2020 brought another amazing ski trip and it went much better than I hoped. Yes, it’s been nearly two months since I actually got back and I’ve been trying to finish this writeup the whole time, but things have been…strange since then thanks a little thing called COVID-19.

It’s weird to look back on the last week in February knowing what I know now. I remember being aware of COVID-19, and even slightly concerned that it could become a big deal in the States. But we were still on a ski trip and nothing was materially different about this year’s trip compared to the last couple of years.

But within two weeks of our trip, the resorts starting shutting down. And within three weeks of our trip, Stay at Home orders began rolling out across the country. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was a sort of last hurrah before the shutdown.

And now, as of the last week in April, everything is still more or less shut down. We’re talking about reopening things soon, but that hasn’t really happened yet. I think that’s why it has taken me so long to write this: I can live vicariously through Past Josh, slowly reliving a fun trip with a group of friends who had no idea what was coming.

This was an amazing trip. And the fact that we got it in under the shutdown wire makes it even more special.

And now, on to the recap…

Two years ago was essentially my first time skiing and it was verrrrrryyy slow going. Technically, I skied a few times in high school, but those were all east coast trips where I was on fake snow and nobody ever taught me anything at all about skiing. I literally just put on skis and started going down icy runs with no idea what I was doing and no way to stop on purpose.

So two years ago, when I actually took lessons and skied on real snow, was the beginning of my skiing journey, as far as I’m concerned.

ANYWAY, it was slow going at first.

Then last year I had a busted adductor that held me back and slowed me down even more. Nevertheless, I improved a bit and even skied down my first black run (although everyone knows Duke’s isn’t a real black run).

Last year was particularly frustrating because not only was my time on the mountain limited by my injury, but it dumped snow the last couple days I was there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t appreciate all that powder because I wasn’t very good and had already worn myself out.

This year was different. I extended my trip by a few days so that I could get more skiing in while also pacing myself and building in some rest days. We also got a lot of snow early in the trip, so I was able to appreciate skiing in powder this time.

I skied three mountains—Beaver Creek, Vail, and Breckenridge—so I’ll go through each of those in turn.

Beaver Creek

We headed west at 6 AM on Saturday morning, February 22—it was a long day. When we finally got to Beaver Creek, we grabbed some dinner and then I crashed early back at our Airbnb. We had seven people in a one-bedroom apartment that night, but I still slept great. The crowd thinned over the next few days as people headed back to work in Denver.

My first ski day was on Sunday and I took it easy on greens and blues. Beaver Creek is known for being beginner-friendly, so their greens and blues are easier than a lot of other places. That was good for me because I just wanted to get my skis under me and work on some technique.

That first day, I did two separate runs with very experienced skiers who showed me a couple of really useful techniques that immediately made me feel more comfortable on my skis.

Staying forward and poling around turns

When I start to pick up speed, I tend to lean back to brake—I think it is pretty typical for beginners. Paradoxically, leaning back can both increase speed and reduce control, so it’s a real bad idea.

I immediately felt better by making sure my weight was forward (poling around turns helps with this). I could go faster when I wanted, but I generally had more control and my speed was more consistent.

Letting my edges do the work

Leaning back also makes it harder to turn because it flattens out the skis. And, as I mentioned before, leaning back also makes it harder to control speed.

Until this trip, I was basically getting down the mountain by traversing for a bit, slide-stopping to regain control, turning abruptly, then picking up speed by traversing the other way, slide-stopping, etc. I was taking very jagged lines and had little control while also burning out my quads and hip flexors. Not good.

Now I was leaning forward more, and since my skis’ edges weren’t flatted out as much, I was also able to use the edges of my skis to help me turn. The skis will do pretty much all the work on turns if you just let them.

So by staying forward, poling around turns, and using my edges, I could actually control my descent and I was far less tired after each run. Those two quick lessons flipped a switch that paid dividends all week so I was no longer gassed after every run. Later in the week, I could do tricky black runs and still feel fresh at the bottom. Skiing feels totally different now.

