end of season

Bill's visit;

The view to Garrett's looking west from Sneaky's

                                         Upper green Cabin

                                         On the bumps - lower Garrett's Gulch and note correct position of ' weight back'. What style !

                                          Gwyn's for breakfast on 2nd ( and last ) day. Fuel for Long Shot

         

                                          Top of Long Shot looking South to Maroon Bells

                                         Boarding with EJ- aged 78. Not bad eh?

                                          5 days to go to closure and an epic powder day. Ripping it up on our boards on the Big Burn in almost a foot of new snow, followed by a violin lesson with Heidi in Aspen.    Last visit to Highlands Bowl tomorrow April 10. Promises to be one of the best of the season with good cover and 18 inches or so of new snow. Helped hopefully by my latest pride and joy - these DPS fat skis with touring Dynafit bindings. See above.
PS Fabulous last day with Peter - right up to expectations. A foot to 18inches in the trees.

Taos

We had delightful visits from Luke and Kate from Indiana ( friends of D & K ) and Martha and Dick from Atlanta. Sadly no pics of any of them. Martha was a star in skinning up to Gwyns with us for breakfast one morning and then x country skiing with M up to Pine Creek Cookhouse on another day.

Aggravatingly I tore a calf muscle on Upper Green Cabin and this is the result. Ice pack for a day, but afforded chance for much needed practice to keep up with Mary's progress under the skilled tutelage of dear Heidi. Note the Amazing Slowdowner facility on our Apple in background that gives facility of accompaninent at whatever tempo you want.

 Not serious enough though to stop the weekly hikes to summit of Highlands Bowl with Peter and as ever a brilliant ski down.

 We left Snowmass after work for both of us on Sat evening at 4 and got to Poncha Springs 4  hours or so later via Minturn and Leadville. A fabulous little motel there with an excellent Italian restauraunt next door.  Left there by 6 the next morning and had breakfast at this recommended cafe in Alamosa.

 Taos by 11 and skiing by 11.30 thanks to generous discounted lift tickets left out for us by Dadou. This is at bottom of chairlift with the St Bernard owned and managed by Dadou's brother Jean where we were royally entertained.

 Built and run very much as a French style ski lodge. This was the table M & I were placed at in the evening for a superb dinner with a delightful family from New York.  Jean personally came out  to "present" each course describing in French the ingredients.  He and his brother Dadou ( who works there when not private ski instructing ) that we have got to know so well are legends from the pioneering days of skiing in New Mexico. 

 Dadou's house outside the historic town of Taos some 20 minutes drive from the ski resort and where we stayed for 2 nights. The perfect host.

 In addition to being an incredible skier ( ex French ski team ), instructor, chef, and who in his earlier days built houses and owned/ran hotels,  he grows his own coffee beans in Hawaii.

 Looking up to Kanchina Peak. Approached by an hour's hike along the ridge from the right.  Next time ... !

 A typical run on the ' back side ' of the mountain, Mary displaying Dadou's edging & weight back technique.

 The St Bernard Hotel right at the bottom of the main lift.

 After a good breakfast in Taos, we drove back via the Great Sand Dunes National Park and the  Rio Grande river gorge, lunch in Salida and back in Snowmass by 7. Almost 8 hours of driving ,  but stunning scenery for almost the whole journey passing under at least 8 of Colorado's 50 odd 14er peaks

 A great 3 day trip.  Thank you Dadou for all your kindnesses. To New Mexico we shall return.

Mid Jan to mid Feb highlights

The Buddy Programme lay on an eve of the Buttermilk X games gathering when little buddies can meet some of the stars and watch the practicing close up. Some pretty amazing stuff. Gabby just visible through the layers with half pipe in background.

Dadou returns to Meadow Ranch for 2 weeks. What a guy! And we got another ' private' ! He's now gone back to Taos to help his brother but will return we hope at end Feb. Meanwhile Alex is in our studio flat and joins us occasionally for our regular Monday skin trip up to Gwyns.

Lee returned from Hawaii for a few days and joined us for breakfast at Gwyns.  We skinned ; he took the lift! Sorry Lee - no A/T equipment not an excuse next time!

Chip Foster ( TOSV Transportation supervisor ) gave me the day of the season on Feb 12. Back country skiing off Richmond Ridge. As it turned out , the conditions were about as ideal as they could be.  Bitterly cold, but not a cloud in sky all day.  Just the two of us, we took the gondola to summit of Aspen Mtn and skinned south along the first section of Richmond Ridge. Then dropped down in to the Little Annie side of the mtn (towards Maroon Creek). Good powder but always the risk of breaking through to a bottomless layer beneath which made it ( for me - not Chip ) tricky.

This at the bottom of the first pitch looking west over to Highlands Bowl

Ditto with the view to the southwest.  The Five Fingers clearly visible. The shoulder of Mt Hayden on far left. Chip's skis look more like water skis. Maybe that's why he rode the powder better than I did. Sounds like a good excuse anyway. I'll use it anyway.

We skinned back up to summit of Ridge and skied down the other side ( towards Castle Creek ). This taken near the bottom of that pitch.

