Out of the Frying Pan, into the Moguls AKA "We're F**ked!!!!!"

"YOU did this to us!!!" -  Geoff

The day started normally, enough. We began, as normal, with breakfast sandwiches from the Gasser, then a #DamnedCivilized breakfast by the fire pit in the mountain village. Turns out, we'd need the sustenance. And look at these things:



Then right to the frikkin' top of the mountain, to Paradise Bowl.







...which was lovely, and spectacular, and everything it should be. A few runs later, we camped out on the Paradise Deck and had a fun 21st Century experience while Krista and the kids went to the live Paradise webcam. We waved and hammed it up for the deck camera and pantomimed Happy Valentine's messages.

Crested Butte Webcams

Before we get to the day's main adventure, a bit of context. Yesterday, a very friendly dude offered a bunch of advice on which runs to try, two of three were gorgeous runs that we took yesterday, but we didn't get to the third until today. "Try the Double Top Glades and Gully Glades! It's so beautiful. It's like skiing through a park. You gotta do it!"  So, today, before our legs got tired, I thought we'd give it a whirl...particularly since I thought it would be a great opportunity for glamour shots, which it was. #Vanity





As pretty as it was, it was really mogul-ly and icy, so we needed to get out to one of the adjacent blue runs. (This was a black diamond, but seemed innocuous enough, for now.) But at this point, we were in the thick of the woods, with no adjacent slopes in sight, so we kept heading through this lovely little "park." Suddenly, things got real REALLY fast. The slope got a LOT steeper, and the trees got thicker, and the moguls got icier and bigger. And in the back of my mind, the voice of Crested Butte wisdom was ringing in my mind: "NEVER ski where you don't know exactly where you're going at Crested Butte. You can get in SERIOUS trouble, quickly."





We picked our way down, and I saw a clearing up ahead. Except it wasn't a clearing. It was a frikkin CLIFF! At this point, Geoff is yelling at me: "We're FUCKED! We're SO FUCKED! YOU DID THIS TO US!!!"

We had a choice: bushwhack with our skis on  in the general direction of an adjacent slope, or die on the cliff to nowhere. We did our best semi-horizontal skiing through the trees (I bet it was really bucolic, though we were scared shitless) and, lo and behold, there was light up ahead. A REAL slope! We're saved!

Except when we emerged from the woods, it was on the "steep and nastily moguled" slope, Resurrection. LOL, Crested Butte. The slope that would be our death was supposed to be our rebirth. Screw you.

For the next exhausting 15-20 minutes, we awkwardly, slowly, and awkwardly picked our way down the mogul field. Knees and backs hurting, Scared, angry, and in WAY over our heads. ACLs to be shredded at any turn. I was terrified, in pain, and deeply sorry that my #Vanity got us in this mess.

Miraculously, we picked our way to the bottom, mere jellified shells of ourselves.



Geoff was finished, and barely speaking to me. I promised no more adventures, I was really sorry, and I promised lunch. But everywhere we went, there was a 30 plus minute wait, even at the new, out of the way Umbrella Bar.



(Did I mention that this mountain is massive, and labyrinthine? This picture is taken at the top of an entirely separate network of trails on an adjacent mountain, still part of the same resort. Behind where I'm standing are two more lifts leading to beautiful, wooded blue and green runs. Perhaps we should have come here in the first place.)

 We were in pain, and pissed off. Geoff decided to call it a day. It was starting to snow pretty hard, and he had no legs left. I really didn't, either, but I couldn't say goodbye to Crested Butte, quite yet. So I left Geoff alone, and headed up the mountain for a goodbye run on one of the delightful, aspen and pine speckled "green" runs off the Red Lady lift. And really, if I ever come back, I will keep my ambitions in check and spend more time in this knee-friendly winter wonderland.



But even these "knee-friendly" runs had 1000 feet of vertical drop, which is a lot given that my local ski hill has a vertical drop of 400 feet. There's a farm and a road where the chairlift drops you off. By the time I reached the bottom, I was just begging for one more good, sure turn without crashing or injury. Nice to finish both days with ill-advised skiing.  But this was a tender and bittersweet goodbye run, and it was time to be finished, before any damage was done. We returned our gear, called our host, the awesome Johnny Seale, to come pick us up, and bring us to some flat place to eat a late lunch.

But first, I needed to take my seat as the king and semi-conqueror of Crested Butte.



A quick but delicious calzone lunch at Brick Oven Pizza, then back to the house to rest up for the evening. We had dinner reservations at Elk Prime - an amazing, locally sourced steak house. I don't like Brussels sprouts, but these tasted like Krista's roasted kale - peeled and pan fried with balsamic vinegar, garlic, and Parmesan.  We wound up fighting over the dregs:



The star of the show was a 34 ounce Wagyu bone-in Ribeye from 7X Beef. We split it, of course. It was as impossibly good as it looks.



Ooh! And excellent house-selected wine from the vineyard of a regular Crested Butte visitor.


 Apparently this vineyard will be bottling the house wine for Elk Prime in the near future. So good.

Dessert was 3rd Bowl Ice Cream (ahem) ice cream. We ate it in the insistent early-evening snowfall on the way back to the house. Hmm. It's not even 10pm. Maybe I should shut my computer (Geoff is looking at Widespread Panic stuff, Johnny, fantasy baseball) and we should go out in the snow and have one more adventure....