By the end of the day at Beaver Creek, I felt great and started looking forward to trickier runs and big improvements during the rest of the trip.

My first full-on spa experience

Although I was staying down the mountain at an Airbnb, I was able to take advantage of the ameneties offered by a friend’s resort up the mountain in Beaver Creek. That meant ski in/ski out access, which saved a lot of time, which meant I had some time to hit the spa after I hit the slopes.

I think it would’ve been good anyway, but after several hours skiing with mediocre technique, a suana, jacuzzi, and some time to relax on a heated tiled chair was pretty great.

Vail (semi-fail)

Our next step was Vail—my first time back since the infamous Vail Fail in 2018. The good news is that we didn’t accidentally do any black runs. The bad news is the weather was not ideal. I take that back: for the experts in the group, the weather was great because they got to lap their favorite runs with fresh powder and very little traffic. For less-ambitious folks like myself, it was pretty gross. It was very cold (20s), windy, overcast and snowy. Visibility would spontaneously drop to almost zero.

But despite all that, it was pretty fun! I really only skied for about three hours, and we just lapped some easy greens and blues the whole time. We started out on Swingsville and Cappuccino (technically my first tree run), then did a few laps of Ramshorn.

My big takeaway was that I had improved significantly since the Vail Fail two years ago. I remember even the easiest greens being pretty tough my first time out, and they were easy this time. Even some of the blues weren’t bad (Vail is a little more challenging that Beaver Creek or Breck in general). I also got some time to work on my technique, and I felt like I was ready to start tackling more difficult runs when we moved over to Breck.

We ended up cutting things a little short because of the weather, and because our group dominoed itself down from four to three to two to one to zero people who wanted to go back out after lunch. We ended up getting a good lunch and doing some shopping in Vail Village for a while. It was a great day.

Moving day

Part of my plan this year was to extend my trip so I could get more ski days in and more rest days. I decided to take a rest day on Tuesday since we would be relocating from Beaver Creek to Breckenridge by the end of the day.

I spent the morning reading, catching up on email, and generally relaxing. Then I headed up the mountain to hang out and do some shopping before finally getting to try the famous Beaver Creek cookies. I ate … three? four? They were fantastic.

After one last trip to the hottub, we sped (very literally) from Beaver Creek over to Breck to make our dinner reservation at the Canteen, a delicious restaurant known for its brisket, mac n cheese, and giant cocktails among other things. We also played Body, Body, Body and I was not mafia per the usual.

It was a good day.

Back at Breck

Now we’re getting into the normal ski trip I’ve been on the past couple years. Everyone assembles in Breck, we have 15 or so people in a giant house, and we move into our normal routine:

• Wake up around 8 or 9
• Get some breakfast
• Make snacks to eat on the slopes
• Head out either in one big group or smaller groups
• Ski, ski, ski
• Head back once the lifts start closing
• Hot tub time
• Dinner
• Crepes
• Body, Body, Body
• Sleep

There are variations on this schedule, but this is our baseline. The strangest thing about it is that it always feels like I’ve put in a full day by the time we’re done skiing, but then we have another 8 hours before we go to sleep. Every day feels like two days.

Wednesday

This is what we woke up to on Wednesday morning:

It would be beautiful like this all week.

My plan for this trip was to use the first part in Beaver Creek to remember how to ski and work on my fundamentals so I could jump right into tougher runs immediate once we got to Breck. So that’s what I did.

We started our first Breck day on a couple green and blue runs, and I quickly found my first black run of the year: Spruce.

Before I go on, I should say that most of the single-diamond black runs in at Breck are basically difficult blues. Spruce used to be labeled blue until several years ago when they moved it to black. But for me, the point is to slowly try harder runs so I’m always making progress. That’s how I approach pretty much everything I learn and skiing is no different.

I wanted to tackle Spruce first because I’ve been eyeing it for the past couple years as I rode the Colorado Super Chair lift over it. I remember thinking, “Whoa. That looks tough.” But our first time up the Colorado this year, I looked at Spruce and thought, “That actually looks…pretty easy?” I wanted to capitalize on that confidence so I went for it right away.

