Christmas Dinner

We had Christmas dinner at Cafe Alpine. It was a spectacular meal. From what I have seen so far Cafe Alpine is probably the best restaurant in town. It is comparable to some of the better restaurants in the bay area. For the second time in two days I had an unusual meat at dinner. The first course was venison and very tasty. How appropriate to eat reindeer on christmas :-) The rest of the dinner was very good as well.

Me, my Brother and my Dad skiing on Christmas. Check out my Dad's retro goggles!

Me and my Brother on Christmas day

Merry Christmas

My best Christmas present this year was a T-shirt that my brother gave me that says "Vail Sucks" on the front and "Ski Telluride" on the sleeve. I'll definitely have to wear it while I'm here. Too bad it is too cold to wear a T-Shirt around town. Maybe in the spring.

Christmas Eve

I skied today with my brother for the whole day. It was still pretty cold in the morning, but it got much warmer during the day. This was the first time this year that I spent a full day on the mountain. My brother had to get the full value from his $71 lift ticket. We skied all over the mountain and had a pretty good time. We actually found some good windblown powder in the chutes off of Chair 6.
My family had Christmas eve dinner at The St. Bernard in town. I had buffalo prime rib which was very tasty. I think that was the first time I've ever eaten buffalo. It is leaner than beef, but still pretty good.

Brrrr

As predicted the high temperature today was barely above freezing. In the morning I dropped off my car at the auto repair shop to get a new battery. The 1/4 mile walk to the bus stop was not much fun in the subzero temperatures. The walk back in the afternoon was even worse because the wind had picked up. It was too cold to ski so I just hung out with my family for most of the day in their condo. In the evening we watched Napoleon Dynamite. It was the first time I had seen it. I thought it was alright. This is the perfect example of a good movie that was overhyped to the point that when I finally got to see it I was disappointed that it was not spectacular. So many people had said it was great that I was expecting great things. This sort of thing seems to happen frequently with my general "No movie theater" policy. I remember a similar thing happening when I saw Shrek a couple of years ago. Hopefully tomorrow it will be warmer so I can hit the slopes.

This is a thermometer on the window of my condo showing a temperature of around -8 Fahrenheit. This was taken when I went to bed and it undoubtably got colder overnight. Brrrr.

Ski Day #6

Due to the lack of snow, I have taken my old skis (200cm GS straight skis) out of mothballs. They are now officially designated my "rock skis". It is fun to ski with these because you can ski over rocks, dirt, through bushes and over bare spots without caring about damaging the skis. Many of the runs around the mountain are getting bare because of lack of snow. In the morning I skied the newly opened Peak 7. All of the runs on the lower part of Peak 7 are sort of rolling terrain. When they cleared the trees they didn't flatten out the bumps, so there are lots of natural rollers and lips going down the mountain (ie things to get air off of). It is a lot like the Northwest Territory at Mt. Bachelor, but not as steep. The runs were wide open and not very crowded. The lack of crowds was probably due to the temperature. It was -4 degrees Fahrenheit up on the mountain. That is the temperature, not the wind chill which was much colder. I think this is the coldest weather I have ever skied in. My feet got cold for first time ever while I was skiing. The rest of my body was pretty cold too. Breckenridge has warming huts near the top of each of the 4 peaks. These huts were essential on a day like today. I could only do 2-3 runs before I began to loose feeling in my extremities and had to go into the warming hut.

My parents and brother arrived today for Christmas. They took a shuttle from the Denver Airport to Frisco. I was supposed to pick them up in the early afternoon in Frisco. When I went to leave to go pick them up, my car would not start because of the cold weather. Luckily, I was able to get a jump start from the staff of my condo complex. Even with the added juice from a big truck, it was a chore getting my car started. I guess I need a new battery. I picked up my parents only a few minutes late, but it was a hectic time trying to get everything worked out. I think the temperature in town was in the single digits during the day. It snowed a little bit this evening (<1 inch) but it was nice seeing everything covered in white. My mom loved the snow. The temperature dropped well below zero at night (see nearby picture). The forcasted high for tomorrow in town is 1 degree. I don't think I'm going to be skiing tomorrow.

Ski Day #5

Peak 7 and 10 opened today. I skied peak 10 mostly today. The terrain was pretty cool, but most of the off-piste runs don't have a lot of snow yet. It is starting to get crowded on the runs, especially near the bases, because of the holidays.

Ski Day #3

Today was the finals of the Superpipe snowboard competition. I watched both the men's and the women's heats. All of the runs were amazing. Pictures and video to come.