Xena in the USA trip report

[Xena]

Day 1. Flew to LAX, checked in to Hilton and went straight out to Universal Studios. We had front of line passes, so it was VIP treatment all day, no waiting, which meant we got to see every show and do every ride.

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We were exhausted at the end of the day. IMO, Six Flags at Valencia is far better, but we like big rollercoasters!! (went to Six Flags in 2008 with the kids).

Day 2. Flew to Denver, hired our skis (half the price from Denver and can take them to all the resorts we are going to and drop them off at the last resort.) transferred out to Breckenridge. What a pretty little town! We started our altitude sickness prevention adjustment strategy (ASPS) - hydrate, no caffeine, no alcohol and visited the Oxygen Bar for some good air. Warrior Prince can't believe we not only buy water in bottles but now we buy air! ASPS finished an hour later when we found this -:

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It could have been worse, we found this too (but restrained ourselves and didn't go in) -:

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Day 3. We were a little depressed about the lack of good snow, but excited to ski nevertheless. We were impressed that less than a metre here is much different to less than a metre in Oz. We skied Breck blues and surprised ourselves at how well we could do the blacks - our skiing has progressed! My girlfriend suffered all day with nausea and vomited, also had a nose bleed - altitude takes some getting use to, but she assured us she was not needing medical attention just yet and did recover quite a bit by dinner time, which is when I started to feel it with the nausea.

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[Vet]

I bought a frypan! Yes, I have clearly been altitude affected buying a frypan, WTF???

Crikey Xena - Mr Xena was going to get you a frying pan for your Anniversary.

[chunky]

+1 and I suffered the altitude stuff. It didn't help that we both got acute bronchitis as well and had to go on antibiotics. We stayed in Keystone when we skiied Summit County and loved all the resorts in the area. Hope it snows big soon. It can all turn around with just one of their storms.

The night skiing at Keystone would be like skiing Thredbo at night. It has sooo much terrain available and makes for a very long day of sliding.

Hurry up with those pics ;)

[Legolas]

Yay x. Hope your tummy is feeling better soon...I don't recall nausea with altitude sickness...but it's possibly different for some. Sounds to me like your going hard too...you'd prolly be right as rain if you had just one early night! Says she who doesn't have a hill full of snow and a village full of bars and dining ... And shopping... At her doorstep!,

[Jahoota]

sounds like a little bit of a shakey start (with nausea and iplod). I reckon you'll be in the groove by day 5!

[Paul Oberin]

You picked the highest resort in the USA to start with, we usually pick a slightly lower one like Winter park to acclimatise to the alititude first up, early nights, drink twice as much water as you would normally, no alcohol and don't ski too hard first day or 2.
I hope you start to feel better soon, I hear snow is coming next weekend.

[Xena]

Day 4. We were woken very early by alarms going off and then a loss of power to half the town, due to what the news reports described as hurricane force winds of over 125 mph. The resort was closed and most shops could not provide food. So, we went to Silverthorne for some outlet shopping. I bought some jeans, shoes and a frypan! Yes, I have clearly been altitude affected buying a frypan, WTF??? Still feeling some nausea, is it altitude or am I getting a flu? As it was New Years Eve, we hit the streets and found a quiet, little divey American pub for a drink. Within a half hour it got packed, we had struck up fantastic conversation with some locals and didn't want to leave.

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They love Aussies over here, so we were very popular - I was particularly popular on the dance floor with some toy boys, as all the young girls were too busy texting about what a great time they were going to have if they ever got off their phone. Reluctantly we left to go to the number 1 rated restaurant (on tripadvisor) for some fine dining. I had only had 2 drinks, so could appreciate the whole thing, except that my nausea and indigestion menat I could not drink anything but water and couldn't eat my $90 meal. The men were a bit messy and a tad embarassing, but who cares, we enjoyed our American NYE.

Day 5. The three inches that yesterday had was all but wind affected, but better than nothing. We skied Breck blacks and moguls and decided that we've done all that is open (no bowls and no double blacks which we are now keen to try) so will go to Keystone tomorrow. Still nauseated, so soup is all I could stomach. After skiing tomorrow, we will transfer to Vail and I am hoping to feel better and more altitude adjusted ( the question is - as I took a four day course of doctor prescribed Diamox for altitude sickness prevention, am I sick from the meds or sick from altitude and lucky I took the meds or I would have been much worse?

