Day 11 - 1/30/10 - Steamboat Mountain

"When it comes to skiing, there's a difference between what you think it's going to be like, what it's really like, and what you tell your friends it was like." ~Author Unknown

Today is Saturday January 30th and you can tell it is just going to be one of those days that you want to tell everyone about. It's the weekend, the weather is nice and we have a good day on the mountain ahead of us. Let's jump right into some video. Sorry, but today's videos will not have the music mixed in; I'll try and get that done in the next couple posts. Things started off a little on the crazy side. Just the way I like it. I was going to use a quote on courage today to lead into these next three videos, but I will explain instead. We decided to be brave and go down a double black diamond (extreme terrain) trail called No Name. No Name is part of the Steamboat Mountain called Morningside. In order to get to No Name you have to hike about a quarter of a mile up a trail. With some varying levels of ability amongst our group, as well as varying levels of craziness, we did not put too much thought into this move. It is hard to tell by the video, but this area was VERY steep. Try and focus on the trees in the videos and you may get a little perspective. They are nearly parallel to the land/slope, instead of perpendicular to land like most trees. So this video, of KC M., ended up being a popular way amongst us all (including me) in how to approach getting down No Name http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSstu5oHbKw&feature=related. It simply had to be done. This area was no joke and were there more snowfall in this area, our groups' "slide on your ass" technique would have very likely caused an avalanche!! Better safe than sorry and the good news is we all made it. Here's a shot of Tim H. getting into a groove in the No Name area. It's as if the angle of my video is staring straight up the mountain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbn6FNuEqXU&feature=related. And finally, here's a shot of my final descent down No Name. I end up in a very cool wide open area with lots of fresh snow. It was so fresh that if you took a break and fell in it, as Jon P. demonstrates at the end, it's hard to get up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sVws8IvLDw

This last video is of me trying to video as much of the group as I can. This area is where No Name ends (and flattens out) into and area called Big Meadow. This was great wide open terrain that had fresh tracks and spread out trees that we could all handle. In the video most every one's description (jacket colors) are the same from the previous Day 10 blog. I also have to add that Chris C., in his first day on the mountain, was too far ahead of us to make the video. Here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4vz2CNypqU

Steve P. decided to travel to Winter Park to visit a friend and do some back country skiing. This is the reason you did not see his moves in the videos. Back country skiing is the pursuit of fresh fallen snow in an inhabitable area. Most mountains here in Colorado have it, you just have to know the area well enough to 1) find it, and 2) be smart enough to not get lost in it. Steve is smart and he has a new pair of skis that will make his journey more bearable. The skis have both downhill and tele-marking (like cross country) capability via a binding that can lock and unlock to give you both. Pretty cool and Steve had a good day.

We had a nice evening sunset on our hands (see picture above, taken from our condo deck) and Steve did make it back for the evening plan. That plan was to spend some time in the town center i.e. travel off the mountain about 3 miles to all the restaurants, shops, bars. We went to a place named 8th Street Steakhouse. We we're all looking forward to a nice prepared steak dinner. We had most of it right....except we would be the ones preparing the steak! Interesting concept. Basically, you pick your cut out of a temp controlled display case. They have everything from Filet to NY Strip to Bone-In Ribeye. They also have Buffalo which the in house cook/consultant said was tender but a bit sweeter than beef. Sorry to the Vegetarians here. Anyway you pick your cut, in-house cook/consultant tells you how to cook it to your liking (basically he tells you the time per side) and you bring it over to a huge grill that everyone in the place is flipping steaks and sauteing vegetables on. I'll say this. For not expecting we had to cook our meal, everything turned out great and I have to admit it did make it taste that much better. We also came to the conclusion that one of these restaurant concepts may not work too well in Boston. Too many steak places there that do it for you and likely do it better.

Our last spot was a place called the Boathouse. This place had a live band, but all in all it was uneventful and no good story came out of it. We made our way home and Saturday night in Steamboat Springs CO came to an end. On many levels, this was a memorable day that will lead to an uneventful tomorrow.