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Published: June 16th 2009
I got a ride into
Breckenridge with a guy I met on the bus, it was dumping snow, I smiled.
For the first few days I stayed at the
Fireside Inn, the only dorm in town and by far the cheapest place to stay. It was here that I met future room mates and partners in crime Marcos, Nacho, Pablo and Martin (Argentinian), Flavio (Brazilian) and Nick (Kiwi). First item on the agenda was to secure a warm and humble abode for the winter. All I wanted from a house was a hot tub and a deck covered in snow to store bottles of liquor, the only problem with this ingenious plan was the average price of a house like this, we looked at one and it was way beyond our price range.
Casa Awesome Our warm and humble abode turned out to be a two bedroom house on the ground floor of a condo block. Rent was cheap due to the slum like sleeping arrangements inside, the saving grace was that it was a 10 minute walk to absolutely anywhere in town. The scene was set for shenanigans, antics and alcohol fuelled mischief.
Instead of trying to
Party
Matt and Iput together a coherent narrative out of the whole winter I am just going to give you the highlights and special events, this will serve the dual purposes of making the winter seem extra exciting and me look cooler that I am!
The Winter Dew Tour The Dew Tour is a professional snowboarding and skiing circuit with one of the stops in Breck. I was working in the food and beverage tent for the mountain employees with numerous breaks to watch insane riders and skiers throwing down in the half pipe. The job was pretty easy although it was all outside so it got pretty damn cold at points. I saw one of the mountain services guys with about 8 layers of clothes on, no joke. There were two main highlights of the week, the first was watching the skiing superpipe final one night and the other was watching the entire snowboarding superpipe final the next day, the things those guys can do are astonishing, so much better in person.
Denver I spent a few days down in Denver right after the New Years to see Morgan (a friend from NZ), her boyfriend, Sean and to see a
Tuba
At Dirty Dozen Brass Band Colorado Avalanche hockey game. The first night we went a massive western bar,
The Grizzly Rose. It was huge, bigger than any bar I've been into before, there was a separate room for a mechanical bull, a separate room to practice roping a plastic bull (seriously!), a dance floor for boot scootin' and line dancing and plentiful cheap beer. It was a great night. The hockey game was everything I hoped it to be, 7 goals, a penalty shot, a fight and plenty of action. I also saw it with 3 Canadians so I could ask what was going on!
Ullr Fest Pronounced Ohh-ler, this week long festival in early January is dedicated to the mythical Norse God of Snow, Ullr. It started in 1963 supposedly to encourage the snow but much more likely as an excuse to dress up like a Norse God and get drunk outside! Various traditions have been built up over the years including a bon fire at the Nordic Ski Centre and a skating party but the centre piece event is the Main Street Parade where numerous floats trundle down the street throwing out candy and getting pelted with snow balls from the crowd.
Jump
At the top of Peak 8. Elevation of 3955m (12 976ft) It seemed much more dangerous than it should have been with various near misses and accidents narrowly avoided!
Budweiser International Snow Sculpture Competition Towards the end of January numerous teams from around the world come to Breckenridge to play in the snow and compete for the glory and adulation of thousands.* Each five member team is allowed 5 days to sculpt their 10 x 10 x 12 ft block. Teams from China, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, Bulgaria, Mexico, Germany and the US were there this year. I was definitely impressed with what could be achieved in the field of snow sculpting and the ability of the snow to support itself. I'll let the photos do the talking.
*Maybe.
Shows For a small town in the middle of the mountains Breckenridge had some pretty damn good bands come and play. The best venue in town was a little place called 320South, it was underground down a grimy set of stairs. The inside was tiny and intimate, I only saw it really busy a couple of times. The stage was less than knee high and the bar was stocked with plentiful cheap PBR. There was a period of 3 weeks
Drum Kit
At Yo Mamma's Big Fat Booty Band where we went there 17 times!! Good times, I was always late to work the next day. Bands we saw there included Yo Mamma's Big Fat Booty Band, Afroman, Toubab Krewe, Lubriphonic, The Bridge, Greensky Bluegrass, Family Groove Company and others.
Breckenridge (and the other surrounding ski towns) also had occasional great free shows. I saw Keller Williams a one man band who loops all his own songs slowly building up the layers of the song, Dirty Dozen Brass Band from New Orleans who played during Mardi Gras and Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9) who played at Copper Mountain, the next ski town over.