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Day 6. We skied Keystone. Warmed up on a black, boy we have come such a long way. We skied all of Keystone in a day (that was open of course). All the people who work there were so friendly and fell over themselves to be nice, it was such a lovely place, just a pity there was only 2 black runs open. At any rate, we thoroughly enjoyed the long steep well groomed runs. They sure know how to make and groom snow here.
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I am feeling a lot better today, but now my nose has gone haywire, winter doesn't agree with me, but skiing does, so suck it up Warrior Princess! Transferred to Vail after skiing. Tivoli Lodge is very nice indeed. Went out for dinner, where I decided to make like an American and eat buffalo chicken wings with a beer. Ouch, the hot wings hurt my dry cracked lips and my nose is still burning in the chaffed spots!! My second option was a baby spinach salad, if only I had given in to the rabbit food yearning.

[Xena]

Day 7. Vail is massive. We would love to see this place with oodles of snow instead of the crap we have. It is so disappointing to see this magnificent resort with almost very black run closed. No bowls, basically only beginner runs and a few blues, hard packed and lots of rocks coming through. We skied all day anyway, but can you believe we covered it all and are bored enough to want to go to Beaver Creek tomorrow? Feeling better with the altitude, but now have a flu setting in, so I drowned that with a martini at the Tap Room. One martini and I am a bit messy! Warrior Prince had to undress me and set me up with the iPad in bed, so sorry, but no photos again! I did earlier download some of the photos from my first post though when WP gave up the laptop for a little while, but then WP got bored and I got distracted by him - he had a very compelling argument for distraction, no words were necessary! ;) Vail Village is very pretty, but also very expensive!

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[Polaris]

So no back bowls at all Xena?.... Front side only?

That's a shame, the back bowls ARE Vail

but in saying that, if things are like that at Vail, I doubt Beaver Creek would be any better and I'd lay a bet even worse!!!
Just go for a drive/bus ride and get a photo outside the grog store at Beaver.... everybody does it ;)

[chunky]

My first real try at powder skiing was at those back bowls at Vail.

[absentskier]

Actually on another forum a few days ago someone said that Beaver is offering better skiing than Vail at the moment. All on snowmaking runs of course.

[absentskier]

Xena I'd be interested to hear your opinion as to how Keystone is skiing compared to Vail and Breck in these conditions. Hope the altitude sickness has passed now too.

[Paul Oberin]

Keystone and Beaver are small compared to Vail, it would be difficult to cover Vail with man made snow, Beaver gets very icy when the snow is light on, Keystone would be better.

[Xena]

Yes, Beaver is better han Vail at the moment, by a small amount. But, since we have been here, and every day has been the same snow conditions, Breck and Keystone have been the best - their snowmaking and grooming is superior. However, we did all of Keystone in a day. We had done all of Breck in a day, but the length of the runs kept us going for 2. I know it is because Vail is so huge that it just can't cover the whole mountain with snowmaking, but it could try some. If we weren't staying at Vail, I'd trip back to one of the other two. We have no blacks at Vail or Beaver, it's getting boring. In fact, for the first time ever in ou ski lives, we are only going to ski half a day at Vail today.

[Xena]

Day 8. We had the weirdest bus trip ever on the turtle bus to Beaver Creek. It was like being in a time warp back to the seventies. Surely it can't be safe. a bus with lounges inside. The skiing was marginally better than at Vail, still very little black runs to get your blood pumping. We are trying hard to enjoy cruising about, but try some rocky moguls just to get a challenge. We took our skis in for a wax and tune, as the last few days are surely taking a toll. He said it would be $35, but I said we can keep skiing on them and bring them back damaged, or you can look after your skis every few days considering the conditons and the fact that we have them for 15 days - no problem, complimentary. Altitude sickness is all but passed, a head and chest cold has replaced it, but I am doing my best to ignore it.

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[Shorty]

Hey Xena doesn't sound good we head to vail this afternoon and are thinking we may do a day at copper to fill in time pray the forecast snow comes in on Saturday night only about 10cm forecast but anything is a bonus at this point in time.

[Xena]

Hey Shorty, skied a half day today, it was ok, stick to what is groomed and you are fine. Non groomed runs are icy. We are thinking the same thing about Copper, might do Beaver again tomorrow and Copper on Sat or the other way around and save Vail for Sunday hopeful for that forecast to come through. We leave for Aspen on Sunday arvo after skiing.

[brink]

Sorry to see the conditions in Colorado are not the best for you - makes me feel better about what we got in BC/Alberta now.

[Paul Oberin]

Vail is always the busiest by far, even on a quiet day it has lift ques far larger than the other resorts, I would not do Vail on a weekend if I had a choice.

