A Tribute to Shane McConkey

Shane McConkey was a big hero to me. Whenever I've dreamed of skiing, whether it be mid-summer, bad or no snow in the Midwest, or on my indoor bike trainer, I'd be watching ski flicks....and Shane was in all of them.

One of the world's top "extreme" skiiers, he was always pushing the limits of skiing, and is considered the inventor of the fat ski, which has made big mountain skiing accessible to a huge slice of people who don't have skills like he did. He also invented Ski-BASE -- where you ski off a monster cliff, and pull a parachute, making just about any slope with snow skiable.

Shane died in March in a ski accident. Not just any ski accident. He was in Italy, doing a Ski - Wingsuit - BASE jump when a binding failed.

I've really enjoyed watching him over the years, and I'll share a little with you here.

Shane McConkey in Claim from Phil Herbert on Vimeo.

the skier's dilemma

the more I ski
the more comfortable I become
and embrace greater speeds.

the faster I go
the sooner I approach the lift
and must wait to ski

A whole lot of awesome.

Finally I found a video of this.

Norwegian pro freeskier Fred Syversen unintentionally hit the world record cliff drop, got buried in the snow and skied away to the waiting rescue helicopter. At the hospital they found that he only had some minor internal bruising on his liver. This all happened in the Alps while filming. The cliff was said to be 351 feet(!) high and Fred Syversen’s speed at take off was around 80 km/h.



From Fred himself.

Some facts for u guys

Hehe,

Somebody told me about this discussion (couldn’t read it trough, too much), and I like to add a few facts, the rest I will leave for the film and the pics. I can’t give you any proof, that’s not for me to decide.

My ski philosophy is that you should always stick your landings, that’s gonna progress our sport! Going this BIG we’ll leave to the BASE jumpers.

This was the warm up run at the beginning of the day during heli-filming, and it turned out that I missed the end of my line with not to many meters (difficult route finding cause of similar terrain features ). I let my skis go pretty much into the falline and picks up speed instantly, and just thereafter realized my fault and that I will go out something, probably huge.

The mind works amazingly fast under stressed situations; breaking or trying to stop was no longer an option, it simply went too fast. If I had tried that I wouldn’t write this. So that left one choice; go for it, and do it right!

For a fraction of a second I thought this is it, but managed to get in a slight right turn to avoid the cliffs on my left side in the landing area. Then comes the take off at an amazing speed (it felt like that), I see snow underneath, and I realized that it’s not over yet.

In the air I tried to keep a position as long as I could, but air pressure finally pushed the tips of my skis up. That’s what I wanted as well, because landing it anything else than horizontally was out of the question!

I had an ABS avalanche back pack, and for those who know, it has a little metal/aluminum bottle ? near the lower back, not good if you land on your back. So I tilted my body slightly to left before impact and that probably saved my spine.

I didn’t want this to come out, but with mobile phones around……

Nuit de la Glisse Films / Perfect Moment Clothing company, producer Thierry Donard
Photographer : Felix St. Clair Rénard
Measure of the jump 330 feet.

For the skiing watch Free Radicals : Rising and Snowblind and Nuit de la Glisse: Perfect Moment ”The Contact”.

And as far as I know; I am not 42 yet, but hope I will be.

Fred Syversen



2 things:

This is incredible to me. This goes to show how limitless we are as a human race. Every day in our life, we see and imagine things that we don't believe are possible. Who would've thought anyone could survive this? Fred wouldn't have, had you asked him minutes before....but he had the basic tools necessary to succeed (i.e. live), focused, and achieved. It turns out, self doubt is really what keeps us from realizing our full potential.

Whether this actually counts as a world record is of some question to people. The previous record was held by Minnetonka, MN native Jamie Pierre, who jumped a 235' cliff in Wyoming two years ago--Intentionally. Fred also believes that it doesn't count if you don't land on your feet, and keep going.

I <3 Telemarking

That's Telemarking, not Telemarketing.

Some friends were in town this weekend and wanted to go snowboarding. I took them out to Afton, but since I'm not a doofy snowboarder that sits in the middle of the piste and goes in terrain parks, and coupled with the fact that I just spent 3 days killing it in Utah, I wanted to try something different.

