SkiChicken.com

If you are active military - and aren’t currently reading this from Afghanistan, Iraq, or some other place devoid of snow… you may get a sweet deal over at Keystone:

From onthesnow.com:

Keystone’s Liberty Pass gives break to military personnel.

is offering a special season pass for active U.S. military personnel and their family members (including Reserve and National Guard, and also active duty foreign military members in Colorado) for the seventh consecutive year. The pass offers unlimited skiing and snowboarding during the 2008-09 season. The Liberty Pass is $189 for adults, $109 for children and provides unlimited skiing and riding at Keystone and Arapahoe Basin from the date of purchase through Keystone’s closing date (April 2009). All military must present their military-issued identification cards for their pass and for their immediate family member passes.

              

Copper Mountain is usually one of the first Colorado ski resorts to open, and Nov 14 is a respectable opening date. I was kind of hoping they would open on October 14, but I guess life isn’t always fair.

Tonight I will perform my snow dance, as I think we are all ready for it to start snowing. And who knows? Maybe “Winter season starts Nov. 14, 2008″ is more of a suggestion than a hard and fast rule!

              

Copper Mountain closes April 13, 2008
Snowmass closes April 13, 2008
Highlands will be open for the next two weekends, but has closed during the week (It was a great closing day party, though!)

More closing dates for Colorado Ski Resorts coming soon!

              

Here at SkiChicken.com World Headquarters, we study all sorts of interesting questions. For one, why is Guinness such a lovely brew? Why does a third glass make me giggle sometimes? Other questions we sometimes find in our server logs.

For example, I can tell someone recently came to our website after searching for answers to the question “What makes snow slippery?”. I’m not sure why our site came up in the search engine results from that query, but we take it as a suggestion - NAY, a mission statement - to respond to each and every question we find this way. Within the bounds of good taste, of course.

So here is the answer, Victoria (Or whatever your name is):
I think it’s because it melts a little bit with the friction of a ski or snowboard gliding across it. The very thin film of water that results makes you slip down the slope.

That answer based upon my liberal arts degree (Hey, it was BS - you probably guessed that). But really, aren’t there more qualified sites out there to ask? If your life depends on it somehow(like in episode 12 of MacGyver, starring Richard Dean Anderson), maybe you should ask a more scientific-minded website.

              

Get up to Copper Mountain ASAP if you want to take advantage of this last batch of snow. Copper Mountain Ski resort is closing on April 13, 2008! The snow will probably be great. The weather will be great. And yes, the beer will be great (I know you were concerned).

              

Snowmass Village Spring skiing is amazing. I arrived at 2pm and found free parking in the C lot, allowing me a short ski down to the lift.

We switched lifts to the Elk Camp Goldola and rode up the Elk Camp lift. Our first run down wasn’t on Gunner’s View(one of my favorite runs), but it was still a GREAT run. We then made our way over to Alpine Springs and made a run down “Naked Lady”.

Naked lady is such a pleasant run, I was giggling while I skiied. It’s such a great reminder of the ski fervor Snowmass gives me. I hadn’t skiied for 11 years, then skiied Snowmass in 2001. It changed my life. Snowmass is just that great. Smooth slopes and plenty of room. It just makes skiing some much fun! Have you ever giggled while you skiied? If not, get your butt over to Snowmass!

Naked Lady is a curvy little run, and there are a few unexpected bumps. In fact, I had my first big crash in years due to a bump that caught me a little offguard. Jason witnessed it, and thinks maybe I flew off the side of a nipple on Naked Lady. To me it felt a little more like a belly button. I lost both skies(Something Jason said even he had never seen) and skidded down the hill 40 or 50 feet head first on my stomach. Another great reason to have a helmet. My Goggles were full of snow and down around my neck by the time I stopped. I tasted the snow and IT WAS GOOD! A little salty perhaps.

Of course, I am fine. Thanks to the sweet spring powdery goodness of Snowmass, which lovingly held me. I was brought to a safe stop in the caressing embrace of it’s sweet snow cleavage.

              

Copper’s April is off to a great start. While the Temperatures are warming, there was just enough wind yesterday to keep the snow in PERFECT packed powder conditions.

Skiing on a Tuesday means smaller lift lines, but yesterday was a little different. Copper was hosting the USASA, and had a few lines closed over on the American Flyer lift. The combination meant a bit of a wait, but the Timberline lift (over beside the T-REX cafe) had almost no one there! Once I was on the mountain, it was run after run. The slopes didn’t feel crowded, and the snow was amazing. I might need to ski every Tuesday, just to experience it. Hopefully nothing will warm up too quickly.

I followed the day up with a Copper Bowl Brown Ale and Empenadas at Endos. Yes, they were out of Guinness.

              

Guinness makes just about anything more tasty. If it has meat or chocolate in it, Guinness is a sure bet winner. The Old Louisville Inn, a historic and AWESOME bar in Louisville Colorado, has a wonderful Guinness Meatloaf that’s worth the drive from wherever you might be. Maybe even from Guam, although you may want to take a boat.

I highly recommend you get the Guinness meatloaf with sweet potato fries and a pint of two of Guinness. Do it for for yourself. Because you’re worth it.

              

The Classic Pass from Aspen Snowmass is a wonderful little pass - you get 4 or 7 days at reduced rates to any of their four mountains, including Highlands, Buttermilk, Aspen Mountain, and my beloved Snowmass. On top of that, they sometimes offer amazing deals on lodging, etc.

My contacts in Snowmass tell me the snow is still AMAZING, and I will soon begin one of my pilgrimages to lovely Snowmass Village. The deals they emailed me can be found at:
Aspen Snowmass Classic Pass Lodging Deals. While they didn’t say anything too touchy-feely in their (automated) email to me, I’d like to think they were saying “We love you, too skichicken. Big hugs.”

              

This isn’t one of those blogs that follows what ski instructors tell you. I don’t know if you’ve caught onto that by now, but I just thought I’d let you - the reader - know. There’s a reason I’m not a better skier: Listening skills. Learning ability. And some other stuff I wan’t paying attention to. Today’s post flies in the face of all of the good advice I’ve ever gotten. Why the heck do we skiers need ski poles?

1. Feelers
It’s fun to drag your pole as you are turning. It tells you how far down the ground is, and allows you to adjust. Will you be in the Olympics using this technique? Well, probably not. But really, you should stop fooling yourself about that anyway - there’s a couple other reasons you won’t won’t be bringing home the gold any time soon. So drag your poles a little and have fun!

2. Self defense against marauding snow ninjas
Ever been attacked by marauding snow ninjas? No, of course not. why? Because you had your poles with you. Snow ninjas, while they love marauding, absolutely HATE to be poked. Poles are an effective self defense implement. When I first started skiing as a child, skiers would sometimes buzz too close. My Uncle Bob taught me to flail my limbs when I heard someone about to buzz me. Poof - magically no more close calls. This technique of flailing serves me well, even today, as it has become my main method of dancing at clubs.

3. Annoys purists
There is still much snobbery among the ski culture elite, and using poles just bugs the heck out of them. Purists are fun to annoy. I think that’s why they were created -for us to have a little fun with them. What are they going to do - be offended? They would be anyway!

4. It’s a crutch
Many a ski instructor has probably said “Don’t use your poles - it’s a crutch”. Well, duh. Of course it’s a crutch! that’s why you should use them! Would you tell an injured person not to use their crutch, simply because it’s a crutch?! No way. Crutches are helpful, and we use them when we need help.

And no one need more help on the slopes than me.

Whoops - that’s only four. What are you, a purist?