4 Days, 4 Ways, 4 Places, 4 Faces

**Yossarian** · 12-04-2005, 09:14 PM

Trip Report to follow Monday. A teaser:

Dec 1 - Windy and White - Breck - Crinkle
"The Point to Boner City"

Dec 2 - Light Snow - Loveland - Solo
"How to Play Hooky from Work"

Dec 3 - Fat Flakes - Aspen - Figure11 & Grrrr
"O Face on The Face"

Dec 4 - Krispy Kreme - Vail - Evil E
"Dropping in...Parallel?"

**smmokan** · 12-04-2005, 09:47 PM

So tough being in CO right now. Vail was pretty damn sick on Saturday too- knee-waist deep on my last run of the day at 3:30.

**Woodsy** · 12-04-2005, 10:52 PM

nice work GC!
well played

**FigureEleven** · 12-04-2005, 11:34 PM

A layover well spent.

**shera** · 12-05-2005, 07:39 AM

Well done, Cletus. And thanks for the City Market swaperooo.

Hey, let's like, ski together sometime.

**Arty50** · 12-05-2005, 09:13 AM

Shadows of the morning light
the shadows of the evening sun
till the shadows and the light were one...

**Yossarian** · 12-06-2005, 10:33 AM

4 Days, 4 Ways, 4 Faces, 4 Places

Saturday, November 25th, 9:00am. It is warm outside already; clear, sunny, and beautiful here in Rancho Mirage, CA, some twenty minutes outside of the famed desert paradise of Palm Springs. In an hour I will be poolside, baking in the 75 degree heat next to my bikini clad girlfriend, along with my brother and his bikini clad girlfriend, reveling in the gluttonous Thursday evening of two nights ago – my family’s annual Thanksgiving getaway ritual at the Las Palmas resort and spa – and drifting in and out of consciousness over the course of the next five hours in this veritable Garden of Eden.

But for now, we are still in bed she and I, awaking slowly to the third day of blissful detoxification from the fluorescent lighting of our daily existence. I scoot closer to her, enjoying the warmth of her body and the total lack of pressure to be anywhere but here. No meetings, no phone calls, no timelines, no deadlines. Just this.

Saturday, December 3rd, 9:00am. It is warm inside, but the climate is positively arctic outside here in Aspen, CO, the famed mountain town of glamour and glitz, Goldie and the Ritz. In an hour I will be charging downward through three feet of untracked Colorado blower next to my brother’s girlfriend’s best friend and her boyfriend (neither of whom will be in a bikini), re-living the gluttonous Thursday morning of two days ago at Breck – my first bottomless turns of the season, twelve hours after I skipped my connecting return flight to Chicago and walked out of Denver International Airport with nothing but my computer, my business clothes, and raging hard-on for the three feet of snow that had fallen in the last week – and drifting in and out of consciousness over the next five hours in Ullr’s impossibly snowy backyard.

But for now, we are still in line the three of us, anxiously waiting for the beginning of what will be my third day of long-overdue reconnection to the mountain world. I scoot closer to the gondola, the enjoying the heat of anticipation and the pressure of the crowd, each of us incapable of wanting to be anywhere but here. No meetings, no phone calls, no timelines, no deadlines. Just this.

And then it happens. The gondola starts loading, and the frenzy is on. The crowd erupts, and begins to surge forward. The lift operators at the loading station have to spread their arms and physically corral the tidal wave of bodies into manageable streams of excitement, flowing in discrete skier-units towards the little hanging eggs that transport us to that netherworld of ecstasy, the first turns of the first runs of the biggest early season storm day in recent memory. We manage to bag one of the first carton of eggs to the top, and we are off. I realize only then that I am actually shaking. Looks like it’ll be scrambled eggs for breakfast. Pass the Cholula.

We can’t see out the windows of the eggshell, but we know it’s going to be good. Even then, I don’t think we know just how deep it will turn out to be. Waking up in the morning after a bold midnight drive from Summit County through the heart of the storm surge, the morning report was for a full foot of fresh overnight.

But when we finally unload from the gondola and click in, it is clear there is much, much more. In the areas opening for the first time this season, it is knee deep standing still, and to the waist as we drop in. When the Face of Bell opens around mid-day, after literally countless bottomless laps on the upper mountain, we drop into the sweetest turns I’ve had since last February’s four foot dump in Utah. And it keeps snowing all day long. No meetings, no phone calls, no timelines, no deadlines. Just this.

By 2:00pm, we are thrashed, and famished. I have more or less skipped dinner, breakfast, and lunch in the past 24 hours, so at this point I am running on two cups of coffee, one piece of banana bread, a Superfood smoothie, and around five hours of fitful sleep. My brother’s girlfriend’s best friend and I stumble over to the Red Onion for a bowl of their internationally famous French Onion soup and a fat burrito each. Some fifteen minutes later, we pick up our boards and head off to the Sky Hotel to get a beer and a soak in the hot tub.

