Lost videos?

Anyone know how to fix external hard drives?  The WD one I have with all my videos isn't working fire some reason. It shows up as a device, but I can't assign a letter drive to it to open it up.

Off to Copper

So far the weekend with my parents has been great. We have skied two days at Breckenridge and went up to the hot springs in Steamboat yesterday. The two days of skiing was great. We would get over 15,000 feet of vertical before 12:30, then just hang out outside the bar, listening to live music and relaxing. I got the opposite of a golf tan. Both of my hands are burned completely since I had long sleeves on. One of Bob Marley's sons, Julian, played one day. He was okay, but no Bob Marley. Yesterday we drove two hours up to Steamboat to go to the hot springs. They were awesome. Five different pools ranging from 115 to 101 degrees. We then could jump into the freezing river, which was somewhere between 32-40 degrees. It was a really cool place. From now on, people that take a day off from skiing, I will take them there. We are heading out to Copper, but I will try to post some pictures of the hot springs later tonight.

Burned out

Yesterday I did nothing. I woke up and could barely move, my legs were so tired. I had skied 13 of the past 14 days. The only day that I didn't ski, I drove over 7 hours and slept in a cold car. I think my body was just shutting down. I actually did go out for one run at the end of the day. I went out with snow blades. It was actually really scary. Those things are crazy. Anyways, I'm heading to the airport to pick up my parents. I probably won't be able to get any more videos out until Tuesday. I think my beard is getting close to threatening (the unkempt beard). http://i.imgur.com/faoEs.jpg

Honestly, the best day of the year

About five years ago, I learned about Wolf Creek, which surprised me that I had never heard of it before that with all the snow they usually get.  Ever since I read about the resort in a magazine, I have wanted to go.  Finally, today was the day I was able to experience it.  The mountain itself is what I thought it was.  Very small and flat near the base, although very steep at the top.  Once you hit the middle of the mountain, you don't turn, or else you won't be able to make the bottom.  They got 12 inches of snow last night and probably got another 2-5 throughout the day today.

I tried a couple new ways to film today.  I think they turned out pretty well.  I'm going to make a good video later this week with all the footage, but I just wanted to throw together a quick video to show everyone how good it was today.  I actually stayed down near Wolf Creek, so I could ski it tomorrow.  It will be the last day of the year that I ski powder.

I hope you are all jealous of the snow and the snowy beard.  It actually got better as the day went on. The snowy beard will be showcased in the "real" Wolf Creek video coming later this week.

Sleeping in car

Quick post from my phone.  Made it to wolf creek around midnight.  I think I found a good place to park.  It's 24 degrees out so the night should nor be too bad.  The snow looks great.

UPDATE:I woke up this morning to head lights right behind my car.  I thought for sure I was getting towed, since there was so much snow on the car you couldn't see in. I quickly put in my contacts and drove away.  I found our that our was not a tow truck, just some guy who wanted to park right behind the only car in the lot.

For sleeping in a metal box all night (my car),  I slept really well.  I only needed a t shirt and mesh shorts.  The sleeping bag was amazing.  I'm now eating in the restaurant of the parking lot I slept in.  I hope the snow is worth it.

Happy Late St. Patrick's Day

I hope everyone had as much fun yesterday as I did.  The past couple days, I have been skiing with Ryan, Michelle, and Mia.  It has been a great couple of days.  Everyday has been sunny, warm and okay snow.  I haven't worn my gloves since Wednesday.  After picking them up on Wednesday, skied Breckenridge Thursday and Friday.  On Friday night, we went to Beaver Creek and stayed at an amazing hotel.  We just spend Friday night in the outdoor hot tub/pool having a couple of drinks and admiring the stars.  On Saturday we skied Beaver Creek.  It was really good.  We skied almost the entire mountain.  In the evening, we spent the night in the Beaver Creek.  Unfortunately, Ryan started to feel pretty bad, so Michelle and Ryan went back early and Mia and myself stayed out for the rest of the night.  After skiing on Saturday, we went to the pool and hot tub again.  I actually sat by the pool in just my swimsuit for 30 minutes without getting cold at all.  It was really cool to hang out by a pool, looking up at ski slopes that we had just skied an hour ago, and not be cold.

We are heading into Denver to drop them off at the airport, then I am going to go Wolf Creek.  I haven't figured out where I am staying for the night, so I think I am just going to sleep in the car.  Thanks for the really nice, warm sleeping bag for Christmas Derek!  The reason I am going down is they are supposed to get 14-20 inches over the next 24 hours and where I live is supposed to only get 2-4 inches.  Also, I have always wanted to go to this mom and pop ski hill.  They average the most snow in Colorado.  I hope it is worth it!

Three short videos

While Kevin, Josh, Tony and Rob were out, I was able to take a video of three of them, Josh, Kevin and Rob, going down a black diamond run at Breckenridge.  Since I am being lazy tonight, I have decided to do simple thing and create three videos of each entire run.  It's really hard to tell, but on these runs, these guys are going about 45-50 mph and the run they are skiing is actually really steep.

While I am at it, I decided to make them more like real ski movies and put in rap songs of artists you have never heard of.  Below are videos of Rob, Josh and Kevin to music from Swollen Members, Rockwell Knuckles, and Bliss n Eso.  Check out their other songs too.  They are actually pretty good.

