We’re four days into the Breck trip, four days on the hill that is, here’s a brief update so far.
First day powder day?
Sadly not – for me anyway. Optimistic forecasts were predicting between 10″ and 15″ of fresh. It sure was snowing pretty heavy as we were driven into Breckenridge on Saturday night, but in the morning it was probably more like 4″ – 6″. Having said that, up at the top it may well have been more. I didn’t go look…
The flight was a little behind schedule and things at the airport took longer than expected once we’d landed. The result was that we got into town late on Saturday night. New town, no food for breakfast, no lift passes yet – it took us a while to get out there on Sunday morning. Your worst nightmare right? Powder day (potentially) and you can’t get out on the hill.
It wasn’t so bad – I don’t think I missed out on much. Hopefully there will be more goods to come while we’re still here 😉
The Parks
The parks really are impressive. Park Lane is long, well groomed and there are loads of good hits. Right now the kickers are too big for me there. I could probably hit #1 and #2 – but I’m not sure. It’s been so long since I’ve ridden jumps… Maybe I’ll come back to that later.
The rails and jibs? Yeah, good. I’ve taken 6 laps through there – unfortunately I’m the only one in the group who wants/can hit those rails, so I’m riding solo when I go there. I’ve got no problem with that, it just means breaking from the group. Some of them are tough and I don’t feel I’m as confident as I’ve been at Cas – but I’ll get there.
Smaller, intermediate parks? There’s a handy little park on Peak 9 – a couple of small jumps and rails. Unfortunately, the second park that they usually have on peak 9 hasn’t been built, and it won’t be. That park normally has a line of good, progression kickers. That’s a miss. The halfpipe on Peak 9 is mid build. I hope they’ll finish it while we’re here – there’s enough snow, it just needs shaping…
Keystone
I’ve heard some good things about the parks at Keystone – may be better suited to someone of my ability. We’ll definitely be going there, maybe even tomorrow. More to come on this.
Other stuff
There are some awesome beers here. Most in our group are lager drinkers – and the selection is limited. I’m partial to a range of good ales and there’s so much choice. Awesome. Having put in some good practice over the last 4 nights, I’ve arrived at a workable limit. 5 pints and there’s no trace the following morning. Sorted.
Nice touches around the mountain – there are loads of them. The way they operate the lift queues is awesome (although the mountain is actually very quiet right now). You can pick up tissues at the bottom of every lift – and trail maps too. Navigating around is simple; the signs are good and there are “directions” in addition to the plain map. It’s impressive.
Injury. One of our group broke their arm on the 3rd day. It sucks. Such bad luck. It kinda halted things for a lot of the day, everyone felt so bad, but we’re back to getting on with things. It just happens some times – I’ve been there before so I know how it feels…
What’s next?
More riding 😉 I’m looking forward to more laps in Park Lane and a trip of two to Keystone. Hopefully we’ll get a fresh dump, that would be sick. It’s pretty awesome here, it feels so good to be on the mountain. The terrain on the mountain is well laid out – there are some great runs and right now it’s very quiet. No waiting and empty runs. I’m feeling pretty confident with my riding, I’ve tested the GoPro so should put that to use soon, I just need to stop writing this and get out on the hill…