You can tell what kind of a day it was by the crowd at the bar. First, the place is packed at 3:30pm in the afternoon, and not by the stereotypical Aspen cougar crowd. 39° is positively buzzing and humming with the chatter of locals, rehashing the past six straight hours of thrashing the mountain to pieces. In a classic Aspen move sexy, the lounge has floor to ceiling windows that look directly out on the pool and hot tub sexy, allowing the drinkers to watch the bathers, and the bathers to watch the drinkers, each left to wonder sexy whether someone on the other side of the glass is sexy checking them out. So it is with great glee that I thumb my nose at propriety by stripping down to my boxers and jumping right in the tub sexy. Joined by my brother’s girlfriend’s best friend and her friend, it doesn’t take long before the one guy in boxers and the two hot ladies in bikinis becomes eight guys and two hot ladies sexy. Nevertheless, beers are had, muscles are soothed, introductions are made, and laughs are shared. It is the best kind of vibe there is, the reach-around happy ending to an epic powder day. No meetings, no phone calls, no timelines, no deadlines. Just this.

Sunday, December 4th, 3:30pm. One day later, and I am stuck in far less happy place. Stuck, at a full standstill in my car, alone, no hot tub, no crowd, no bikinis. Stuck, on the highway leading up to the Eisenhower tunnel out of Dillon. Stuck, just me, my two pairs of skis, my poles, my boots, the clothes I’ve been wearing for four days now not sexy, and a few items from the grocery that happened to find their way into the car. But still, no meetings, no phone calls, no timelines, no deadlines. Just this. And of course, I do have the video camera. And a very captive audience.

So what do you do when you’re stuck in LA traffic on a Colorado highway while sitting in rank ski clothes after four epic days of powder with nothing to entertain you but one bag of frozen potatoes, half a bag of cheese, a bottle of Cholula, and a video camera? Yeah, that’s right! You inadvertently film right over the epic footage you got earlier that morning of your teenage summer camp friend’s husband at Vail during one of the sickest inbounds days you’ve ever had there, and then tape yourself using the car heater to make spicy cheesy wedges in the potato bag. As an aside, I highly recommend McCain’s Potatoes, All-American Style. Just don’t forget the Cholula.

The first line I inadvertently erased was a short, steep, double-stage drop on an open face with a high speed run-out to the groomed below. With camera rolling, my teenage summer camp friend’s husband hopped off the first air, took a quick, hard left to stay high, then pointed them back down to the right to catch the second drop into a perfect powder landing and straight-line run-out. It was money in the bank. Stuck it.

The second piece I accidentally erased was a classic CO tree line, which started with two quick positioning turns to get on top of a huge pillow, a nice air off to an ultra deep landing, and then bouncing turns through the waist deep fluff in the trees, past the camera, disappearing into the forest below. Just two of the unending shots we found all day off of the entirely empty Northwoods chair, while everybody else was stuck in the lift lines in the back bowls.

Stuck, like the way I was still stuck in traffic on the way up to the Eisenhower. Clearly, it was time for more entertainment. I believe it was at this point that I came up with the idea of getting some nearby ladies to call me on my phone from their car while I filmed them making out with each other. Admittedly, they didn’t take off their clothes as I had hoped, or even show me their boobies, but the conversation was fairly lively and managed to get me through the Eisenhower to where traffic began to move a bit less slowly. I will even admit to having tried my Rusty Smooth Jazz voice on them, but to no avail. When I started ragging on them for picking the wrong lane as I moved ahead, they stopped thinking I was quite so funny, and left me alone withe video camera once more. I rolled into my parent’s place a couple hours later, and quickly succumbed to sleep, fantasizing about the journey just completed.

I made storm turns with Brian at Breck and lonely laps on smooth snow at Loveland; charged the gnar with Nate and killed it with Kate in Aspen; and then capped it all with epic turns with Eric at Vail. No meetings, no phone calls, no timelines, no deadlines.

Just 4 Days, 4 Ways, 4 Faces, 4 Places.

And I think I stuck it.

**Tap** · 12-06-2005, 10:40 AM

Boo-ya! Cletus thrutches it.

glad you were off the grid for those, boyeeee!

**Yossarian** · 12-06-2005, 11:07 AM

p.s. I was going to have a couple sweet vid clips too, but obviously...
I don't.

Unless you want to see 30 minutes of me talking to myself in the car while sitting in traffic? Actually, it's pretty funny, but I don't have time to edit it right now, so it's probably not going to happen even if I wanted to. We'll see, maybe I can give a little teaser...

**glademaster** · 12-06-2005, 11:11 AM

Damn, reading that and looking at the pics is making me sick. I amazed to see snow that deep, that light this early in the year. The other sickening thing is knowing that I missed it by 2 weeks.

**lemon boy** · 12-06-2005, 11:12 AM

just give us a teaser of you cooking!

otherwise:

SCHWING!

**truth** · 12-06-2005, 11:20 AM

S t o m p e d !

Give me a shout when ya get back in town.

**Barnballs** · 12-06-2005, 11:22 AM

Solid Report man.

**Cornholio** · 12-06-2005, 12:08 PM

Originally Posted by lemon boy

just give us a teaser of you cooking!

otherwise:

SCHWING!

That bitch couldn't cook his way out of Martha Stewart's kitchen.

But he can ski like hell. And he writes ok, too.

It sounds like the "should I jump this plane or not?" question was satisfactorily answered. Thrutching less, indeed!

**powstash** · 12-06-2005, 12:11 PM

[Tuesday voice] POST OF THE FRIGGIN' MONTH!! Respectable write up my mang. Gives me the chills thinking about how sick it really must have been. Nice!

**Cornholio** · 12-06-2005, 12:14 PM

By the way, I want to mention to those who feel the need to write a trip report every time they step close to a puddle which may freeze soon:

Take heed, because this is how it's done.