So I rented Telemark Skis.

This is something I've never done, but have always wanted to try. Whenever I'm ripping it in the steep & deep on a powder day, I'll always notice that I'm surrounded by telemark skiiers, and it's just something I had to try.

Anyways, I took about 5 minutes getting my boots into the bindings, awkwardly reaching around to my heels, looking around to see what I was doing. I saw the nearest lift was the bunny lift. Since I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, I took it up. I took 2 turns, quickly learning where my weight has to be distributed. I fell on my 3rd turn, and the binding popped. It was easy to click back in. I got up and headed towards a normal lift. Later I found that a little bit of speed & gravity makes skiing easier.

I figured things out pretty quickly, and I was having a lot of fun despite how slow I was going. I finally found my friends and we took some a run together. They were going pretty fast and I decided to speed things up a bit. I fell really hard onto my hip. I slowly got up, and skiied down.

I progressively got better, still skiing greens & blues, (which are actually greens & super greens anywhere else) getting m0re excited on each run. This is fun.

I took one more hard fall onto the same hip. I've got a pretty nice bruise there this morning.

By the end of the day, I was comfortable going down the steepest stuff at Afton, including some of the very narrow "steep" pistes. During my last runs, I was taking long, sweeping turns on the big "blacks." If you're an attention whore, this will get you some attention. People will definitely notice you (at least if you're far from concentrations of telemarkers)

I'm not comfortable with speeds that I'm used to on my alpine skis, but it was really entertaining. The snow was chewed up from all the skiiers that day, but since it was cold all day, it was a 2" sheet of dusty powder, so I was blasting a big white cloud behind my ski on each turn. This felt awesome--it had an organic feel that I've never experienced on other downhill skies.

I'll definitely telemark again.

Epic day at Alta

So I've kinda decided that Alta & Snowbird are the only places that I want to ski in Utah. I was in Utah last weekend, and we skied Alta on Sunday.

We got up early and got breakfast at McDonalds--gross, but fast. The place was vacant at 8am. We knew why a few minutes after we left; there was an beginningless line on Wasatch blvd lining up to Little Cottonwood Canyon. We later found out that the road was closed at 6am, but we waited for 45 minutes before traffic really started to move. Jeremy took a nap in the front seat.

We pulled into the parking lot at about 10:15am--an hour late! If there's anything on the planet that gets me excited, it is the crack, rumble & echo of avalanche cannons. I was jumping in my ski boots in the parking lot like a 5 year old--impatient for B-Lo to get his gear on. The snow was falling fast, and I had my gear on & ready to go in an instant.

Rumor had it that there was 17" overnight, and it didn't let up at all anytime all day. If we got less than 20", I'd be surprised.(Official storm report says 18")

We jumped on Collins-- Ballroom/Baldy Shoulder was closed despite numerous slides from the chutes above on Mt. Baldy's peak, so we crossed immediately over to the sugarloaf side, dropping into fresh off the traverse, and took several runs along that lift. Once the Greeley gully opened, I dropped in, B-Lo and JR behind me. We had to pole for a while, and this had JR yelling explicatives....he fiercely loathes poling. I got a little ahead of them, and somehow B-Lo lost both of us. JR went Bugs Bunny in some deep powder, and inhaled some snow. Someone helped dig him out, after letting go of a pole. He had to rake the apparently 4ft deep snow with a ski to find his pole. Meanwhile, I waited, saw him, and dropped through a chute. Face shots like crazy. I took a tumble and got back up, lapping up the expanses of fresh snow. "Is there snow out there?" someone in the lifeline behind me joked.

I think JR liked it a little more than he acknowledged, despite his Copper Mountain fetish. His main qualm was the fact that it was difficult to get around with some of the flat spots.

JR and I found B-Lo as we were on our first lift up Supreme. He budged up the line to find two people without a third and we took my favorite line--No. 9 to the White squaw notch. That place looks flatter and flatter each time I ski it--I charged through it this time.

