Too Hungover to Ski? Never.

Exhaustion. Pure, utter exhaustion is what we were all feeling this morning. After a long night of drinking and celebrating Lisa's birthday, the thought of doing anything anything physical today was borderline revolting. But, it was a beautiful day and slowly we found ourselves sliding on our ski clothing and equipment, staring willfully out the windows of our condo to the snow capped mountains around us. It was never a question of If we would ski today...it was just a matter of how long.

What was planned to be a two hour jaunt on the slopes turned into an easy five, all of us exploring the runs and hills that we didn't have a chance to get to the previous two days. We never did anything super-challenging. In fact, I think Garrett and I only hit one or two Black Diamonds all day.

We took a few photos of us in action, and around 3:00, we decided that it was time to call it a day. Claire and Lisa wanted to walk around town a bit and do some shopping before it got too dark. Garrett and I, well...we just wanted to chill out for a bit and relax. After grabbing a bite to eat at the top of the mountain, we all headed down towards the lodge and said our final good-byes to the runs of Breckenridge.

We've gotten our rest and we're planning on heading out to have our final meal in town. We're not too sure where we're headed yet, but that's all part of the fun. Tomorrow we're heading home, and we have one last opportunity to create another memorable night in Colorado.

Lisa's Birthday & Scottish Accents

Last night was an event. There weren't any birthday cakes, candles or singing. No no, none of that. Just drinks. And lots of them.

We started with a few rounds back at the room while everyone took their time getting ready. We showered, got dressed, and eventually made it over to a bar across the street called the Irish Pub. It was your typical American take on an Irish bar, green-painted walls, shamrocks everywhere, and a few cherry-stained booths thrown in for good measure. That didn't stop us from enjoying every second of it though, and here is where we stayed for the majority of the evening.

Claire and I stuck with Guinness, while Lisa and Garrett tried different variations of a local microbrew called Fat Tire. Before long we acquired ourselves a table and ordered a few rounds of appetizers to dull the effects of our multitude of pints and shots. We spent most of the time laughing and sharing stories, taking incognito photos of the man with the mullet and making up ridiculous background stories for the strangers in the bar. It was just around that time when I broke out the Scottish accent.

I do it sometimes. I don't know why, but I think it's funny. It catches people off-guard and, especially in the confines of an "Irish Pub," if pulled off correctly, guys and girls treat you like you own the place, as if you're a depiction of some faraway land that they can only try to experience through pints of Guinness and shots of Jameson...a symbol, if you will. And it's all a lie.

So yeah, I messed with people. I went up to strangers and asked to be excused through the crowd to the bar, sounding like a mix between Billy Connelly and Desmond from LOST. I went up to other people and commented on their silly hats, fighting words in most places had I not delivered it in the appropriate brogue. And I swore. A lot. And people love it when a Scottish guy (or at least a guy sounding like a Scot) drops as many obscenities as possible. It's just fun.

We met up with our friend Chris and his crew, and the lot of us headed over to a basement bar we saw the night before called Ullr's. Don't ask me how it's pronounced, but it has to be something Norwegian, because there was a big Viking looking-dude on the wooden sign hanging over the entrance. Garrett and I spent the next half hour caught up in the midst of some epic pinball challenge while Claire entertained her new friend (let's call him Moe) at the air hockey table. Lisa bounced back and forth between the two games, most likely entertained at the intensity of each and the awful display of reflexes. Before long, it was time to head home.

At this point, smart people would stop drinking. Apparently, we're not smart people. Three hours later, I woke up at 3am, alone in the living room, only to find soon after that my "friends" took video of me snoring obnoxiously loud on the couch. I'm embarrassed and my throat hurts.

The rest of the gang is still asleep, so in the meantime, give me a quart of Gatorade and some eggs, and I'll be set to hit the slopes again. Today is our final day out there, so we're going to make the most of it, hungover or not.

The Most Beautiful Day in Colorado

Who could ask for anything more? The four of us woke up this morning to what I would call the simple best skiing conditions I've ever seen. The temperature was 28 degrees, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the only wind in the air was against our faces as we raced down the hill. Conditions in the mountains don't get better than this.

Since we tackled most of the runs on Peaks 8 and 9 yesterday, we decided to hit Peak 7 today. It was mainly Blue Squares, but had immediate access to the upper bowls, some extreme skiing of Double-Black Diamonds that Garrett and I were eyeing constantly. I'm not going to lie to you, I picture myself getting impaled on some hidden rock underneath the powder, but it did look enticing. Unfortunately, we never made it up that high. But, we made up for it in stride.

It was a simple day, to say in the least. I started the day with my book on the couch as I was waiting for everyone to wake up, who, one by one mingled into the living room and somehow got hooked on watching Parent Trap. Not the old one with Haley Mills, but the new version, with Dennis Quaid and Lindsay Lohan, when she still had red hair and actually retained some level of 'cute.' That ended near 10am, after which we immediately hit the slopes. We spent the beginning of the day putzing around lower Peak 8, in a lot of the Blue Squares and a few Black Diamonds that Garrett and I needed to tackle. Eventually, as promised, we made our way over to Peak 7, the far eastern mountain that we nearly spent the rest of the day on. Garrett and I stuck together on most of the runs, while Lisa and Claire explored their own paths down. The nice thing about Peak 7 is that no matter where you go, it all ends up in the same place.

