Author: Joe

I spent the weekend in Winter Park with some friends.

I spent Friday morning snowboarding. That didn’t go as smoothly as hoped (I ended up making adjustments to my bindings every couple runs), but by the time I left I’d gotten the board adjusted closer to how I wanted it and was doing better on some of the runs that had given me trouble. Unfortunately my panorama taken from the top of the Panoramic Express lift didn’t turn out particularly well, but here’s the view from part way down one of the runs:

The condo we rented for the weekend had a little creek running behind it:

We went to the Fraser Tubing Hill Saturday morning. I didn’t take any pictures/videos, but a few pictures have already shown up on facebook. Later in the day we visited the Devil’s Thumb Ranch (resort with nordic skiing), but unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me and in my cell phone picture Devil’s Thumb itself is only a few pixels big.

Sunday morning we packed up and checked out of the condo, then took a leisurely drive back through the mountains with plenty of stops. The first stop was the Elk Meadows trailhead in Arapaho National Forest:

Great view of the mountains from the trailhead:

Pristine snow in the forest on the side of the trail:

Snowmobile track through the forest (fortunately the snow was packed down enough we could walk on the trail, unpacked snow drifts were entirely a different story…):

The next stop was the top of Berthoud Pass:

Unfortunately I didn’t find a great spot with a view at the top of the pass, but we did walk over to the native flora/fauna signs up the hill. The snow here wasn’t nearly as well packed and I ended up with damp socks from snow getting in the sides of my boots when I stepped in the deeper snow.