[Bill Menke’s Journal for January 5-14, 2011]

January 5, Keystone, Colorado. Dallas and I drove up to Silverthorne CO in the late morning, having spent the night at Hannah’s place in Golden, CO. The morning was clear and Table Mountain and the other hills around Golden were brilliantly lit by the sun. We drove up Clear Creek Canyon, first along Route 6, at the bottom of a steep and winding canyon. The road passes through six tunnels and then joins Interstate 70, where the canyon widens into a broad valley. I sighted many old mine workings on the surrounding hillsides. They are easily recognizable by piles of mine workings, which are yellowish tan and stand out against the darker browns of the undisturbed rock. I count eight on a single hillside. We took the Eisenhower Tunnel. I doubt we would have considered Loveland Pass, the alternative, for it is slower, but it was blocked by an accident, anyway.

We arrive at the Keystone ski area in the late afternoon. The sky has become overcast and a little snow is falling. Temperatures are in the high twenties, Fahrenheit. We ski for about two hours, mostly on Dercum Mountain, which is nearest to the entrance, and especially on Wild Irishman, a twisting slope of intermediate difficulty. Towards the end we were skiing by artificial light. This was my first encounter with night skiing. It worked for me reasonably well.

We ate dinner at Chimayo’s Mexican Grille in Dillon CO and stayed at the Luxury Inn and Suites in Silverthorn.

January 6, Keystone, Colorado. The morning is cold and clear, with clouds atop some of the neighboring peaks. Buffalo Mountain (elevation 12,777 feet) is a particularly prominent peak that we can see from our hotel. Its dome shape is cut by a deep glacial cirque. It also sports recent avalanche scars on its wooded slopes. We stop briefly on Route 6 as we drive to Keystone, to admire the view across Dillon Reservoir and the high mountains beyond it. This lake is created by a large earth fill dam, visible from our hotel, which impounds the Blue River. Much of the town of Silverthorne is below lake level.

We ski for about five hours at Keystone. We ski over to the North Peak, and spend much of our time skiing down into the valley between it and Dercum Mountain and then riding the Geronimo lift back up to the top. The trees here are mostly lodgepole pine and great many of them are dead from pine beetles – red derelicts among the green woods. However, some of the locals say the disease does not seemed to have progressed much in the last few years, perhaps because of colder temperatures.

We ski three intermediate slopes. Spillway, Prospector and Cat Dancer, and an expert slope called Star Fire. We eat lunch sitting on lawn chairs in front of LaBonte’s cabin, which is in the valley between Dercum Mountain and the North Peak, and sheltered from the wind. We also ski over to the Mountain House, a satellite lodge off of Route 6, where I buy a new set of batteries for my camera.

We at dinner at Chimayo’s, again. The sunset is very beautiful, with the cloud cap over Buffalo Mountain turning a brilliant orange.

January 7, Keystone, Colorado. We are treated to another clear day. We more or less repeat yesterday’s skiing, except that we take the Outback Express lift up to the third and most distance mountain side. This area has several nice intermediate slopes, including Elk Run and Porcupine. We ski several the very steep Star Fire slope several more times. I botch a turn once, and take a nasty fall, tumbling over twice before I can bring myself to a stop. I am lucky to come out of it with no more than a few bruises (including to my ego!). Analyzing the mistake is hard when all goes suddenly crazy in a few milliseconds, but I think that I leaned the wrong way when going over a little knoll, and my skis came flew up off the ground. Ah, well …

We ate lunch at LaBronte’s cabin again, and Dinner at Chimayo’s.

January 8, Breckenridge, Colorado. Hannah joins us for the weekend. Today we ski at Breckenridge, a twenty mile drive south along Route 9. The day is again spectacularly clear. Breckenridge is a huge ski resort, spread across a series of adjacent peaks, numbered 7 through 10. We have to take gondola just to reach the main lodge at the foot of Peak 8. We begin the day by ascending to just below the summit of Peak 8 (elevation 12,998), well above tree line. We then ski north, following a contour, onto an arête that connects to Peak 7. From the arête we have close to a 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains – a truly awesome sight. We then ski the Peak 7 Bowl. Hannah was hoping to find power here, but the snow had been skied over pretty much everywhere. The skiing is fine, though. Remembering yesterday’s fall, I ski a conservative arc through the bowl and then through a section of easy glades at its base.

We eat Lunch at the Peak 8 Base Lodge, sitting at a picnic table out in the sun. Hannah has brought some chili, which she has kept hot in a thermos, and shares it with us.

We make our way over to Peak 10 in the afternoon, and ski some of the groomed trails there. They are listed as single-diamonds, but seem less difficult than some of the intermediate slopes that we skied yesterday at Keystone. Towards the end of the day, we try to find the Peak 8 Superconnect Lift, so we can return to the car. But we get separated from Hannah and spend the better part of an hour more-or-less lost in the maze of trails. Cell phones and maps are not much of a help, since wrong turns are so easy to make! Furthermore, some of the trails, especially those with moguls, are beyond or ability. We start skiing down one, Tom’s Baby, only to have to side step out of it when it became turned into a mogul-filled glade. We meet up again with Hannah only at the parking lot.

