The 100th Day: Freezing Cold
It’s Friday. I haven’t been up since Sunday. However, last Sunday, at Keystone, was my 100th day snowboarding – of all time. After checking the weather reports the night before, I decided to go ahead an wear more than just my snow pants. It seemed cold, so another layer was warranted. Well, I under estimated. After scraping 8 inches of fresh snow off my truck, I ran inside and put on every layer I could find. We’ve had a lot of fresh snow fall around here; but it’s very very cold.
All in all, it was a good day. However, I am always surprised at how quickly Keystone gets packed and icy. I love a lot of things about Keystone – the nice new gondola, the A51 terrain park, a lot of extra terrain in the back; but the snow generally isn’t on the list. I often times give up faster lifts and extra terrain to shred A-Basin less than 5 minutes away.
So, now that I’ve hit my 100th day ever, I will probably stop counting. It was a fun metric for a while, but I’d like to redefine my goals in terms other than days on the slopes. Here are some things currently floating around in my skull:
- Get avalanche survival certification.
- Ride some back country. Maybe start with Loveland Pass.
- Ride somewhere I need to wear snowshoes to reach.
- Do a snowcat trip.
- Do a heli trip.
- Land a backside 180 and a 360. Currently, I’ve only landed front side 180s.
- Truly ride the pipe, maybe even learn to throw a trick or two.
- Ride Heavenly, Taos, Brighton, Kicking Horse, Whistler/Blackcomb, Park City, and Mt Bachelor.
Maybe I’ll think of some more goals later… but I think that’s a good list to start with.
Congrats on the 100th day, dude!
Backside 180s are cake, at least when you’re not trying to throw them off of a huge jump. Just keep your weight forward and dig the toe edge of your forward tip, kick your heel around, turn your head and keep your weight downhill. I’d been riding for years when I finally tried one, and I was like “that’s all there is to it???” It’s easier than you think.
You can check off your first 3 goals by taking a good avalanche course through a mountain guide service. I took a 4 day avy 1 course out in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and we snowshoed into the backcountry each day and dug pits and used the beacons in the mountains, then snowboarded back down. The best part was the 2 feet of snow that we got and 60 mph winds. It was the real deal.
I think there might be some avy courses like that in Colorado that take you out into the mountains for the whole experience. Took my avy 2 course at Brighton, that’s a great mountain.
Nuttycombe – I decided to try one the other day and didn’t remember what you said about downhill. I almost made it around but caught and edge and went down. I’ll probably have to take a few more stabs at it to get it.
Halln – I found a course that’s spread over 2 weekends. The first 2 days are in the classroom and the last two are in the mountains. I haven’t seen a local one that is entirely in the mountains and none that are connected to snowboarding. What you described sounds like a blast!