[Paul Oberin]

Judging by the pics it looks pretty bad, I was there 2 years ago and it was considered bad then, but your pics show it is much worse now, the skis must be getting trashed, I know we had no hope of avoiding rocks every run, I sure hope it snows for you real soon.

[Xena]

Day 9. Skied Vail for half day, we found some nice groomed runs that kept us interested for a while. It was a little better than the other day because of this find. There are definitely lots of rocks and the wax is wearing thin after half a day, even though we avoided the rocky runs. It is either icy or pebbly ice, of which the latter is the preference. Did a mogul run today and at the bottom of every mogul was a sizable rock. Glad I am not using my own skis and glad I took the damage waiver on the hire! We went up the gondola to the top tonight and had a beautiful dinner in the mountaintop restaurant. The bill came which shocked us, but the error was corrected. Thank goodness, because $48,000 for a bottle of wine was not what we thought we ordered! We knew Vail was expensive, but this was ridiculous - $48,000ish on wine???? I should have had hangover!!!2101

[Vet]

The $US isn't what it used to be Xena

[Coopski]

That's because you drank 1719 of them wasn't it ;-)

In all seriousness though I really hope mother nature dumps the fluffy white stuff for you soon

[Paul Oberin]

I see a small snow fall Saturday and a good chance of more on Wednesday, the weather pattern is supposed to change mid January, and this looks like the start of it.

[Xena]

It is snowing right now, yay! You were right Paul.

[Vet]

3" to 5", maybe 10" depending on the source.

[Paul Oberin]

The change should come through just in time for my trip starting 28th January.
http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/50352_200123390267_2595_q.jpg (http://www.facebook.com/snowforecast.com)Snowforecast.com (http://www.facebook.com/snowforecast.com)


Northern Utah getting some snow, 1-2" in Salt lake so far and more for the resorts... Moderate snowfall heading for Colorado (incl Aspen, Copper Mountain, and Winter Park), significant snow possible at Taos Ski Valley Saturday night and Sunday... For the west coast, the longer range outlook is still on track for major changes around the 15th. Please navigate to your resort's forecast; http://www.snowforecast.com/index.php Thanks for using Snowforecast! :)

[Dippo]

Just finished skiing Snowmass. Probably had between 5 and 8 cms today and it's still coming down.

[chunky]

Snowmass and Aspen I would like to get to one day. More so Snowmass for the family.

[absentskier]

Good to see some snow fell. Hopefully some more not too far away.

[Xena]

Day 10. Skied Vail again. Still pretty light on and hard packed. We are excited by the forecast for snow the next day.We should be able to ski in to our lodge, but have had a short 50m walk, but the punter pictured below still tried! It is my and WP's 22 year anniversary, so we go out to dinner at Mezzaluna at Lionshead.



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[Vet]

Enjoy you're anniversary X.

[Xena]

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Day 11. The forecast snow arrived, so we excitedly hit the slopes, but keeping in mind what a wise SW'er once told me - the first day of powder can be very dangerous, because you can't see what lies just underneath. Considering there has been ice and rocks to contend with, I am cautious on the new snow in the beginning. It snows all day and I am soon able to find my mojo a little more as it thickens and compacts a bit. The afternoon is lots of fun and we wish we didn't have to quit. We still long for the bowls to be open, but that is not going to happen while we are here.

[Xena]

Day 12. Our last day at Vail, so we hit it up early to get the groomed powder. This is even better than the day before, although it is harder work for the legs. We practice really good form in case we get even more snow as forecast for later in the week.

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In the afternoon we transfer to Aspen, staying at the Molly Gibson Lodge. We are very pleased with our location, the bus to all mountains leaves from the corner of our street, yet we are only 2 blocks from the restaurant and shopping area of Aspen. It is not as 'schmancy' and vibrant as I was expecting, but i did find some Aspen ski bling.

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[Xena]

Day 13. Snowmass is our first port of call. The snow seems better here. There are still some icy patches and rocks under the surface, but it seems to be easier to ski on. The village of Snowmass is pretty small and uneventful, but the mountain is good fun to ski. We see the whole mountain in the day, but look forward to skiing it again one day this week. Have a look at the pic of the High Alpine Double Chair. For those of you who hate the Perisher Double, this tops it. It has no, I repeat no restraining bar, rope or anything and it comes in so fast to load that it knocked a few people over. It leads up to the black and double black runs, which I was a little wimpy about, but as I was skiing down, waiting for the really scary part, I suddenly ended up at the bottom and realised I needn't have been such a princess.