I saw a lot of great music over the winter, significantly more than I ever have before. There was much fun, shenanigans and rejoicing by all.
Riding the Mountains Amidst all the night time activities it was never hard to forget the real reason everyone was in Breckenridge,
the snow and the mountains. You could feel the palpable excitement of everyone around town when a storm rolled in and started dumping. Getting first chair was a point of pride, making first tracks was the payoff. The pleasure in flying down a steep slope
with 10 inches of fresh powder beneath your board is hard to describe. Put your weight back to get your tip out of the snow, a slight shift in weight and pressure would set you carving slowly left with a wave of snow sailing out behind you, cut right, drop your right hand down and trail it through the snow then repeat all the while shouting with glee.
I got in 52 days of riding on the various mountains, by far the majority were at Breck and I knew the mountain really well by the end of the winter. Other resorts I rode at were Keystone, Vail and A-Basin. Vail is huge, the first time I went there it took us nearly an hour to get right out to the back bowls, it just keeps on going. One of my best memories from the winter came at Vail, I was sitting on the lift at 9am with Matt and another guy, it was a beautiful bluebird day not a cloud in the sky, I had a beer in hand and slowly looked around at the majestic Rockies surrounding us. I laughed out loud and smiled, life was good.
By the end of the winter I was a pretty decent rider, I could ride switch pretty well and could 180 by way around the mountain, I never really got a 360 down though. Jumping off stuff with Matt became a standard days entertainment. I also tried skiing on the last day of the winter and wish I had done it more, it was really fun and a little strange after boarding all winter. I think I was pretty good for my first time!
I had some pretty good spills which to be honest I was lucky to walk away from (Mum's should probably skip to the next paragraph at this point!), I went head over heels at Vail out of bounds (no ski patrol out of bounds) and nearly landed face first in some trees. Another good one at Vail involved me going over a jump, hitting a little tree right after I landed, going head over heels, landing on my feet and riding away. By far my worst accident happened about 3 weeks before the end of the winter, I was riding by myself one afternoon and was hugging the edge of the trail going through some
Wedding Celebration
A random couple we spotted in a rather seedy bar around town! thin trees getting the last of the days powder. I was going a little fast and lost control and hit a tree with my ribs, hard. My mind has blanked out the exact instance of impact and the next thing I remember I was facing the other way with my head in a snow bank screaming. I knew I had broken my ribs, I somehow unstrapped and walked back to the trail where two ski patrol guys came by and checked me out. I felt a little better and they were pretty sure I hadn't broken anything so they let my ride down to the bottom. I got on the bus and went home. I was in agony and was just lying down on my bed, luckily a friend came to my rescue with pain pills, I popped twice the recommended limit immediately and began to feel a bit better and dare I say a little delirious! The half bottle of red wine I then drank plus more pills helped as well 😊 I still can't believe I didn't break my ribs in that little incident.
Breckenridge The town of Breckenridge was beautiful, a real old western mountain town.
Halfpipe
During the Dew Tour Many of the buildings were well over a hundred years old and the town felt real, not designed and souless like so many of the other ski towns. Everything was within walking distance with my longest walk being to the first place I worked which was 12 minutes away. Every now and again as I was walking around I stopped and looked at how beautiful everything around me was, literally words and photos do the place no justice, you just can't capture the scale of everything.
Work I started working at
The Maggie, a cafeteria style place at the base of Peak 9, the list of positions I worked here was busser, check out, barista and server 😊 Pretty much the only job I didn't do was manage or bar tend. When the restaurant that I was hired to work out finally opened in February I moved over there, which was great as now I could catch the gondola to work, even less walking. I was waiting tables up at
Sevens, which is a great gig, flirt with the ladies, make the guys laugh and they tip you well. Much fun times was had at work mainly with some
kids from Louisiana, occasionally there was even some work going on!
And that is pretty much a summary of the winter as I remember it. I had wanted to work a ski season since I was in Canada, mission accomplished, check that off the list. I had an absolute blast, went riding as often as I could, met some very cool people, listened to lots of music and generally tried to squeeze as much fun out of the winter as I could. I'm so glad I did it.
Next time a road trip across America.
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Justin
non-member comment
Awe. Some.