3 inchs or 3 feet...

It is the 2nd weekend of October, and the Rockies are calling for snow which means the ski season is right around the corner. The only problem is that the San Juan's are calling for snow in the feet and Summit is calling for it in inches. Nick, Riley and I were on the fence about going down to Wolf Creek on Saturday October 8th because they had received 36in on Friday, but the one problem is that Wolf Creek is 5 hours away. With some texts sent back and forth and looking at a lot of webcams we decided to bail on Wolf Creek (mistake!) and hope for the best up at Loveland Pass.

So October 8th came and went and saw that there was a SH** ton of snow at Wolf Creek, but Nick and I were on our way to hopefully at least 6in at Loveland. The ride up was exciting and closer and closer we got the snow started to show its face. We kept thinking that we were going to do pretty well for only driving an hour up the mountain. We get to the base of the Pass and it looks... Well it didn't look like San Juan country, but we said F*** it lets do one run. Riley, Nick and myself get our boots on for the first time this season, and can I tell you how much putting your boots on for the first time of the season sucks, A LOT!!!! We get to the summit and we don't know what to think or even do, so we did what we knew to do. Get our equipment on and give it a shot. The beginning proved to be a little more challenging then we hoped for. Instead of the 6+ inches we were hoping for we had 5 inches at best! Finally, after tracking out we get to a nice open area of grass and we gave it a shot, and that turned out to the best 5 turns of the whole run. After that we found ourselves skiing more rock, dirt, and gravel then we did snow. We crossed over 2 small river beds, ran into more down tree branches then you do in a whole season, and the rocks were out in force and made themselves heard! 

Overall, Nick, Riley and myself said, "Well at least we went and got some turns." Though the conditions sucked and the run wasn't what we thought it was going to be. We got out on our skis for the first time of the year when most people don't even have their equipment out. Even though we didn't have the snow we wanted it was still a blast and will be one highlight of several this season. 

The 2011-2012 season is here boys and girls!!! Enjoy