Don't worry, I'll actually make a video from that entire weekend that will also include Tony.  Sorry I missed you in these videos.

Why am I not bored?

So I have been out here for almost 2 months now. The time has flew by. Today was my 30th day on the mountain and the past couple days have actually been horrible snow. It was a blast when JC and Greg were out, but spring has come. Along with the warm weather comes the crowds and sloppy snow. Not that I am complaining. I don't think I have seen a cloud in 3 days. I just don't understand myself. With all the skiing I have been doing, I should be bored skiing bad groomed, easy runs. I go out with the intention of skiing for an hour and coming back in, but when I am out, I always end up doing one more run, until it is all of a sudden 4:00. It hasn't been until the last couple of days, skiing these not perfect conditions, that I needed to do this entire trip. Even know my ankle stills hurts a little and snow has been the worst in 30-40 years, I needed to do this. It has been a great feeling! Check back later tonight for video of Josh, Kevin, Tony and Rob. Thanks again Greg and JC for coming out! Now go fill out your brackets. This will be the first year a 10 seed wins it all.

Spring has come

Today was the first day JC and Greg were here. We decided to ski Vail since neither of them had ever been there. The snow was the definition of "dust on crust". Unfortunately, it was probably the worst conditions of the year, and it looks like nothing is going to change in the next ten days. Lots of sun and no snow. Every day the snow melts, then at night it refreezes. The next morning it is hard has a rock. It looks like there will be a lot of groomer runs over the next week. There better be at least one or two more storms at the end of March. Now, back to today. Since the conditions were so bad, we headed right back to US(upside-down sled). It was actually really good. A lot of people had been back there, but we were still able to hit 3-5 inches of fresh powder. It's amazing how one week will change anything. We were willing to traverse for 15 minutes in and another 10 minutes out, just to get 5 good turns. We ended up skiing that run once more, after lunch. Even with the horrible conditions, we were still able to ski over 20,000 feet. Greg is a machine, so I expect the next two days to have similar numbers. Josh was quite offended when I stated early this week that I won't be able to make a 1,000,000 feet this year. To keep himself busy at work, he planned out the rest of my trip with how many feet I need to ski each day to make 1,000,000. Now that I have a plan, I still don't think I will make it, but I will try my hardest. I don't want all of Josh's efforts to go to waste. It is the best work he has done since.......well........ever. The Ridge tomorrow and maybe A-Basin on Saturday.

Matt and Jeremy Post

I forgot how good the snow was until I went through all the videos over the past two days.  Man, that week was really good, both Vail and Breckenridge.  It was probably the best conditions I have skied at Breckenridge.  At Vail, we skied all the back bowls except Blue Sky Basin because it was closed all day.  While we were there, we found a great run that was really hard to find.  It will now be called Matt's Run, since he was the one that spotted it.

At Breckenridge we skied basically everything, including Whale's Tail, twice.  The snow was great everywhere.  Check out the long video below!

Thanks again guys for coming out!  It was a great week.  Make sure you guys keep the mail flowing.

86,627

This morning I went to Keystone with one goal, ski 100,000 feet in a day.  With the snow not great and the temperatures in the in 40's, I thought today would be a good day to try it.  Keystone is the only resort in the area that has night skiing, so it is the only place that is possible to ski that much in one day.  I packed my backpack with 3 liters of water, tons of food, as well as extra socks, shirts and gloves in preparation to ski until 8 pm.  Unfortunately when I got to the resort, I found out that the resort wasn't open late.  I decided to stay anyways and try to ski the entire mountain and get as much vertical as I could, even though I knew 100,000 feet was impossible, just because of the amount of time you have to spend on the lifts.

After pushing myself all day, and many helpful text messages from Josh, I was able to get 86,627 vertical feet.   I was hoping for somewhere in the 70,000 range, so I was ecstatic. To put this in perspective, if you combined my two biggest days ever before today, they would not equal the vertical I did today.  Even after skiing most of Keystone, I still don't know why anyone goes there, other than for their terrain park.  All the groomed runs where icy, even though it was the warmest day of the year, and everything else was just lacking snow.

I ended up skiing over 57 miles.  I maxed out at 70.3 mph, which was on my third run.  That is the only run I recorded and you can see it in the video below.  Most runs I maxed out at 50-55 mph.  For the entire day, I skied 2 hours 17 minutes, which means I was on the lifts for over 5 hours 15 minutes.

Even with the vertical I covered today, I still won't be able to hit my goal of 1,000,000 vertical feet this year, but I should be able to get to 750,000 now.

Hope you like the video!  More to come tomorrow morning, since my legs may still be a little tired from today.

Slacking again

Again, it's been awhile since I have posted anything.  Kevin, Josh, Tony and Rob came up for the long weekend and I didn't have a chance to update this.  Since Tony and Rob make us wake up at 4 am yesterday to get to Denver, I fell asleep early last night in the middle of editing Jeremy and Matt's video.

To sum up the great weekend, someone fell off a cliff in the back bowls at Vail (Josh), someone skied 48 mph even though it was only his 6-7 trip skiing (Kevin), someone got frostbite on their nose while snowmobiling (me), someone put on skis for the first time ever and skied blue runs (Tony), and someone went at least 12 mph on a snowmobile (Rob).

Hopefully much later tonight I will have video from Jeremy and Matt and more specifics about this past weekend.