to the lift. Ok, I think this is enough of the back bowl.

As I ride the lift up, I see that they have opened the hiking areas of the back bowl. That should be some challenging stuff. I consider doing it for a while. Noooo, why hike when I can ride a chair lift?  I head back to the front side and explore the side of the mountain I have not yet. I find double black runs labeled “Extreme terrain”. Sounds good!  I do a few runs on that. They go pretty well but nothing too awfully inspiring. Some powder would be really nice… Oh well, I have gotten pretty lucky with powder days on my trip! I really can’t complain! About 2:30, I decide to head off for the day. Well, it was a short day but oh well.

I stop at a fire station on the way back to the hotel. They have no patches but their admin office by my hotel should. I make a short detour to the admin office and get a patch! I am up to 10. Not bad. I probably get one patch for every 2 or 3 stations I stop at. I head back to the hotel and try to decide what to do.

It is a really pretty day out and I really just want to sit outside somewhere. I decide to ask at the front desk. “Hi, is there anywhere I can just sit outside?” The girl tells me they have benches outside. Not quite what I had in mind. I clarify. I want to go somewhere and just enjoy the weather and like read a book outside or something. She recommends a bar down the road. I decide to give up on that goal and go find a post office and get stamps to mail my post cards instead. I bought 50 stamps in Lake Tahoe. They are long gone. I have probably sent almost 70 post cards over the course of this trip. Not too bad!! I find a post office, buy some stamps, and drop them in the mail.

It is almost 4. Not dinner time yet but I am hungry. I decide to find some food. I stop at the Silverthrone Ice Castle on the way. I have no idea what it is but I saw it from the side of the road and it looked interesting. I pull up. A family is standing near where I park and just stares at me as I park (I do a good job this time!) and get out of my truck. Hellooo? I am here and can see you staring at me. I ignore them and walk around them to the entrance.

Some of the ice castle

The entire thing is melting like crazy. It is 40 to 50 degrees out. Maybe warmer. Bummer. As I walk, I read signs about it. The whole thing is someone’s artwork. It is made entirely of icicles that have fused together through freezing and thawing. There are also lights inside of the ice to light it up at night. I bet that is cool! Apparently, every day they add more icicles to it so it is constantly changing. Prettyyy cool.

From inside

Artistic Shot! I like the water droplets myself :) Not bad for an iphone!

To give a better description, the thing is probably 15 feet tall in places and covers a hundred square feet or so. There are inside passages that people can walk through. I spend some time taking some artistic pictures of it…. I might be getting good at this whole artistic photo thing!

I then set off to the Dam Brewery. Jason had mentioned that it was pretty good and it is close to the hotel. 4:30... yeahhh, that is dinner time, right? I am going to be hungry later tonight probably. Oh well.

I walk in. Mmmmmm, the smell of spent grain! Yum! I sit at the bar. I order some of their beer and a French dip. They are out of their wheat beer and have no porter so I get the stout. The beer is pretty tasty I must say. My food comes. The guy sitting next to me asks how it is. Apparently he works in the kitchens here. Before we get too far into conversation, he accidently knocks over his beer. This ended our brief conversation. I eat the rest of my food and pull out my phone and start playing words with friends. He again starts a conversation with me about my phone. He just got an iPhone. I am mildly confused by him. He seems to want to talk but every time he starts a conversation it ends pretty quickly. This is not how this usually works. I finish playing my turns on words with friends, pay, wish the guy a nice rest of the day, and head back to the hotel.

I get back and it isn’t even 6. What am I going to do all night?? I have been inspired to compile a glossary of skiing and snowboarding terms. I have been teaching people the skills of skiing lately. May as well give them a guide to the lingo. Most of it is pretty straight forward. Some of it not so much.  I start making a list and defining terms. Kinda fun and amusing. I also browse the internet some. Upload some Facebook photos, browse my truck forums, etc. I go to put my photos from the last few days on my computer. I notice that all my pictures from A Bain are gone! Boo. I took some cool ones with the three resorts in the pictures. Oh well. I guess I have planty of skiin pictures. Eventually, the internet stops working. Damn. This is going to make blogging hard later.

I decide to resume my term defining later and hit up the hot tub. Maybe the internet will be working when I get back. The hot tub/pool area is full of little kids. Not so relaxing. They are running around like little kids do. I sit in the hot tub for not very long before deciding it is way too hot for me and I don’t have much incentive to stay in it. Ok, enough of that. Back to the room!

I rinse off in the shower and put on my pajamas. I have a text from Jason. He is planning to come out to the mountain tomorrow and stay in his timeshare overnight. Sweet! I have a riding buddy and a place to stay tomorrow!! Unfortunately, the internet is still not cooperating. Oh well, time to blog in word and upload it later!