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[Ash]

Hopefully you may get some more fresh snow soon.

[Shorty936]

That chair looks crazy, I am guessing that would have been more frightening than the run itself

[Jahoota]

hopefully some dumpage comes your way.

as for chairs, not much beats those japanese chairs with no backrest...

http://jp.harupi.com/pics/201004/20100419-k4-lift.jpg

[blutek]

... and no hood!
(but they do sweep the seat)

[Vet]

I just hope they put the seat down for you coz I'd be shi55ing myself

[Paul Oberin]

I got an email saying Vail has had 6" of snow overnight.

[Paul Oberin]

Looking very good for Colorado and Utah late next week.

--An arctic front and strong jet stream push south out of Canada across most of the country, and especially the northwest US early-mid next week. It looks like we have a developing very strong jet stream and very cold air to the north of it across Japan and the northwest Pacific. This stream of winds pushes across the Pacific, undercutting an expected high pressure ridge across western Alaska, pulling a lot of Pacific moisture from off the Pacific and pushing it across the west via shortwave weather systems. After plastering the northwest US with some seriously heavy snowfall, these systems are expected to start affecting Colorado/ Utah with some possibly significant snow storms next Thursday/ Friday, but mainly next weekend. Significant snow storms are expected to finish off the month of January, distinguishing the last 2 weeks from the first 2 by a large margin (of snow totals).

[Xena]

Sitting at the airport waiting to come home, so I will put my fingers in my ears, sing "Lalalalalalala"

I will add the trip report when I get back, have been busy every day, finding stashes of snow that are untracked, finding hidden secrets in Aspen, shopping, drinking, eating and enjoying the best of the bad.......and we found much good in the supposed bad, enough good to go home very satisfied.

Stay tuned!

[Xena]

Day 14. We went to Aspen Highlands first. The snow was more packed than at Snowmass, but fast to ski on. It has some challenging terrain, so we enjoyed that. The men's downhill (F.I.S) was the favourite for the day. We continue to attempt the moguls to advance our skiing. We know we are getting better, but still can't believe how effortlessly everyone else seems to get down them (oh for young and/or primed knees.) After some lunch, we headed over to Buttermilk for a look. We were told not to bother as it is a beginners' mountain, but found the snow soft to ski on on the black runs on one side of the mountain, which kept us amused for the half a day.


2124 A reminder that we have a hobby that can be dangerous!!!


2125 Highlands trees


2126 A view from the top of Highlands.



2123Overlooking Aspen airport from Buttermilk


2128Setting up for the X Games, starting on our Australia Day at Buttermilk.


Back at our lodge, the Molly Gibson, they provide the most amazing après snacks. There is so much food that it becomes dinner every day for us and we only go out at night for drinks or dessert (like the banana cream pie at Goodies cafe, nom nom!)

[Xena]

Day 15. We wake up to new snow.

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We head to Aspen Mountain. It is similar to Highlands (but with new snow on it), no green runs at all (yippee). We ski there all morning enjoying the 2 or 3 inches on top, but by lunch you can feel the boredom setting in, as all the runs have been overskied and revealing the hard pack underneath, which is hard to ski, as you are constantly getting and losing your edges (maybe you experts don't have this problem, but we find it hard to keep our ski rhythm.) We have managed to maintain positivity about the crap snow, but it is getting to us today. Should we have an early day and see the town of Aspen in the day time? This is what we think we should do, since so far we have found Aspen to be lifeless and boring. Are we missing something? We are amazed each night that 80% of the shops are closed - in a tourist ski town? This is like France! 'You are visiting our place, so we don't stay open for you!" We head up the gondola for a last run, when an old guy hops in with us. After a few 'nice to meet you's' and 'where are you from's', I ask this local to tell us the inside story on Aspen, since as tourists, so far we don't get it. Wow, there are secrets about Aspen we don't know! So, he asks us if we would like to see these secret shrines all over the mountain, to which we reply, "Hell yeah!" So, guided by either a lovely old man or a gunman who will hold us up and steal all our money once he gets us in to these secret places in the trees, we ski off to see the shrines that various people have created and hidden from the world in amongst places you would never usually go to, nor know about to go to. Some of these spots had double black runs to get in or out of, a challenge we were proud of ourselves for conquering. And man, can this old guy ski!! Not only that, he gave us some tips on skiing moguls. At the end of the day, and after some hugs, he took off saying it was the best ski day he had this season and thanked us for allowing him to show us the things he loves about his mountain. At the end of the day, where has all the new snow gone???

