Stupid Colorado Liquor Laws

I learned about yet another intrusive Colorado liquor law today. As in some other states, grocery stores cannot sell wine or liquor in Colorado. Most grocery stores will have a separate liquor store nearby. Grocery stores do however sell beer. I have bought a few cases of beer at grocery stores since I have been here. Today I discovered that the beer that is sold at grocery stores is not regular beer, but instead 3.2% alcohol beer. This fact is not well advertised at the store and the difference in packaging is very discrete. I was offended that it was not better advertised. It's not that I want beer with more alcohol in it (the 3.2 stuff actually tastes like the normal stuff so I can't complain) I just feel like I was misled. Colorado has some other weird laws, like it is illegal to brink your own bottle of wine into a restaurant and pay a corkage fee to drink it. My guess is that Colorado is also one of those states where wineries cannot ship wine directly to customers either. Hopefully the Supreme Court will fix that.

Beaver Creek

Beaver Creek is supposed to be a luxury ski resort which caters to a wealthier clientele. I headed over there for the first time today and I had high expectations. Beaver Creek is about 10 minutes down the road from Vail (50 minutes from breck). I began to see how things were different there as soon as a got to the parking lot. There are Beaver Creek staff in the parking lot who practically run over to you and take your skis away so you don't have to carry them to the bus. I rode the bus up to the lift and headed up onto the mountain. Another thing Beaver Creek is renowned for is the grooming of the slopes. Many of the runs on the mountain are immaculately groomed with perfect corduroy. I have never seen such perfect grooming in my life. A lot of the runs are groomed in the morning so they don't get icy. I spent the first few hours exploring the mountain to get a feel for the place. One annoying thing in the morning was that there was one big cloud that was covering the resort. It was the only cloud in the sky and it basically only covered the resort. North on the other side of the freeway it was sunny, and it was sunny at the extreme southern edges of the resort as well, but the bulk of the resort was dark and cold. It took a few hours for the cloud to move out of the way. BC is a pretty big resort (comparable to Breckenridge in size) but it has very different terrain from the other nearby resorts I have skied at. The altitude is lower than breck so there is no terrain above treeline. Most of the steeper runs have moguls on them. If you like to ski bumps, Beaver Creek is definitely the place for you. One run I skied down was the easiest double black diamond I have ever skied on (not counting double blacks in socal). It was called golden eagle and it looked like it had been groomed a few days earlier. It was a bit icy, but not terribly steep and it did not have moguls. Overall the snow conditions were not that great. The groomed runs seemed to get icy in the afternoon. I'll have to come back when I get better at skiing moguls. Other luxury aspects of Beaver Creek include: a magic carpet (kind of like the flat escalators at airports) that takes you from one chairlift to another at the main base area, multiple restaurants (I think five or six) on the mountains which are reservations only and best of all the guest services people give out cookies to all of the guests when they come off the mountain at the end of the day (I left too early to get a cookie, but I've heard this from other people). I liked the resort a lot, but I'm not so sure it is worth the drive, especially when you have to drive past Vail to get there.

Hiking

One of the unique aspects of the Breckenridge ski resort is the extensive in bounds hiking terrain. Peak 7, 8 and 9 all have in bounds hikes which go above the highest chairlifts. The hikes are cool because you can reach fresh snow without having to worry about Avalanches or other backcountry hazards. Today I hiked up to the Peak 9 Chutes which are about a 15-20 minute hike and traverse above the Mercury Chairlift. Even 3 days after the latest storm we got fresh tracks in about a foot and a half of powder. It was pretty cool. The run wasn't that long, but the snow made it worth it. I plan on doing a lot more hiking at Breck in the future.

This is a bush right outside my window. It was really cold this morning. Right after I took this picture I went to start my car to drive to work and it would not start beacuse it was so cold. Looks like the new battery did not fix the problem.

Working Powder Day

One of my fears when I got my job was that if there were a good powder day, I would have to work all day and I would not get to play in the new snow. Today it snowed a bunch overnight and I didn't know what to expect when I got to work. I showed up at the chair lift at 8am and my boss told everyone who was there to go up an take a run before our morning meeting. It was awesome. We all skiied down Spruce before the mountain was open to the public. Completely fresh tracks the entire way. I have a feeling that there will be many more days like today. (In fact it might happen again tomorrow as it is still snowing). After that first run we spent about an hour setting up signs on Peak 9. After that we skied three spectaular tree runs on the burn on Peak 10. Later in the morning we did some speed control in the slow zones and right before lunch we took another fun tree run. In the afternoon we did some more speed control and then took a great run off the T-Bar before pulling down all of the signs. If I had to break down my day today, I would say it was roughly 70% skiing and having fun and 30% work. I really hate my job :-)

My Condo

My Condo

I got a bunch of new furniture for my condo. It is pretty much fully furnished. There are now two sofa beds in the living room so there is plenty of sleeping room for those of you coming out to visit later in February. I still love the location and can't believe I was able to find such a sweet place.