We headed over to Catherine's Area and found some tree-bowl combinations. This place is phenomenal, and we could've spent all day there, but the shots right along the lift line were calling my name. We went back and went slightly skiiers left of the Supreme lift line. I dropped down one of the steepest chutes I've ever had the balls to ride, and was rewarded by some fresh turns below the neck. I saw a small rock face off to the right near some trees and decided to jump off it. I did, but there was less cushion than I expected, and bailed on the landing. I left some nice scratches on the bases of my rented Atomic Metrons. I'm getting real powder boards next time.

It was lunchtime, and JR needed food. He planned on not seeing us again, and we took one last run off Catherines before heading back to the Collins side, since the ballroom had just opened. We hit the top of Sugarloaf and were almost blown to the ground. The traverse back to Collins was closed, so we went to the bottom of Sugarloaf and grabbed the surface lift back. JR thought this thing was the best thing since sliced bread. I spent most of the ride trying to skate faster, but my legs were getting fatigued.

Ballroom had already been tracked. Later on, B-Lo and I hit collins and once we neared the top of the lift, we saw Jeremy skiing deep stuff under the liftline. We met up with him and skiied some steep trees, still hitting plenty of knee deep+ pow.

JR decided after a few more runs that he was done. I came and sat with him for a while outside to rest while B-Lo did another run. I didn't see him when he came down, so I took a run over to High Rustler. Even at 2:30, it was still powdery & soft--and challenging as always, especially given the condition of my legs. There was another guy pretty close to me that looked like he was hurting as bad as me. We could only take a few turns at a time going down--he mentioned that it wasn't such a great idea to be riding it this late in the day, and although I agreed, this is the run you can't miss at Alta--a 1000ft+ vertical sustained at 44degrees...

I found B-Lo after that run, and we spent my last few runs doing loops with B-Lo on the top half of Collins on the steeps & trees. I was still flying through sections where the snow was deeper than my knees. My legs couldn't handle more than a few turns at a time, and I fell a couple times, quads atrophied from the day of intense skiing.

I finally gave up and took my last run into Wildcat base. The snow was still falling so hard that you could barely see the top the High Rustler.

I hate leaving Alta

Even when it looks like this as you leave the canyon.



We had yet another epic day at Alta, and the view as we left was nothing short of spectacular.

Birkebeiner '08 Race Report

I should preface by saying that neither Birkebeiners nor Jager shots cure chest colds. I'm going to bed after I finish this, and I'm not going to work tomorrow.

-------------------------------------

As I left the city on Friday, I was sneezing. By the time I made it to Telemark, I was hacking phlegm in every color of ROY G BIV.

This would be my first Birkebeiner and I was determined to race, mostly because I skipped the Vasaloppet, I've improved much this year, and I've been really excited to finally ski on this course. I figured if it got worse, I'd just quit.

I settled in with some new friends at the condo, waxed my skis to Fastwax's recommendation, ate some pasta, and got to bed early.The weather station said that the weather would be 28 high for race day. In the morning, it was 2F, and I was torn about what to wear. Figuring I'd warm up, I wore my base layer & jersey/ thin tights and Craft windstopper underoo's and was very comfortable after the race started.

As I lined up in wave 4 (full 51km, skate), I promised myself that I would stick to my strategy for the day: Take the first third easy, start to push 18-34km, and go for bust after that. I would also get ahead of my calorie consumption by taking a gel at least every 40 minutes.

My legs felt pretty flat as we started up the first of the bumps along the power lines and was beginning to wonder if not skiing since last weekend was such a good idea, but they warmed up soon enough.

Cough, cough. Hack, hack.

About 7 km in, I fell on a very small downhill. My foot caught a rut, I crossed ski's and superman'ed to the ground, ski's helicoptered above me. I got up quickly & kept going. Shocked Very embarrassing--my balance has improved exponentially this year, and I'm glad only a few witnessed it.

When the big hills arrived, I was ready, having done plenty of single poling during training. Sometimes it felt even faster than my V1. The view approaching Firetower was incredible. Going up it wasn't too bad--there were worse ones later on. These huge hills have super long lines of people going up them. It's very difficult to get ahead of people in these instances.

