Vail, Colorado March 2003

Another winter, another season-closing trip out West. We managed to bypass Denver's biggest blizzard in 90 years by flying to Eagle County airport via sunny Dallas-Fort Worth. The avalanches along I-70 were far east of Vail. Not our problem. $71 lift tickets were our problem. Yow. We stayed at the Best Western Vailglo again this year, within walking distance of the gondola at Lionshead. This year we passed over the cheaper alternative airport shuttle service in favor of Colorado Mountain Express, which was a lot more reliable. Word to the wise.

Vail's a monster. The front side alone can keep you busy for a week.

Melanie always gets pensive before the first run. There was about an inch of fresh snow from the previous night, and we took some good advice and hit the blue section of Born Free right away.

Halfway down the upper part of Born Free we were challenged by a grouse. A passing ski patrolman said that apart from being "good eatin'" the grouse nest this time of year, and this fat little fellow was probably guarding his brood. We wished him luck warding off the thousands of skiers about to decend through his territory.

At the top of Avanti we paused to bundle up a bit more. I had enough time to take the best skiing picture ever.

Love them wide trails.

I'd gotten bold and rented 167-centimeter skis instead of my usual 160s. The longer skis were a lot faster and heavier than I expected, and I spent most of my day wearing myself out burning off speed. By the time we made our way around to Game Creek Bowl I was getting fatigued. Lost Boy still made for a number of good green runs.

I was still breaking in my new boots and my right foot started to hurt - not crippling this time, but enough to make me cranky. Remembering how slushy the bottom of the mountain had been the year before I lobbied successfully to take the gondola back down to the village. After a beer at Eagle's Nest, of course. By this point Melanie's sister Michele and three of her friends had arrived.

We all started the next day together.

Then Melanie and I got talked into hitting the legendary back bowls. Unfortunately conditions were a little crispy and a bit beyond our enjoyment threshold. We bid the ladies adieu and hightailed it back to the familiar trails on the front side. My toes were killing me anyway.

As the afternoon sun softened the front-side snow we started to get a little more bold on the slopes, heading into the rough stuff for a change. Rough for us, anyway. After massaging my toes one last time we took Simba around the right side of the mountain - two-thirds of the way down we hit the Slush Line just like last year. Yow. Gondola down from now on.

We stumbled into the Boot Lab on our way back to the hotel. I was prescribed new insoles to keep my severe right arch from collapsing and crushing my toes - I balked at the price at first but was persuaded that it was best to have the job done by mountain pros rather than try my luck back in DC. Melanie learned that her new boots were probably a size too big. Not much to be done about that.

The next day proved the insoles to be a good investment. I didn't realize that Dave at the Boot Lab had also cut out a chunk of the inner boot to accommodate the top of my foot. Ahh. Melanie's rental boots didn't work out at all, but she salvaged the day by retrieving her own along with a pair of big socks.

We started to get even bolder that afternoon, hitting most of the blue runs up the gut - Berries, Columbine, Avanti. Our final triumph came at the end of the day when we plowed down Northwoods from the top - that run had intimidated us the entire trip. It was a bit of a mess but we did it. We'd come a long way in the five years since we took up the sport.

Melanie & Michele

Melanie, Michele & Elissa

Melanie & me

We spared ourselves the slush factor and took the gondola down again. But a little too late - the lockers close at 5PM, and we showed up at 5:15. We wore our ski boots back to the hotel and our hiking boots to dinner. Word to the wise. 5PM.

One thing about Colorado Mountain Express - if you book online verify your pickup time. Ours got bumped forward a half hour, probably due to increased airport security. As it turned out our plane way delayed anyway, which gave me time to take about a thousand pictures of the airport.

I want to find out why 757s are the main birds that fly out of Eagle. My guess is that they're good at clearing that mountain at the end of the runway.

On the flight from Dallas to DC I was told for the first time that I'd have to turn off my handheld GPS receiver. Say what? I've never had a problem with that before. Sure enough, in the back of AA's magazine GPS is listed as a restricted device. Not all airlines make this mistake. So what's the deal with GPS at cruising altitude? Some safety officials are more cautious than others. Some are less technically competent than others. If there is a "potential hazard", no matter how insignificant, it is always easier to say "no" if you have no basis for a decision. In the case at hand, to say, "yes, it is safe to use a GPS on board an aircraft" requires a substantial amount of technical knowledge and expertise in a complex field. To say "no" you cannot use a GPS on board an aircraft requires no such skills and is "safe" in many contexts. (via GPSInformation.net)

Check out some Vail insider notes.

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