So Garrett and I got hooked on the trees. I've always been a fan of tree runs and Garrett is developing a growing appreciation of them in any chance he gets. Unfortunately, at one point down the slope, we got separated and I picked the wrong tree run. He saw me go in, and I never came out. Why? Stupid trees. It was a narrow run, pretty much in the middle of a dense alpine forest. I was moving a decent pace when the pitch increased and I picked up speed. Now, in a tree run, there's no slowing down, not in one this dense anyway. You can't hockey stop. You can wedge. It's all reaction. I was doing fine until I made the turn and saw a tree, fairly large in size, right in the middle of the path. I caught an edge and got spun around, launching me a good ten feet into the out of bounds powder. It's a god-send that I didn't hit a tree on my way down. After dusting myself off and regaining a bit of humility, I was off again, only to meet the rest of the gang at the bottom of the hill in the midst of worry. Garrett was currently calling me as he saw me go into the trees, but never come out. But this would not be the end of our tree runs.


The Ore Bucket. Garret and I freakin' loved this hill. I found it first, as everyone went right, I went left, and came across the the path that led into this glade of alpines and bowls, full of powder and ripe for further exploration. As soon as I met Garrett at the bottom of the hill, I told him to follow me and we spent the next four runs jumping between the pines in the Ore Bucket, each time finding a new path, we could've done it the rest of the day if we had time. Unfortunately, we didn't.

A few runs later, we were back where we started, only a minute after 4:00pm and all the lifts of the mountain closing down for the evening....just the time for some apres ski, as the rounds of beer and scotch were passed around as an appropriate ending for the day.

Right now were about to head out and start our evening. It is, in fact, Lisa's 28th Birthday today, so celebrations are in order. More to come as the evening inevitably comes to a close...

Black Diamonds, Blue Squares, and the Like

It wasn't until about 9:30 or so until we got moving out the door and onto the slopes. Garrett had to rent his skis and the rest of us unpacked our equipment to get dressed for the day. Before long, we had our passes in hand and we were lining up at the main lift to head up the mountain. It was about 10 degrees currently, and it didn't look to get much warmer. What we weren't expecting was the wind.

1500 vertical feet later, the four of us found ourselves in a wind storm that would put a white squall to shame. I'm not sure how hard it was blowing, but it was actually difficult to stand in one spot without being forced into a slide down the hill. Funny thing was, it was only really like this over 11,000 feet. Once below that line, blue skies and barely a flake of snow in the air.

We spent the first part of our day on Peak 9, primarily sticking to the Blue Squares and Green Circles to warm up. We slowly headed down and took the Peak 8 Superchair up to the midpoint of Peak 8. We stayed on this part of the mountain for a few hours, exploring most of the more difficult runs, with Garrett and I even making our way down a few of the Black Diamonds. The diamonds are different here, but not extremely different. Maybe a little steeper, and definitely more mogul fields, but it's relatively the same. What's different here compared to the east coast isn't just the length of the runs, but the width. Almost every run is completely wide open, and not nearly as claustrophobic. Incredibly invigorating.

Around 1:00 we stopped at the Bergenhof Restaurant at the bottom of Peak 8 and took about a 45 minute break, using the time to regain our energy, grab some food, and plan the rest of our day. We only had about two hours left until they closed the lift, so we decieded to head back to the main lift, conviently only about 200 yards from the front door of our condo, and spend the rest of our day over there, so we didn't get stuck on the other side of the mountain.

After a few more runs around Peak 9, an amazing run through the trees on a run called The Upper Lehman and a slight mix up that brought us to the top of Peak 10, we decided to call it a day. However, at this point we were at about 12,000 feet and the only way down were some pretty intense Black Diamonds and one Diamond/Square. Lisa had already gone in, so Garrett, Claire and I headed down, dropping nearly 2,500 feet in about 12 minutes.

We grabbed some dinner at the Brecksville Brewery, relived the day over a few beers, then split up before we all headed back towards the condo. Lisa and I decided to lay low and hang out for a bit to recover our energy, while Claire and Garrett went to the store to purchase some groceries. Upon their return, we all decided to head down to the snow sculpture exhibit close to town square, after which we walked through town, stopped in a few random stores, then headed back up to the room. We're now watching Stand By Me, eating cheese-its and trail-mix and one by one, getting ready for bed. My eyes are heavy writing this, so it's about that time for me as well. Tomorrow is another day of skiing, and now that we're more familiar with the hills, we know what we want to explore, on and off the mountain. In the meantime, I have a book to read, a nightly ritual that sends me off to sleep with the light on, and the pages resting, folded awkwardly on my chest.

On our way to Breckenridge

So here we are. It was a crazy day yesterday, amidst the blizzards, the travel agent fiasco, and the long slow ride here, we've finally arrived.

Cleveland got pummeled with over 16 inches of snow yesterday. Literally, 20 hours before our flight was meant to leave. I sat at work, watching the weather radar and that intimidating white and blue monstrosity that hovered over the mid-west, easing it's way northeast towards Buffalo and Boston, crippling everything in its path. I watched flight after flight out of Cleveland come up delayed, then cancelled...however, ours stayed on time and lit up in green.

Surprisingly the only delay we really ran into was the mess of traffic on our way to the airport. The highways were shut down, the streets were gridlocked, and a two-hour head start that we meant to have suddenly turned into a five minute wait to actually step on the plane. We weren't late, but we were cutting it close, no thanks to the jackass agent that wouldn't let Lisa check her board as sporting equipment because it had clothes in it, something we all did as well but didn't get hassled for. Thanks, pal.

The flight was fairly uneventful, and before long we were landing in Denver, grabbing our luggage and packing ourselves into a shuttle van that would take us the two-hour drive through the Rockies and into Breckenridge. We arrived around 11:00pm, checked into our room (which completely kicks ass) and decided to go out, grab some late night food, a few beers, and call it a night. We were in bed before 12:30, ready and waiting for the upcoming three days in the mountains.

We're up now, Claire, Garrett, Lisa and myself, and it's about that time to get ready and hit the slopes. More to come later, but we're pretty anxious to get out there. We're all here and safe though, and most importantly, we have free wireless. So, until next time, happy trails.