Shortly after passing 00, I reached for another gel. I was out! I'd only had 4 to that point, but I'd brought more than that. I must have dropped some on the course while reaching into my jersey pocket. I still had some concentrated gatorade in my hip holster, and that was able to hold me over until I hit the next aid station that had gels. I had a Clifshot Plain at the next stop. I hate the flavored kind with intense fervor, but this was the worst thing I've ever tasted. To make things worse, it was cold and extra viscous. I needed three "energy drinks" to wash it down.

My second (and last, thankfully) fall was at the second snowmobiler hangout. A steep downhill curving to the right, I avoided the two traffic-jammed inside berms in favor of the smoothe outside next to the classic track. Unfortunately, someone else with the same idea fell in front of me, and to avoid her, I stepped over between the classical tracks, lost my balance, and just before regaining it, caught my tips in the powder 6" from the jeering audience. Instead of plowing into them, I kneeled down, rolled onto my back, skis over the top of me, and back onto them in one fluid motion--a talent carried over from my steep & deep downhill experiences at Whistler & Alta.

The next section of the Birkie is much more forgiving: lots of rolling hills, flat stuff, easy uphills, fluid corners, etc. I started to push a little harder, V2ing as much as possible, carrying as much momentum up hills as possible. I started to drop packs of (mostly wave 3) skiiers. This was my favorite part of the course, and I still felt fairly fresh.

Cough, hack, cough.

Things started to get difficult a little before the last aid station--I could feel the wear on my body in my core. I finished my gatorade, grabbed some drink and immediately took off on to one of the most difficult hills of the day. Sad, because it wasn't very steep at all--one of the few times I was passed. Once I made it to the top, the terrain again opened up, and I resumed V2. I V1'ed what I guessed was the last hill with the knowledge that I had less than 5km, and soon enough I was on the lake. I was trying to hold a V2, but the snow was already out and starting to bake the snow....and my god the line of skiiers was long. I decided to shift down to an open field skate at the hardest pace I could hold, planning for a sprint through Hayward. This was probably the most painful section of the race for me. Even little 6" bumps on the groom felt like hills. I passed more & more skiiers, threaded the needle through a few in some ankle deep powder connecting the lake to the streets of Hayward, and started my last V2 assault.

As I took a full speed right turn onto main street, someone yelled my name. I took a hypoxic look back and nearly fell, balancing with my left ski at hip height for a good 15 meters before I caught myself. I passed ~5 people on main street and finished.

My chip-taking friends from the condo laughed at the huge icicle hanging from my temple down to my jawline as a photographer took my portrait.

In the end, the race was easier than I'd been led to believe. It was tough, but I was expecting worse. The trail was WONDERFUL--beautiful nature and well developed "flow." I was dropping lung fragments on the trail about every 30 seconds, but I still had a fun time.

It got a little tough towards the end, but it was probably the most fun ski race I've ever done. I now know why everyone does it. I'm hooked, I'm going back next year, and I want blood.


Time: 3:26
13xx/3100 Freestyle skiiers according to the paper.
11x/180 age group.


Garmin:
Avg pace: 6:45/mile
Max Speed: 26.8mph
Avg HR: 158
Max HR: 172
Calories Burnt: 4491



Recovery:
1 Granola bar
1 Chocolate Brownie Clif Bar
3 Leine's Dopplebocks
2 Shots of Jager (Double kudos to Troy)
Bruschetta


The season is over. I'm staying home tomorrow, but will probably see my allergist tomorrow--I'm flying to SLC on Thursday for 4 days of downhilling.

Cycling & Skiing.

In my progression away from the couch-oriented lifestyle, I initially jumped onto downhill skis, added a triathlon bike, then a mountain bike, and finally skate skis.

I've always drawn parallels between downhill skiing & mountain biking, and XC skiing and road biking. It seems intuitive:

Downhill and mountain biking are both "off road", require some amount of fearlessness, and involve flying through the air, sometimes at high speed. In both cases, little bit of finesse can compensate for a great amount of cardiovascular fitness. (you ought to see some of the guys in speedsuits at my downhill league--spandex nightmares)

XC skiing and Road cycling require smooth, maintained "trails",and emphasis is often placed on your ability to go uphill and your cardiovascular engine. We often talk about skate skiing's "gears" and their similarity to a those on my Cervelo.

