He mentioned they had extra room at a huge lodge-like single-family home owned by a business partner. Gorgeous place, very nice people. It is a different world from mine, that's for sure. We had more time to relax and visit that way and I could drive us around.
We ended up going to Vail on an 11" day (luck!), and I got to show him around my favorite mountain a bit.
There was a snag in that it had snowed after the mountain was groomed the prior night, so there were really no groomed areas to speak of, and conditions were tough unless you were used to powder. I saw lots of ski patrol sleds carrying injured skiers that day, so it was a baptism by fire (or ice -- or powder). But Mat did great and got to work on the powder legs some ;)
After some turns at Mid-Vail, we took the ridiculously long catwalk traverse over to China Bowl. I had mixed feelings about taking that catwalk, but it's the easiest way over and it can be kind of a cool tour through the woods. As I told him, it really gives you a sense of the size of the place.
Conditions were pretty bad at first, not really an ideal intro to the bowls. At times it was basically a blizzard with very flat light, and there were no groomed areas like there usually are down the middle.
And it was cold as heck, I think I under-dressed and had to struggle to keep warm. It was a two-hot-chocolate day.
The sun peeked out for 20 minutes at a pop, then it would turn snowy again. This went on all afternoon.
Another shot back up China Bowl and its shifting weather:
It was great to ski some Back Bowl trees again. This was my first ski day of the winter (partly due to bad snow, partly to waning interest in the mileage and lift lines), and although my muscles lacked a bit of conditioning (even with hill running), the technique was there like I had never taken a break. I was glad for that. Any trees I skied the whole day were great.
At the end, we split up and set a rendezvous time of 45 minutes later down at the base area, for me to ski another lap of China Bowl, and for him to head down. This seemed reasonable at the time (oxygen deprivation?) but turned out to be way too optimistic. I hammered the runs down, but it took about 1:15 instead, even with downloading on the lift. He said he had just gotten back too.
In spite of such travel delays and the cold, sketchy weather, I was glad to finally ski some CO powder with a great friend.