In the evening, we have a steak dinner at the Pug Ryan Brewery in Dillon.

January 9, Keystone, Colorado. Hannah is still with us. We ski at Keystone today, mostly on the North Peak. It’s very cold, and we take several beaks, including one amongst the shops at River Run Village, at the base of Dercum Mountain. We have lunch at Summit House, at the top of Dercum Mountain, where we finish off the last of Hannah’s chili.

We have dinner at Jersey Pizza and deli, in Dillon.

January 10, Frisco Nordic Center, Frisco, Colorado. About a foot of snow fell during the night, though the morning is partly clear, and very cold (near zero, Fahrenheit). Hannah, who has returned to Golden, thinks us failures for not being first at the lift line to enjoy the power, but we are just too tired and sore from five days of skiing. We sleep late and then head over to the Frisco Nordic Center for a day of cross-country skiing.

The Nordic Center is on a peninsula, part of White Mountain national Forest, that extends into the south side of Dillon Reservoir. We take the Buzzsaw loop, through the woods along the spine of the peninsula, and then connect with Crown Point Road on the way back. It’s a total of 8 km. The sky is pretty dramatic, blue with many puffy clouds. The woods, mostly beetle damaged lodgepole pine, are fairly thin, which affords nice view of the surrounding high peaks, though not of the reservoir.

We have lunch at the Nordic Center Lodge. I then take a solo trip, on a course that offers better views of the reservoir. I first ski RJ Vista to the boat launch at its end, and then take the winding Frisco Bay Trail on the way back. The afternoon has clouded over and a little snow is falling. I have a nice view of the white, snow-covered surface of the reservoir, and the wooded islets within it, especially from the area of the boat launch, but the surrounding peaks are now partially obscured by falling snow. I rack up another eight kilometers, or so. The afternoon is really quite cold.

January 11, Keystone, Colorado. Dallas and I skied at Keystone again, enjoying a variety of trails and getting as far as the top of the Outback Express Lift. The day is very cold, in the single digits, Fahrenheit. We again have lunch at LaBonte’s Cabin.

We have dinner at Chamayo’s.

January 12, Frisco Nordic Center, Frisco, Colorado. Dallas and I ski Buzzsaw in the morning, and then take Crown Point Road to its end. From there we head back via Rush Hill, Olympians’s Link and RJ Vista. Olympian Link affords a wonderful view of Dillon Reservoir, and the mountain peaks to its north, especially on the exceptionally clear day. The very recognizable Buffalo Mountain sports a very picturesque cloud cap. This loop seemed fairly long, perhaps 10 or 11 km.

After eating lunch at the Nordic Center Lodge, I take a second, solo trip, doing the Balfonz Blitz and Jody Nugget trails. These form a loop, similar in terrain to the Buzzsaw loop, but with better view of both the mountains and the reservoir. I also ski steep Riechl’s Retreat in both directions. It connects the northern end of Jody’s Nugget to Olympian’s Link. The uphill leg is quite challenging for me, because of the elevation (about 9000 ft). I am really huffing and puffing as I ski, herring-bone style, up.

In the evening, we meet up with Stefanie and Ben Lawston, relations of Dallas’, at the Red Mountain Grille in Dillon. Hannah joins us, too. Afterward, we visit with Stefanie and Ben in their new house in Dillon. The living room has a double-high ceiling in which a tall and thin, twenty-foot high, Christmas Tree stands.

January 13, Breckenridge, Colorado. Hannah joins us for a day of skiing at Breckenridge. We get to the top of the Colorado Superchair Lift on Peak 8, only to find that the ratchet on one of the bindings of Hannah’s snowboard has disappeared. I accompany her down to the Breckenridge Sports shop at the baselodge, where a clever technician fixes it quickly and inexpensively. We then take some runs through the Peak 8 glades. We have lunch at the Peak 9 Restaurant. This building is built on what appears to be a lateral moraine, just beside a steep valley. Hannah then departs, and Dallas and I spend the rest of the day skiing on Peak 10. We finish up at about 2PM. I take a very slow and loopy final path down the easiest slopes, relaxing and enjoying what is the last downhill ski run of this trip.

January 14, Frisco Nordic Center, Frisco, Colorado. The morning is sunny and rather warm. An inch or so of snow has fallen during the night, and the trails are very fast. Dallas and I ski the east section of Jody’s Nugget, and then take Reichl’s Retreat, Olympian Link and RJ Vista back to the Lodge. Reichl’s Retreat and Olympian Link are all downhill fun. On the way back I take a detour and ski the two easy trails near the Lodge, M’Rezy and Tex’s Trot.

After lunch at the Nordic Center Lodge, I take a second, solo trip that covers the few remaining trail sections that I have not done previously, including sections of Buzzsaw and Frisco Bay. The afternoon is cloudier and colder than the morning. Over the course of three days, I have covered all of the 45 km or so of trails at the center, doing some of them – and especially Buzzsaw - several times over.

We drove back down to Golden in the late afternoon. The mountains along Clear Creek Canyon were spectacularly lit up by the sun. We had dinner at Hannah’s place, ordering takeout from the Golden City Chinese Restaurant.

We flew back to New York on the red eye.