I ended up making two runs and the second was much easier. Sure enough, my skiing has improved. Last year, I did Duke’s run (the bluest of black runs) as my final run of the trip. This year, one of my first runs in Breck was Spruce—a more difficult black run, which felt pretty easy.

After a few laps on the Colorado, our group assembled for our annual group photo featuring our 80s gear. I remember it was very cold and windy, so just hanging out while everyone found their way to us was tough.

I spent the rest of the day doing blue runs and mostly taking it easy and having fun. I think I might’ve run Duke’s once, but I don’t remember for sure. That’s a good thing! What was a highlight last year became an unmemorable afterthought this year. That’s progress.

Thursday

By now, I had a crew to run with and we decided to head over to Peak 6. This was another step forward for me because I skipped Peak 6 day last year to ski solo and work on technique all day. I felt like I had enough to work on without some of the trickier stuff over at Peak 6.

But this year, I was ready to give it a shot and I’m glad I did. We ended up lapping Kensho Chair several times, starting with a few laps of Bliss, which is basically a steep blue bowl that I found harder than most of the black runs, and we finished up on Reverie.

I had a pretty big epiphany on my second run down Bliss: I was leaning back when I turned left, trying to slow down and gain more control. Ironically, the result was more speed and less control, which meant I would turn left and then go straight across the slope bouncing over tracks that were already there. Once I realized what I was doing, I started leaning forward more, using the tracks as a guide, and all my runs for the rest of the day were much easier.

This was probably the most progress I’ve made in a single day so far.

We had to head back to Peak 8, so we finished up with a run down Spruce before hitting the 4 O’clock home.

Friday (rest day)

I had planned for two rest days, and I took my second one on Friday after two consecutive ski days. A friend and I decided to head to downtown Breck and see what there was to see and this was a great choice.

We ate gelato for lunch and chased it with pecan praeleans from a local chocolate shop. Then we visited a bunch of other little local shops and just sort of killed the afternoon walking around.

It was a really relaxing day and I was glad I took the time to recuperate so I can make the most out of my last day on the slopes on Saturday.

Saturday

Our final ski day started with a pretty big group going after some tougher runs. We made our way over to Peak 10 via Frosty’s Freeway, which was a fun little black run connecting the peaks. I almost got into some trouble in the moguls at the bottom of this one because I was following a friend’s line, but I made it down ok. I also almost got taken out by two of my snowboarder friends, but we managed to narrowly avert catastrophe.

Over on Peak 10, we lapped Cimarron a few times and it was a lot of fun. I think the flat, steep runs are my favorite—I don’t like bumps very much. That could change as I get better, but for now this is the kind of stuff I’m after.The big group disbanded and I went back over to Peak 8 with a smaller crew. We started off doing a couple black runs over there—Duke’s and maybe Rounders—before heading over to lap Northstar a few times.

On the way to Northstar, I asked the more experienced snowboarder in our crew to show us where the Luge is. The Luge is an unofficial tree run off of Columbine, and a lot of Breck veterans talk about it as a staple. Although I planned to do the Luge eventually, I just wanted to get a look at it this time. The pla was to head to Northstar.

But my clever snowboarder friend decided to show us where the Luge was by dropping into the Luge and stopping. “It’s right here. See? Not so bad. This is actually the steepest part. It flattens out right away and you just have to watch the trees.”

By now it was clear that the other two of us would either have to leave him there and meet up with him later, or join him and run the Luge. We both reluctantly dropped in and I immediately hit a tree. I thought I might be in trouble, but the rest of the run actually wasn’t too bad. It was difficult because I don’t know how to ski moguls or make tight turns, but I made it down pretty quickly without any falls. Next time, I’ll try to do fewer three-point turns (my go-to maneuver in the tight channels, apparently).

