Winter Park Trip

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:
Ski Run View

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

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:
National Forests

Great view of the mountains from the trailhead:
Mountain View

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

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…):
Snowmobile Track

The next stop was the top of Berthoud Pass:
Continental Divide

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.
Pass Shelter

Ski Trip

I went snowboarding at Winter Park on Saturday with a friend, here are pictures from the top of one of the runs:

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Mary Jane trail sign

Besides the awful traffic getting there the trip was largely uneventful – the primary reason for the trip was for Evan to teach a friend of his to snowboard and I tried to mostly stick with them to help out so I didn’t get a ton of runs in. That said, I had a good time and taking it slow was not a bad idea considering I hadn’t been on a snowboard in over two years.