Just like that, a 60-inch base

Monarch Mountain was so dry a week ago that I had an editor leaning on me to do a story on the lack of snow. I balked because Murphy's law of journalism says as soon as the story is about to run, it will snow like crazy. Well... Monarch, which was closed due to lack of snow as of Thursday, had two 30+ inch days in a row. Now almost everything is open on the mountain. Every other ski area got hit this weekend too. Summit County got the least, with a few measly 7-inch days. Everything in the south got rocked.
I've got my fingers crossed for a two-foot dump in Colorado Springs Tuesday. That'll slow down the gunmen.

Future of the Incline

I wrote this story on the 100th anniversary of the Manitou Incline this weekend. The big news: I have no specifics but cog management hints that it's working toward a deal.

Thoughts on whether the Incline should be open or not?

Here fluffy fluffy!

Monarch Pass 24"
Beaver Creek 13" 0F
Copper 10"

Snow, snow snow

Breck's peak 8 opens today with 8 inches fresh powder. Winter Park's Mary Jane opens with 10 inches.

Here's some other reports
Crested Butte 20"
Snowmass 14"
Vail 10"
Arapahoe Basin 9" 21F
Keystone 9" 25F

A visit to the elders

Today in the Out There section of the Gazette we have a cool story on the little-known vault where Colorado's rarest skis are kept. Read it here.

Free trail guide

Looking for THE BEST trail descriptions in the Pikes PEak region, with up-to-date photos and printable maps? Nothing even comes close to the free, searchable database we have at www.gazette.com/outthere.

Hooray!

Monarch Mountain will open on Saturday December 8, for the season! The area will have at least 3 chairlifts; Panorama, Pioneer & Tumbelina in operation. The mid-mountain base depth is currently 20 inches. With continued snowfall more of the mountain could be open soon, stay in touch www.skimonarch.com for more information.

Early season lift ticket rates will be in effect through December 14. Adult all day lift tickets are $27.00,

Time to open new terrain

Because this is what the lines at Breckenridge looked like last weekend. Too many passses, not enough runs. Fortunately, the weather seems to be cooperating. Breck is reporting 7 inches today, with more on the way. Loveland is reporting 11. The chance of snow continues through Saturday. Make room!

Super strong, super light

Did I mention super expensive? We'll get to that. The new Arantix bike frame is made from interwoven strands of Kevlar and carbon fiber, making one of the strongest and lightest hard-tail mountain bikes in the world that weighs approximately 2.75 pounds. Better living through chemistry. Sounds cool huh?
It also takes 300 man hours to make, giving the frame a retail price of $6,995. Add all the latest components and we're talkin' $12,000, which, I would like to point out, is significantly more than the value of my car.

Burton says "Thou shalt poach."

There are only four ski resorts in the United States that still don't allow snowboarding, Mad River, VT, Deer Valley, UT, Alta, UT and Taos, NM.
Jake Burton, one of the founders of snowboarding and owner of one of the largest board manufacturers is offering $5,000 for the best video of boarders "poaching" these ski-only slopes.

Only one video is posted so far, but it's pretty darn funny, watch to the end. You get to see patrollers at Taos tackle a dude. Then they interrogate the group saying, "If we don't get all your names, you're never going to ski here again."
Don't think that threat's going to work.

See the video here.

Really, really cool

You gotta watch this!

Obesity rates leveling off?

After a quarter century of increases, U.S. adult obesity rates have not measurably increased in the past few years, but levels are still high, according to a new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

About 33 percent of adult men and 35 percent of U.S. women -- more than 72 million people -- were obese in 2005/06, according to a new, comprehensive survey that includes physical examinations.
The new rates were slightly higher than the 31 percent and 33 percent reported in the 2003/04 survey, the CDC said, but the increases were not considered statistically significant.

So... maybe we're hovering at just one and three. But we're not heading in the right direction.

I went to show slides of some of my misadventures to a suburban middle school class last week. Afterwards, all the kids wanted to come up and ask if I liked to ski, or liked to snowboard (both) and if I had ever been roller blading, and surfing, and if I liked to ride my bike, etc. Then one kid, who probably had me by 40 pounds, I mean a big, big kid, asked if I liked to quad.
At first I didn't know what he meant. Then he explained that he, his mom, his dad, and his brother all like to go quadding up in the mountains every weekend. It really bummed me out, not just because I don't like quads, but because here was a kid who obviously needed some physical exercise, and instead he was being taught by his parents (who I'm assuming may be in the same boat) to spend the day sitting on his already ample rear end.

Maybe the leveling off in rates is only temporary.

Speak of the devil...

Lou Dawson has a new hut site, www.hutski.com.

Good directions, pretty good maps and - what I find especially useful - good descriptions of ski touring around the huts.

Wish I would have seen it last week - you've got a few possible choices for the first mile or so to 10th Mountain and the mess of cross country trails back there is confusing. I think our route was fine (leaving from the gravel pit at the end of the road in Crane Park), but the Wurt's Ditch route may have been even easier.

Even better, Dawson is promising to add GPS waypoints for each route. That'd be sweet, although my GPS has a long history of not working in the snow (which is to say, every time I've actually needed it).

You tell me, though, if you remove route-finding from the hut trip experience, have you made it too easy? Breaking trail through a foot of fresh snow on Saturday would argue for "no." But there's also that point on nearly every new hut I've been to, where I'm thinking, "We must have taken a wrong turn." And that tinge of despair and exhaustion inevitably makes it all the sweeter when we finally get to our destination.