Once we all made it down the Luge, we headed into Rip’s Ravine, which is a fun little path through the woods. I hadn’t seen this before, but it’s a lot of fun to string together with Northstar. You can get a ton of speed up at the bottom of Northstar, then shoot into Rip’s Ravine and just cruise for a few minutes looking at the scenic path they’ve laid out.

Northstar is a great marker for progress becuase I remember the first time I did it back in 2018: it seemed really steep at the top and the whole run was sort of intimidating. This year, it was our fun run to unwind after a day of black runs capped off with a Luge run. I think we lapped it three times to end our day, and the whole game was “Get as much speed as possible without endangering any children so you can speed through Rip’s Ravine at the bottom”.

This was easily my best day of skiing so far and it left me wanting more.

Odds and ends

In hindsight, last year’s trip was less about progress and more about managing my adductor injury while still having some amount of fun. At the time, I felt a little bad about taking it so easy but it’s clear that I did the right thing. If anything, the fact that I made some progress last year was impressive.

Ramping up to five ski days this year was also the right thing and I think I struck the right balance between maximizing the ski time on this trip and enjoying my vacation. It was cool to ski three mountains and I made huge amounts of progress this year.

I did not have a single fall during a run this year, but I fell probably 10 times otherwise. Sitting next to a snowboarder on the ski lift is apparently dangerous for me, and that accounts for at least three or four falls. I also tumped over a couple times learning how to use my edges just before a run. And my best fall of the week was just before my first Spruce run when I inexplicably fell over between the lift and the top of the run.

Next year, I might get more aggressive so that I have a few more falls during runs. “No falls on a run” sounds kind of neat, but it almost certainly means I’m not challenging myself enough. I’m reminded of a useful poker axoim: “If you never get caught bluffing, then you’re not bluffing enough.”

We had a great crew of people this year. Although big groups of people isn’t generally something I crave, our big ski trip is undoubtedly an asset. We have so many people that everyone can find a few people at their skill level to spend a day with. That makes it a lot easier to learn in a comfortable environment where you’re not holding anyone else back, but you’re also not holding back too much for less experienced skiers.

Next year, I want to hit some harder stuff and maybe even get good enough to hang with the expert-level crew for half a day or so. I’d like to hit Imperial Bowl, Peak 7 Bowl, and Whale’s Tail before the end of the trip next year. And of course I’d like to put in a better performance on the Luge as well.

It took a couple years, but I think I’m finally decent at skiing and it’s fun to have a new winter hobby.

I’m back from our annual ski trip and I had a blast. This year was an interesting mix of firsts and caution, and I made a ton of progress. (Last year was great too, read about it here.)

80s day was a hit

This year, we added an 80s day, which got us a ton of attention and made our first day on the slopes a lot of fun. There were two types of outfits:

1. Authentic retro 80s attire. Maybe half the group went this route, wearing headbands, sweaters, jackets, and pants that were either actually from the 80s or could’ve been.
2. Caricature 80s attire. And about half the group wore stuff that I describe as “What people today think people wore in the 80s.” I was in the camp, wearing a super loud 80s onesie.

We picked the perfect day to do this since it was relatively warm, the sun was out, and the sky was blue all day. The groups pics we got at the top of Peak 8 made the whole thing worthwhile (the rest of the day was gravy).

Slow and steady progress as a skier

This was basically my second time skiing. Technically, I skied a few times in high school, but I don’t count those because we were on east coast ice, and no one ever actually showed me how to ski. So I was terrible and I hated it.

Last year was the first time I skied on anything resembling powder and I also took lessons, so I immediately felt better about it and made progress quickly.

This year was interesting because I was the worst skier in our group, so I was the one holding things up most of the week. But I wanted to take my time and work on some things to make sure I was actually improving as a skier and not just ramping up the difficulty.

First day on the slopes

Our first day on the slopes, I felt pretty uncomfortable on my skis. Skiing is not like riding a bike—and I felt like it was my first time out. But after a few runs, things started coming back and I felt a bit better.

