Jeff's Day Off

USAFA didn't have classes scheduled for 1 April.  A friend (Nick) and I decided to use this rare weekday off during the school (ski) year to hit the slopes at A-Basin.  I left the house at 0545, met up with Nick at 0600, and we were in the parking lot at 0800.  Lifts didn't open until ~0900, so we had a little time to kill.  But killing time is so much easier when you are already at the lifts vice being stuck in traffic.

We had an incredible day.  The weather was spotty--in some pictures, it will look like it was bad, but in reality, it was quite pleasant.  No real wind except at the top of the bowls, and the intermittent sun made it nice in that we didn't get sunburned.  Here are some photos and movies.  First, Nick ready to go.

I tried taking a selfie, and then Nick took a picture of me.  Most of the pictures are at the top of or in the middle of the back bowls of A-Basin--some great ski terrain.

The skiing was great.  Nick really likes the bowls, and I was happy to ski them with him.  The favorite place to drop in was a shoot called Jump.

I had to include the above picture as proof to Bode that his Daddy was skiing on the dreaded "double black diamonds."  Looking down into the bowl was a rather intimidating action--the grade didn't look very steep from the chairlift, but when looking down from the precipice, it's hard to think the drop is anything but straight down.

I took some good movies of Nick (he took one of me, but it's on his phone; if I get it, I'll be sure to post it...but maybe not because I fall at the end of the run :-)  This first movie shows the little jump we had to do when we dropped in.

Next is a funny one of Nick.  There's no skiing involved--I just wanted to get a video of him looking for his skies after a spectacular crash.  Note my heavy breathing--skiing at 13,000 feet is exhausting.

Finally, another good crash of Nick.  We realized anytime we took a video, we crashed.  Thus, we stopped taking movies and just skied :-)

I got a couple of good action shots of Nick--still photos seemed to not have the crash jinx.

Note the lack of skiers in the pictures.  We had an amazing day--hardly any people were skiing the bowls.  At some point, I snapped a picture of the two of us.

I've spoken to Ashley about letting me ski every Friday during ski season; not sure if this request was well received :-)  Pleasant weekend to all.