persee
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
So I figured I'd start the TR now - 2+ days in - so that you can all enjoy.
Got into Denver VERY late Wednesday night so didn't do much more than hit the pillows.
Thursday : On the recommendation of several we took our skis over to Colorado Ski and Golf - great place. We both had to resist looking at their stock too much so that we wouldn't exceed our baggage limit on the trip home! Took the light rail into Denver to watch some NCAA hockey. Before the game found our way over to My Brothers Bar (another recommendation) and enjoyed a few beers! This is a great little establishment and the prices/people are amazing. Then we watched some hockey - 2 games - which kept us busy until 10:30ish when we got to find our way back to our hotel on the light rail. Then we prowled around for some dinner (hate to buy arena food as it's so overpriced) and got some sleep. Did I mention that it was SNOWING in Denver? Yeah we saw accumulating snow in Denver in the morning... but by Midnight much of it had disappeared. Too bad our rental car didn't have a snowbrush!:mad:
Friday : So first we had to go retrieve the skis from Colorado Ski and Golf - again impressed. This store could be very dangerous! Then we headed up to Loveland for our first day of Colorado skiing. As we were leaving city and heading into the foot hills we didn't see too much snow and started to wonder what we would actually see at Loveland... we needn't have worried. Can you say POWDER DAY?:D There was 14+ inches of fresh, plus continued snow squalls as well as a decent amount of snow over the 2 previous days amounted to essentially 2 ft ++ deep snow on the mountain. Due to picking up our skis we didn't arrive for first tracks, but as the mountain was so uncrowded it didn't really matter. All I can say is WOW to that snow.
Now on to the actual skiing of said snow. As promised I took a spectacular faceplant or two. :ROTF: But it was sooooooooo soft that it was a no harm done situation. Let me just say that skiing powder is a WHOLE NEW thing. And definitely not easy for an east coast skiing in her 4th season (and last season almost doesn't count as I had so few days on snow)! No doubt it was fun, but boy it was work and at times I felt like a complete beginner trying to ski this stuff. A couple of times I would feel as if I was almost getting the hang of it, so I'd be going along for a couple turns thinking - hey maybe I can ski this. This would almost immediately be followed by a spectacular fall. But as I said no harm done other than to my ego!
I promise to post pictures when we get home - yup the face plant as well as one where I actually looked semi-good. Oh and riding lifts without safety bars - that was another new experience for me. Both of us pooped out after a couple of hours on mountain. When we get home we start training for Diva Summit 
So we put our stuff together and decided to head through the tunnel to have a look around Silverthorne as it was still early.
Silverthorne seems like a nice town and like a good place to stay on a future trip perhaps. We checked out the various ski shops we could find. The only real "find" was Pure Mountain Outlet who was going out of bussiness. All their decent skis were gone but the clothing and other stuff was still to be had at insane prices - once again the fear of the airport kept our purchasing in check! Also met a really nice Aussie shepheard in one of the shops! Then it was time to head back to Denver. Now on our way through the Tunnel westbound we found a decent snow squall at the exit, but didn't think much of it. On our way back up to the tunnel we encountered white-out conditions with mandatory chain up for commercial vehicles - and boy that was meritted as we saw trucks and others slipping all over the place. We were backed up stopped for a few miles! Thankfully I insisted that we rent a 4WD/AWD vehicle so we were fine other than wondering just how long we were gonna be stopped and also if one of the other not so solid vehicles in the traffic was gonna hit us. We finally got to the tunnel and the rest of the drive back was uneventful.
Last night we checked out two more Denver bars - Breckenridge BrewPub and Blake Street Tavern. More good beer, and good food at BB where we had dinner! Then it was time to sleep!
(I'll update more as we go - we're here till Monday night!)
Got into Denver VERY late Wednesday night so didn't do much more than hit the pillows.
Thursday : On the recommendation of several we took our skis over to Colorado Ski and Golf - great place. We both had to resist looking at their stock too much so that we wouldn't exceed our baggage limit on the trip home! Took the light rail into Denver to watch some NCAA hockey. Before the game found our way over to My Brothers Bar (another recommendation) and enjoyed a few beers! This is a great little establishment and the prices/people are amazing. Then we watched some hockey - 2 games - which kept us busy until 10:30ish when we got to find our way back to our hotel on the light rail. Then we prowled around for some dinner (hate to buy arena food as it's so overpriced) and got some sleep. Did I mention that it was SNOWING in Denver? Yeah we saw accumulating snow in Denver in the morning... but by Midnight much of it had disappeared. Too bad our rental car didn't have a snowbrush!:mad:
Friday : So first we had to go retrieve the skis from Colorado Ski and Golf - again impressed. This store could be very dangerous! Then we headed up to Loveland for our first day of Colorado skiing. As we were leaving city and heading into the foot hills we didn't see too much snow and started to wonder what we would actually see at Loveland... we needn't have worried. Can you say POWDER DAY?:D There was 14+ inches of fresh, plus continued snow squalls as well as a decent amount of snow over the 2 previous days amounted to essentially 2 ft ++ deep snow on the mountain. Due to picking up our skis we didn't arrive for first tracks, but as the mountain was so uncrowded it didn't really matter. All I can say is WOW to that snow.
Now on to the actual skiing of said snow. As promised I took a spectacular faceplant or two. :ROTF: But it was sooooooooo soft that it was a no harm done situation. Let me just say that skiing powder is a WHOLE NEW thing. And definitely not easy for an east coast skiing in her 4th season (and last season almost doesn't count as I had so few days on snow)! No doubt it was fun, but boy it was work and at times I felt like a complete beginner trying to ski this stuff. A couple of times I would feel as if I was almost getting the hang of it, so I'd be going along for a couple turns thinking - hey maybe I can ski this. This would almost immediately be followed by a spectacular fall. But as I said no harm done other than to my ego!
I promise to post pictures when we get home - yup the face plant as well as one where I actually looked semi-good. Oh and riding lifts without safety bars - that was another new experience for me. Both of us pooped out after a couple of hours on mountain. When we get home we start training for Diva Summit So we put our stuff together and decided to head through the tunnel to have a look around Silverthorne as it was still early.Silverthorne seems like a nice town and like a good place to stay on a future trip perhaps. We checked out the various ski shops we could find. The only real "find" was Pure Mountain Outlet who was going out of bussiness. All their decent skis were gone but the clothing and other stuff was still to be had at insane prices - once again the fear of the airport kept our purchasing in check! Also met a really nice Aussie shepheard in one of the shops! Then it was time to head back to Denver. Now on our way through the Tunnel westbound we found a decent snow squall at the exit, but didn't think much of it. On our way back up to the tunnel we encountered white-out conditions with mandatory chain up for commercial vehicles - and boy that was meritted as we saw trucks and others slipping all over the place. We were backed up stopped for a few miles! Thankfully I insisted that we rent a 4WD/AWD vehicle so we were fine other than wondering just how long we were gonna be stopped and also if one of the other not so solid vehicles in the traffic was gonna hit us. We finally got to the tunnel and the rest of the drive back was uneventful.
Last night we checked out two more Denver bars - Breckenridge BrewPub and Blake Street Tavern. More good beer, and good food at BB where we had dinner! Then it was time to sleep!
(I'll update more as we go - we're here till Monday night!)
Yikes....they have no wax on them yet!!!!! 
DH and I will definitely be returning! 
She and Robyn were great tour guides to Vail.