By the end of our first day, I felt like I was pretty much back to where I left off last year. I could comfortably cruise down most of the blues, occasionally feeling like I wasn’t quite in control. This was a super long day because we went out early-ish and came home late-ish. We did a bunch of runs and those runs were challenging for me since my form was so rusty. I was totally spent at the end of the day.

Second day on the slopes

I decided to take our second day and just focus on technique—specifically turning and maintaining my speed while staying in control. My friends would frequently say, “Wow, you really flew down that one! You’re getting a lot better!” And I would say, “Well, that’s because I only have two speeds—Stop and Go. Once I’m in Go-mode, I’m just trying to stay upright until I can slow down.”

I wanted to feel in control most of the time instead of feeling like I was just trying to stay upright and avoid wipeouts. So I stuck to blues and slowly improved.

Although I didn’t move up to more difficult runs as quickly as I did last year, I made a lot more progress in my first couple of days on this trip. By the end of the second day, I actually felt more like I had control, I could slow down when I wanted to, and I was able to choose my lines rather than just taking wide S turns and hoping for the best.

My turns got much tighter and I was intentionally hitting spots that seemed easier to navigate. I actually went in about an hour ahead of most of my peers because I was still beat from the first day, and I felt I had accomplished what I wanted for the second day.

Third day on the slopes

I asked a couple of friends where I could find the easiest black run at Breck. The answer came back: “Dukes.” It was a relatively short run that used to be a blue, but they turned it black so intermediate skiers wouldn’t get spooked. So it was technically a black, but only just.

My goal for the entire day was to get more comfortable and eventually do at least one black run, so I pretty much mapped out the day to slowly move toward that goal.

Powder, powder everywhere

Even before I started going on this trip last year, there was much lamenting that fresh snow never arrived. It was almost like this specific trip had some sort of jinx on it so that it was always warm and sunny with no new snow during the trip.

That all changed this year, and we made up for lost time. In our last two days at Breck, I think there was over a foot of snow and it just kept coming.

So I swapped out my regular skis for “powder” skis to start the third day. At first, this was kind of frustrating because I had to re-learn a lot of what I had worked on the previous day. Turning was harder, stopping was harder, maintaining control was harder. Everything was harder.

But once I got used to the new skis, they were much better and easier to control.

A solo run for my first black

After several good blue runs, it was time to make my way to Dukes, the easy black my friends recommended. I actually scoped it out during my first run of the day since it starts from a common catwalk that we use to move between peaks.

I was going to run it with a friend, but he ended up stopping early, so I was on my own. But before we parted ways, I asked if he had any suggestions—he had three:

1. Stay to the right, away from the moguls.
2. Wait for a big opening so I could do “my run” without traffic around me.
3. If I felt like I needed to slow down to regain control, turn slightly back up the mountain to regroup.

And off I went.

The lift dropped me about 100 yards from the top of Dukes, so there wasn’t too much time to think about it once I was off the lift. I initially planned to get to the top of the run and give myself a minute or two to gather my courage, but it turned out I didn’t need that kind of time.

I got to the top of Dukes, looked at it and thought, “Meh, that doesn’t seem so bad. Let’s go.” And I was off. Overall, it was a pretty good run and I used all three of my friend’s tips.

I actually made it down the steepest part without any issues, but I relaxed too early because I didn’t realize there was a second steep part that was also icy and bumpy. All of a sudden, I realized, “Uh oh, I’m going too fast and this is all bumpy ice. Need to slow down… or need to at least try to maintain control until I can slow down.”

I didn’t quite succeed, but I didn’t quite fail either. I basically ended up spinning out so that I didn’t technically “fall”, but came as close as I could’ve. After a few very ungraceful flailing spins, I found myself stopped, skis splayed, hands on the ground in front of me, holding me up. I regained my composure and it was easy from there on out.

I remember getting to the bottom and thinking, “Huh. That wasn’t so bad.” I almost talked myself into doing it one more time, but I thought better of it and made my way back to our house.

Fourth day on the slopes – or not

I finished my third day on a real high. I finally felt comfortable on my skis, I felt more in control than I had at any other time this year or last, and I did my first black.

