Snowboarding, Hitchhiking, and Macklemore

Last weekend I went backcountry snowboarding for the first time with my neighbor Cliff and his roommate Eric at Loveland Pass. I was the only one with a car so we parked at the bottom of the pass walked out to the road and stuck our thumbs up, not even a minute later a pickup truck pulled over and we all jumped into the back for a free ride to the top. Mountain passes seem a little more dangerous from the back of a stranger’s truck as they speed up a snow-covered road with a hundred foot drop on one side. Once we got to the top we jumped out thanked the driver, turned on our avalanche beacons and started a 30 minute hike along the ridge to a steep face we saw from the road.

From the top of the face the snow looked deep with no rocks and only a few other tracks. I dropped in first and almost immediately hit a rock under the snow sending me rag dolling head over heels for a good 50 yards down the almost vertical face. Then Cliff and Eric came down with a little more caution while laughing their asses off and helped pull me out of the waist deep snow I was stuck in. We ended up boarding down and hitchhiking back up about 10 times before traffic over the pass died off and we weren’t able to hitch a ride up after 30 minutes of waiting so we left for the day.

Friday I went snowboarding at Aspen/Snowmass with one of my coworkers, they had awesome terrain consisting of huge cliff drops and steep tree runs and million dollar houses way up on the mountain right next to trails. It was a pretty cool resort, definitely some where I would consider working if I ever spend a winter in Colorado again.

Friday night I went to a free Macklemore and Ryan Lewis concert at Vail for the Burton U.S. Open snowboarding championships and it was by far the craziest concert I have ever been to. It was outdoors in a plaza packed body to body with mostly stoned and drunk people in an off and on snowstorm. I was a little sore Saturday from getting smashed in between a few thousand jumping people but it was well worth it.

After 100+ days of snowboarding this winter I have gotten a little bored,  I spent the last month riding every trail I came across as fast as possible with pure  reckless abandonment. I have had some horrible falls, slams, and collisions with objects while snowboarding this last month so it’s probably a good thing the season is almost over. I have decided to play it mostly safe for the rest of the season, but I still want to improve my riding some and one of my goals is to hit 65 maybe 70 mph on my snowboard but I haven’t gotten faster than 61 yet.

Days I Have Snowboarded This Winter: 111

Peace, Love, and Happiness

Live A Little

-Derek