That’s right, paying customers will have to earn their turns at this new ski area, located between Kremmling and Steamboat. Many of Colorado’s other ski areas also started this way before ski lifts were a thing, with local residents hiking up hillsides to ski back down. It was only later that ski lifts and groomed runs became the norm.
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OK, goggles don’t sound that interesting and at this point it’s true that there are a lot of good ones out there. But the Smith 4D MAG goggles are actually pretty different- possibly even revolutionary. 4D presumably stands for a fourth dimension, but the basic idea of the goggles are that they add a significant amount of peripheral vision.
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When folding poles first came out I played with them a little bit and quickly determined that they weren’t for me- they were simply too flexy. The connections added too much slop, so even a little bit of pressure would make the pole bow like a bow and arrow.
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If you picture a “people mover” walkway at the airport and double its width, that’s about what the slide looked like. It was so slow and methodical that I actually skied in it, as if I was whitewater kayaking down a stream.
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Still, we had time to drop in the East bowl, which had the best corn snow we had skied in years. Lately, it seems like corn snow barely exists- we get dust, or rain, or the temps get too hot, too fast. But not this day- we had effortless skiing. We made our way back to the summit, where the more North-facing bowls were just beginning to turn “ripe” with the corn harvest.
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Quandary Peak is an interesting mountain. On the one hand, an easy and safe winter route on a 14er means that crowds are the norm all year long. On the other hand, beyond the standard East ridge route there is a lot to be said for the mountain,
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It’s hard to be a skier and be upset when it snows, but sometimes the thought of a nice heavy freeze under clear skies sounds nice. It sure would make it easier to ski bigger lines in the alpine. So it was last weekend when Brittany and I set off to ski something off of “no name” ridge, the long ridge extending East of the Copper Creek drainage above the East river (easily seen from the ski area).
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Today, there is a dizzying array of AT boots out there, from featherweight models made for speed on the up, to downhill boots with a bit of a walk mechanism. While no AT boot can match the performance of a dedicated alpine boot with alpine bindings, the gap gets smaller all the time. Choices that you may want to consider for next season include the Hoji Free from Dynafit, the Atomic Hawx 130 Ultra XTD, and the Zero G Tour Pro from Tecnica.
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We’re newbies, and you can tell because we didn’t make it to the hut in time for beer in the sunshine. But I’m pretty sure we skied better snow than everyone else did that day.
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