But I also felt like I had been pretty lucky so far. I had been really tired a few times during the week, but had managed to get good runs in despite the fatigue. I also had a strained right adductor to watch out for.

Before I went skiing, my doctor said, “Sure, you can ski. But don’t do anything crazy and stay off the tougher blacks.” Remember the spinout I mentioned on Dukes? It was exactly the kind of awkward motion that could’ve reinsured the adductor. I’d been rehabbing that stupid thing for 5 weeks, and hadn’t run in almost 10 weeks because of it, and I wasn’t looking to re-injure it if I didn’t have to.

So I had a really tough time deciding whether to go back out for our fourth ski day, or if I should just take it easy.

I ultimately decided to take an actual vacation day and just hang around the house, and there were a few factors at play there:

• I felt like I had been pretty lucky that I didn’t re-injure my adductor despite some close calls.
• I accomplished my primary goal for the trip—do a black run.
• The conditions were very powdery, but I wasn’t good enough to really take advantage of that. And powdery also meant cold, snowy, low-visibility.
• It was the Saturday beginning Spring Break, and I knew the lift lines would be long (so I’d be waiting around a lot, and wouldn’t do much skiing for the time I would be out there).
• I hadn’t taken a real vacation day—a full day off to just relax—in…I can’t remember the last time I did that, but it was years ago.

It was basically a coin flip that came down to, “I’ve checked all the boxes for this trip and I didn’t re-injure my adductor. I finished on a high and I am anxious to get better and ski more when I’m healthy. Maybe I should just quit while I’m ahead.”

I decided to just take the day off. If my adductor had been healthy, I would’ve gone out. But I knew that if I went out, I would want to try tougher blacks, and that would make re-injury more likely.

Even in hindsight, I’m not quite sure if this was the right thing to do.

A great trip with friends

The coolest part of the ski trip is that each day essentially has two major events: Skiing and hanging out.

Skiing is typically over around 4:00 at the latest, and that means we have another eight hours before we go to sleep. We typically try to squeeze in all four of these things after skiing:

1. Hot tub time
2. Dinner
3. Crepes a la Carte—an amazing crepe place in Breck
4. Games (usually Body, Body, Body, but not always)

We checked all those boxes a couple times and hit three of four every night (I think).

We had some amazing food—The Canteen, Michael’s, Giampietro, Empire Burger (the sides and sauces are amazing)—but I didn’t document any of it because I was too busy eating it.

And I was finally mafia in Body, Body, Body and got the win. So now I’m one-for-one as mafia, but still only like one-for-fifteen being mafia. The law of averages will eventually catch up and I’ll go on a mafia spree (or maybe I’ll just cheat—ahem, GP—and make it happen on my own)

Surviving the Breckpocalypse

About half way through our trip, it began to snow. And snow and snow and snow and snow. There was a lot of snow.

This made my final ski day a lot of fun, and I’m sure it made Dukes (at least the top part) much easier. My friends said it was the best snow day they had ever seen, and some of them even extended their trip to get more time in the powder.

Here’s a short video of the view off of the balcony…

Of course, the snow giveth and the snow taketh away… the ability to travel. We had a few rental cars with varying numbers of passengers, and some of the cars had trouble either explicitly getting through the snow, or in driving from Breck back to Denver. My car was pretty lucky because we left early. It took us almost three hours to get to Denver (normally two hours), and we had to stop to manually de-gunk the windshield a couple times, but we made it. There was also an avalanche about 20 miles west of us on I-70, so I’m obviously glad we missed that.

Some other folks either missed their flights after a long (five hours!) drive to Denver, or simply got stuck in the snow in Breck and had to wait it out (this may or may not have been related to an ill-advised decision to rent a 2WD truck despite a steep driveway and a snow-heavy forecast).

When we finally go to Denver, it was 3 degrees outside—the lowest March temperature in like 140 years. Apparently it got as low as -6, so we got there when it was nice and toasty outside.

All in all, this was another amazing ski trip and I can’t wait to get back out there and hit some real blacks next year.