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[Xena]

2132 Shrine to all the champion skiers (Ski Hall of Fame)

2133 Gerry Garcia (lead singer of the Grateful dead -with our guide)

2134 The 9-11 shrine

2135The Snoopy shrine (created by our guide!!)

2136 The shrine for dead skis (lined up like a colourful picket fence)

[Xena]

2137 and the John Denver shrine - he is pretty popular in these parts!!!

There were many others. If you are interested, see this site -:

http://www.aspensnowmassshrines.com/index.php?2-The-Aspen-Ski-Hall-of-Fame-Shrine-Aspen-Mountain

[Xena]

Day 16. We go to Highlands first up. Again it is fast and hard packed, new snow, what new snow? We really need our edges done and a wax, so we ski the morning and go to Snowmass to put our skis in for a tune at the end of the day.

2140 Alice in Wonderland??? (Xena in Snowland)

[Xena]

Day 17. Last ski day is here....depression. Snowmass is the mountain of the day. We are now finding the snow boring. Until.......I find a run called 'Longshot' has been opened finally. You have to trek up a hill for a bit (somewhat of a challenge in altitude - arriving at the top is welcomed by a bleeding nose - I really am in the nosebleed section! Although, I actually have been blowing blood from my nose since Breckenridge.) Longshot is an ungroomed blue and has not been open often, so it is a treasure trove of soft, deep snow (deep enough for me - up to my hips in some parts, but generally knee deep.) The top part of the run is just plain stupid fun, of skiing into snow, falling over, skiing around trees etc. The bottom half of the run (and its is 8.5km long) is good skiing, as it feels like no-one has been there. We pass many big, mountain homes (bloody rich people), many unoccupied....must learn to break in and squat for future ski trips....hehe. I have no photos of Longshot, except at the top - too busy having fun to take photos!!!


2141 Lucky I didn't bleed on my jacket!


2142From Longshot, you can choose this route down also - we restrained ourselves!!

2143 One photo is all I took on the run, half way down.

We skied till the absolute last lift, handed our skis in reluctantly and set off to pack!!! Blech!! We flew out of Aspen to LAX that night.

[Xena]

Day 18. Hire a car and go shopping at Citadel Outlets in LA. Buy stuff, return to hotel, get bags, plus a now extra bag after all the Vans for the kids (and me), Nikes and Nike trackies, Reeboks (Zig Zags for me), Guess jeans, DKNY and Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts, Calvin Klein leather accessories, leather jackets (ran into a sale - were $199, now $40!!!!) etc. Fly home - very boring and depressing!!!!!! No photos!!!!!


I was living the dream, now I am back to working to afford a dream, I hope to be soon planning the dream!!

Time to go to work!!!! Can't even use jetlag as an excuse, cos I got none!!! Bugger!

[Xena]

End of trip report!!!!!!

[absentskier]

Thanks for the trip report. Is now a really bad time to note that Aspen had 28cm of snow overnight!!? It sounds like you guys made the most of the conditions presented to you, which is all you can do.

[Polaris]

Day 16. We go to Highlands first up. Again it is fast and hard packed, new snow, what new snow? We really need our edges done and a wax, so we ski the morning and go to Snowmass to put our skis in for a tune at the end of the day.

2140 Alice in Wonderland??? (Xena in Snowland)

Nah, ya just a short a**e :p ;)

[Shorty936]

Hope you all had fun in poor conditions

[skijacski]

xena, I think you need a new hobby, ...... bored skiing!!!!! That means you are never, never, never skiing again.

Even though it is the wrong time of year, it is great that you had fun, except for the nose and alt sickness.

Next time!!!! GO February and March. We loved the area but still prefer Utah, have skied from beginning of Feb to end of April through Utah, colorado and Wyoming, it was a blast.

Dump the school work!!

[Xena]

I shall defend myself here and say no I was not bored with skiing, rather bored of the crap snow! When the resort has got only 45 - 85cms, it is understandable, yes????

Vail had 22inches while we were there - 45cms. Breck and Keystone had 26inches - 55cms. Aspen and Highlands had 26inches - 65cms. The best we had was Snowmass with 34inches - 85cms. Except for the two mini dumps we had of 3 inches at Vail one night and a further 2 inches at the Aspen 4 three days later.

[Bear]

Thanks for the report Xena. Sad that you didn't get the best conditions.