10th Mountain Hut last weekend

My wife and I headed up to 10th Mountain Hut near Leadville just in time to catch the first taste of winter. We headed up to Leadville Friday night to stay ahead of the storm. The flakes started falling at about BV, but things didn't get wintry until we passed the Twin Lakes turnoff. Spent the night at the Super 8 (yay!), had dinner at Rosie's and were at the trailhead by 9 Saturday morning.

The weather was pretty decent early Saturday - sunbreaks and snow showers and temps in the upper 20's, so we couldn't complain. We broke trail the whole way through eight to 12 inches of fresh powder. The wind started to kick up just as we arrived at the hut.


A pair of telemarkers from Boulder were just getting ready to leave. They said they'd hiked nearly the whole way in on Friday -- there was that little snow before Saturday's dump. They thanked us for breaking trail, but with the wind howling, I'm sure our tracks were gone within 20 minutes. A group of snowshoers arrived a couple hours later, exhausted, and said they'd been breaking trail the whole way.

Here's Carrie gearing up for a dash to the outhouse.

Sunday morning was beautiful, if still occasionally windy with a total of about two feet of fresh on the ground. Some of the snowshoers left early, so we had a trough to ski in most of the way, breaking trail only the last half-mile. The powder was tempting, but with no base, you'd be hitting trees or rocks with every turn.




Leadville was positively buried, but almost all the snow had disappeared by the time we got down to BV.

Can you make it to Silverton by 3 today?

Had two e-mails waiting in my in box from Jen Brill at Silverton

No. 1 -

"Closed Sunday December 2, 2007 Due to Tree that may have fallen on lift after 48" of new snow."

No. 2 -

"SILVERTON MOUNTAIN IS GOING TO OPEN ON MONDAY Dec 3, 2007
ONE DAY SPECIAL SNOW OPENING.
CASH ONLY since the power and phones are out.
$39 (Plus $1 road fee)…tree runs.
See you there!"

If for some bizarre reason you're reading this from Ouray, get in your car NOW.

Coming up as soon as I finish my donut, pix from my weekend trip to the 10th Mountain Hut near Tennessee Pass, where we got a measley two feet of snow.

Still below average

For anyone who hit the slopes this weekend, it was refreshing to have a powder day, and some ski areas in the south really got clobbered. Silverton was hit with 36 inches in 24 hours! Wolf Creek got 31. The fresh blanket of snow will help open a lot of new terrain, but the state is still way behind on snowfall. Even with the 31 inches that fell Saturday, the Associated Press says Wolf Creek is 99 inches below average for the year.

Looks like that precip is here

Just starting to mist/rain in Manitou. Very light.

Looks like a bus just slid out on Canon Ave., too, almost sliding into the Commonwheel Artists studio. Be careful out there, friends.

Monarch finally getting the white stuff

Doesn't look like the dumping at Silverton, but check out the webcams here: www.skimonarch.com/webcams.asp.

(I'll hyperlink if I get into the office today. Can't do it from home on my Mac.)

Monarch relies on Mother Nature, and has had to delay opening. Same with Ski Cooper. Leadville is reporting 32 degrees and mist, with a couple of inches possible today and tonight. We'll keep checking in to see if these Gems look like they can open anytime soon.

Send us slope reports

I'm just getting over a bout of viral pneumonia - nasty stuff - so I won't be headed up with my board till at least next weekend.

But that shouldn't stop you. If you get up to the powder today, tomorrow, Monday instead of work... send us a report. Add a comment to a post here or e-mail me at dena.rosenberry@gazette.com or add a post to our other winter web site: snowrideguide.com

We talking inches or feet?

Well, I left Monument to head south at midnight and an arctic wind made me believe I'd wake up to a frosty, if not wintry white, Manitou Springs.

Barely a frost.

But what's happening elsewhere? Weather reports still say the high country will see snow all day. Almost every report reported snow overnight with snow continuing to fall. Hmm, something tells me I may not see Dave till Wednesday...

Larry Walrod, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in Pueblo, told The Gazette: "As time went on with this system, it looked more and more like it was going to pound the mountains and less and less like it would hit the Eastern Plains."

Parts of the San Juan range above 10,000 feet have seen as much as three feet of snow and that total could rise to four feet by the time the storm ebbs Sunday, Walrod said. Western Chaffee and Lake counties have gotten a 1- to 2-foot dump around the Continental Divide, and Leadville has seen about 8 inches, he added.

Here's what ski areas and ski towns are reporting"

Silverton through Telluride: up to 9 inches today with 100% chance of snow today and 80% tonight.

Wolf Creek is reporting 4 inches in 24 hours. Aspen Mountain, 5. Snowmass: 10. Weather reports show another 5 inches or so falling in Aspen today and another 2-4 tonight.

Crested Butte, where it's been bare, got 9. Remember, free skiing at CB through Dec. 15.

Closer to us, Breck and A-Basin are reporting 1 inch. Copper, 4. Keystone, where more terrain and the terrain park are opening today, got 1 inch. The area is expecting 2-4 inches today and another 1-3 tonight. But be ready for blowing snow today.

Loveland's reporting 2.

For a full report, check: www.coloradoski.com/SnowReport

For city by city weather forecasts: www.crh.noaa.gov/gjt/