Skiing with a group of friends is a lot of fun, and Friday was one of those days. A group of eleven gathered at Vail and enjoyed some fine weather and fresh snow while renewing friendships. The most difficult aspect of the day was trying to keep a group of eleven together, and we did not succeed, but it was a great time nonetheless.
Our friends, the Gaiges, hosted their daughter Jacy and boyfriend Billy for a short winter break as they flew to Denver from Washington DC on Wednesday. The Gaige family joined our other friends, the Youngs, at their rental house near Dillon, and their son Brady and wife Kara joined the group on Thursday night. Jane and I drove to Frisco on Friday morning where we met the rest of the group, and then we car pooled from Frisco to Vail.
Unfortunately when we arrived at the Lionshead parking lot at Vail by 8:45AM, we learned that the Born Free express chair was not functioning so there was a one hour wait in the gondola line. We elected to board a shuttle bus and transferred to Vail Village where we found the line for the Vista Bahn gondola shorter than the lift lines at Lionshead. We were finally able to launch our ski day by 10AM.
The Gang Minus Karen and David Gaige
It was well worth the wait as the clouds burned away, and we experienced sunny skies and temperatures in the low 30’s most of the day. The four inches of fresh snow was mostly chopped up by the time we touched down in Game Creek Bowl, but we still managed to find some nearly trackless powder. Even the slopes that were tracked out held nice light snow, so while not fresh untracked powder, the snow conditions were still quite conducive to soft turns and controlling speed on moguls.
Jane on Genghis Khan
A Look at Blue Sky and Lovers Leap
Perhaps the highlight of the day was our apres ski stop at Q4U, a “hole in the wall” barbecue joint on Summit Avenue in Frisco. Our group met there after an active day of skiing and enjoyed two pitchers of beer and fine barbecued meats. It was a great way to begin a weekend in February.
Top of Little Ollie