Crested Butte Post-Season 4.19.09
(Last Updated On: )
Sorry for yet another late post– In this case, I was hoping for more photos from the other participants, but that’s OK. I’ll just dedicate this TR to the Denver Nuggets and their first Western Conference Finals playoff game in 24 years 🙂
A last minute change of plans had Ben, Tom, Rob and me unloading our sleds at the base of the ski area a little over a week after they closed. Why on earth would we go ski our home ski area when we could ski elsewhere, you ask? Well, for one thing, we knew we would be able to ride tandem up all the access roads at the ski area, so we could be lazy and ski laps without any hiking. For another, Ben and I have had our eyes on some permanently closed areas since we each arrived in Crested Butte in 1996. Skiing them after the area is closed is the only way we could ski them.
We weren’t the only ones out that day, but there was still plenty to go around. We started off with a warmup lap on the headwall, which had received a fair bit of snow since the area had closed, which had the effect of eliminating all the bumps which usually clog up the runouts. Ben was the first to go, hitting the “diving board” variation of Angle gully:
Tom went next, on the McConkey Memorial Spatulas. He chose to boost it off of box rock:
Rob and I skied the next lap together, so I don’t have any photos of either of us. Next we went to the area we really wanted to get to, the forbidden zone known as “Lookout”. This area was open one season long ago, but patrol had to rope out so many people, they had to shut it down. The dominant route in this area is an exposed diagonal chute that empties back into Spellbound bowl. Ben got first dibs on routefinding. Here he is, safely coming out the bottom:
To enter the diagonal, we each had to find a line and straighline a short rocky section, and the first turn was crucial, or else we would send it off the large cliff below. Coming through the crux, my tracks are looker’s right and Ben’s are looker’s left:
Rob was next:
We had all been standing on an alternate line, and Tom somehow mustered up the courage to give it a go. He nailed it. Here are the photos:
We made another lap in another closed area, Teo2 bowl to end the day. Hopefully this area will be open as early as next season. It is a fun but short/sweet area that should offer up a lot better skiing than the (what I consider to be) boring Teocalli bowl. I didn’t get any great shots in this area.
Meanwhile, Matchstick Productions were up to their own thing after the area closed. Snowcats had taken all the snow from the park and sculpted a huge booter for their jibber athletes to hit. Coming soon to a Matchstick movie near you (notice how small the snowcat seems in comparison):
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