Another skin back up nearly to the Ridge, had our sandwiches and hot tea, and skied down one of the Macfarlane bowls. We started our descent just to the left of where the sun is setting in this pic. No one had been near here since the last snowfall , so fabulous unbroken powder.

This is an extension of the pitch just referred to . Zoom in and you'll spot Chip and a very pretty set of tracks. From where I took this pic (and it was well after 3.30 by now), we had a long skin out to get back into the Aspen Mtn ski area boundary.

Here we are back in relative civilisation at the bottom of Walsh's. Took skins off , skied down under the Gents Ridge lift and down Copper to base of Aspen Mtn. A memorable day. I had been nervous about it . A lot can ' happen ' out there ( we were at over 10,000 feet all day ), so was with huge relief to collapse that evening in the warmth and comfort of Meadow Ranch .  Chip is hugely experienced in back country skiing and knows the area like the back of his hand. Thank you Chip for being such a great guide and companion.

Post John o'Groats

John o'Groats is a very distant memory but no less a treasured one for that.

Principally for my own purposes, I'll record a little of what has happened since. I've failed miserably in my intent to keep a blog reasonably up to date and all I've done in the interim is attach pics to the LEJOG blog entries which I was not able to do at the time.

I took the ferry the next morning as planned to Orkney. Almost missed it while taking this pic. They were lifting the ramp as I ambled round the bay from where this was taken.  When I expressed dismay that there was still 5 minutes to go before departure, I didn't get a helpful response.  Very lucky.

Pedalled then to Kirkwall from St Margarets Hope via Churchill Barriers and had a day and half there recuperating before getting ferry overnight from Kirkwall to Aberdeen. Bus with bike and all gear to Braemar and had a very peaceful 2 days there catching up on a mass of admin matters.  A couple of nights then kind courtesy of Keith and Fiona, followed by 2 delightful weeks at the Beach House, North Berwick. First Jane and Johannes joined us for a few days and then the Ryans. Very special.

  A week then in Braemar , again catching up and dealing with all the preliminaries of getting Morrone on the market next May.  A good afternoon with the Colemans and another day and night with  a lovely visit from Keith and Fiona and a walk in Glen Quoich.


Also a delightful 2 night visit from Greg and Di. Mary and Greg set up a long overdue violin duet session with George briefly lending a discordant note on the oboe to balance things. A study in concentration.

A couple of days in London with Harry and a fabulous evening at Covent Garden for a stunning performance of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore.
Back then to Snowmass and to work for us both a week later on Thanksgiving Day.  A slowish start to the season with very poor snow conditions in November and first half of December. A good couple of dumps around Christmas rescued the early season and it's been good , but not spectacular , since.

Early season included a lot of days skinning up the mountain - one day with Sarah Jewett - and skiing down runs before lifts serving them had been opened . A lot of fun and some good snow.

Duncan was with us for 5 days ( Katy delayed in Australia with visa problems - now resolved ) and we had a blast.  Paul , through Mary,  recruited him to the tenor section of the Snowmass Choir for an ambitious Christmas eve performance in the Chapel - Utube has it for those interested - and it was very , very good. Followed next day by a powder day extraordinaire .  Duncan on tele's and no problem ! We threw a Christmas night dinner party with turkey and all the trimmings - the 3 of us , Gracie, Dick from next door and Beige from across the road. No pics unfortunately.

On now to beginning of Jan and another season well under way.  Bus driving going well . 4 days and 4 different routes breaking such monotony as there is. Mostly I enjoy it enormously and meet a lot of people. Just driving round the village in a state of the art bus among this spectacular scenery all day long is a thrill in itself. And always good music - to keep the passengers happy of course ! But it's been busy particularly with huge numbers of college kids from northern states.   M also doing 4 days a week for Ski Co - all outside and it's been very cold , and again v busy for her. She's reveling in it though, albeit comes back tired at night after spending up to 9 hours on her feet. Our 3 days off each week are  special. How lucky we are to be an integral part of one of the great ski areas of the world. A real privilege.


Today,  Monday,  for instance ,

we hiked, very early,  on skins up to Gwyns for breakfast , skied back down, drove into Aspen where Mary had a violin lesson from Heidi  and I got a car tire fixed, back to Meadow Ranch , played some music together while Dadou cooks ( he's a chef as well ! ) a delicious meal for Mary me and Alex our new downstairs tenant. A Slovakian boarding instructor.  Dadou is only here for a couple of weeks from Taos with private lessons fixed up for each day with Australian clients of his who will ski with no-one else ! We're  hoping he'll manage to fit us in one of the days he's here ! He's a legend.

Tragedy last Sunday with Patsy - ski patrol - a regular on my bus, and in Mary's yoga class - killed in a an avalanche on the Hanging Valley Wall. A memorial service , attended by about 800 people, after dark at Elk Camp restauraunt at top of gondola. 50 or so ski patrol skiing down afterwards with red flares portraying PATSY on the slope beneath the gondola. Very impressive.





Today Tues Jan 8 , another good hike up to summit of Highland Bowl with Peter.  Two weeks since snow and the descent was tricky - for us anyway. But a fun day.