The Arapahoe Basin Story...

So Pete and I decided to go boarding at A-Basin on Tuesday because we both had the day off and it seemed like a better idea than going on Saturday.

We both have passes to A-basin, the pass was more or less the cheapest of a bunch f options and it gets you unlimted A-Basin and Keystone riding, with some discounts for other mountains, but not unlimited.

A-Basin, and I'll get yelled at for this, is like a BIG Ragged mountain. I say that because short of a grill and a bar, there is nothing there, except a very expensive place to buy sunblock. But that makes the parking lot a short walk to the chairs, and it looks like it could be some pretty challenging riding when they get a good dumping.

The ride up is, to me, amazing, although the Rover disagrees. It was a bit of a struggle finding a good gear for the climb. Problem with the AMerican Discovery is it is geared for soccer moms that either drive on pavement in the city or going 85 on the highway, so there really is no climbing gear. From 3rd to 4th is a hug gap, and I would say the ebst gear for this hill would be 3.5 :).

About 3/4 of the way there the car started to smell funny. Not funny ha ha, but funny "what the hell died ?"

At first I thought we would sees omething in the road, but the only thing there was construction workers, and they looked as alive as road crews can. Ok they were breathing...

So the 2 of us started wondering what it was, which allowed for the casual "Hey, did you rip one?" Or "Hey put your shoes back on..."

Well almost everything that can go wrong with a car at stress has already happened to me and frankly nothing ever smelled like this. ANyway, so now we re driving up with the windows open.

When we got to the mountain, Actually we were deep in mountians, so I guess once we got to the destination, we started gearing up. ANd Pete noticed that his board was covered in White goo...

I thought maybe he had found a long lost bottle of my sunblock, but, well it didn't smell like sunblock, it smelled like S%^&t.

Turns out Pete's sister in law had used his boot bag as storage for some of her babay things aand in this bag, which had been in a nice hot attic all the Colorado summer, was a "sippy" cup of milk.....

Well that pretty much nailed the smell, so we cleaned up as best as we could. hah.

When we got off the chair lift for the first run, I swear I heard someone sat " What the hell is that smell.. ?"

Got the first run in, this being my first run ever in Colorado, I was expecting something I had never felt before. Well it was like a good day in New England, which eans everyhting was ice with a dusting of baby powder.

My legs were killing me and so were my lungs. But we got on the chair for another run. And true to form, I crased on the ICe about 3/4 of the way down the run. And slid for about 40 yards. you don't just crash and stop here, it's steep and as I said, the snow is like baby powder, it's extremely dry, and it doesn't provide any friction at all.

So I dusted myself off, or started to when I realized that my shoulder was killing me. I had landed on the same damn shoulder I landed on like 6 years agao on a trip to Mt. Snow I(That was when I tried to thread the needle in between condos at speed rather than taking off my board and walking like a sane person)

Well long story a little shorter, I had whacke dmy shoulder hard enough tthat it hurt to even think of moving it. And it still hurts quite a bit. If it continues to be this painful, I may have to give in and test the hospitals out here.

SO my shoulder is whacked and my car smells like the travelling gnome got his stinky cheese fetish satisfied.

My first day riding in Colorado... Glamorous, eh ? X-Games here I come, at least to someplace with a TV so I can watch them. :)

Off to work, if I can shift. Have a ggreat weekend all.

H