But I've changed my mind.

I think XC skiing and Mountain biking are more analogous. Aside from the fact that the tatoo'ed crowd from what I can tell doesn't mix into the Nordic crowd:

Technique is paramount in either discipline--in mountain biking, this translates to more instances of flying over obstacles rather than into them, and carving singletrack curves at higher speeds. On skis, our coaches place highest priority on trying to find the best way to drill proper V1 & V2 technique into our neuromuscular motors. A perfectly timed V1 will take you much farther than an elite cardiovascular machine without co-ordination. (as evidenced by a hilarious foray at Elm Creek with an ultramarathoner friend of mine skate skiing for her first time)

Well developed balance is also way more important than cardiovascular fitness on XC skis. The more balance you have on skis, the more glide you achieve(efficiency), and the harder you can push yourself without kissing the trail. I started this ski season with one revelation: my balance sucks. Since then, the lion's share of my training has been spent skating sans poles and other balance drills. And despite many, many spectacular trips, slips and gaffs ending in a mouthful of groomed snow, I have my greatly improved V2 to show for it. A lack of balance on a mountain bike translates to more braking when you should be deep in singletrack nirvana, and the ol' "hike-a-bike" when confronting rock gardens. In downhill skiing, both feet are always on the ground....How simple!

Road biking doesn't have anything to do with downhill skiing aside from the higher speed, and the fact that road bikes perform offroad as well as my downhill skis work going up challenge hill at French Park.

In the end, all of this activity has developed into a personal motto--whether it's skiing, cycling, or life in general:

"If you're not falling, you're not trying hard enough."

Noquemanon

If I hadn't told you, I competed in the Noquemanon last weekend. I drove up to Houghton, MI and stayed with my uncle Bruce before driving to Marquette, MI for the race. I stayed another night with Bruce on the way back.

I was pretty excited for the Noquemanon, and this year's 45km course was to be my first race of any distance since taking up XC skiing last November.

I started in the last wave of the skate group-the last group on the course. I started towards the back of the pack, figuring I could avoid any early battles in the front of the pack. The Noquemanon is known for it's amount of downhill, (over 3000 feet of descent) and there was a pileup of about 5 skiiers on the first downhill. Seeing a crash became fairly common occurrence on downhills for the remainder of the race.

We crossed a frozen over lake, and encountered our first big hill. There was a line to start the climb, so I took a water break while waiting. I was a bit surprised to see single-poling so early in the race, but it was pretty steep. You can't train for hills like these in Minnesota. The longest climb ended up being around a 400' gain in elevation--I think that qualifies as a small mountain.

The climbs continued, and I was able to pass a fair amount of people at the pace I had selected. The first half of the race contained many challenging climbs--especially those that get steeper everytime you look up.

I was very surprised at how technical the descents became. Lots of people were falling, and I managed to get caught in a rut and fall on a long one myself. As it turns out, Jen was right behind me, and when she flew past me at high speed, she hit one of my poles, cleaving it in half. I had a very difficult time on the next climb, as single poling was the only option given the traffic. Fortunately, the next 6 kilometers to the next rest stop didn't include any steep climbs, and I quickly learned to V1 and Open field skate with one short pole, and did plenty of no-pole skating. I was quite surprised that I was still outpacing most despite my new handicap, and I figured that although most people were better skiiers than I am, I was more fit. This thought was encouraging. I got a new pole at the next aid station, and although it had a crappy wriststrap it did the job much better than half a pole.

Let me stop to say that the snow to this point on the flats & climbs was fantastic. We were at about 10F, and I was gliding along very well. As I approched the higher altitude midpoint, the snow began to fall. It became difficult to see well with my sunglasses fogging.

I felt quite satisfied with the pace I'd held as I passed the starting gate of the half marathon distance skiiers, and was quite pleased with my race to that point. I felt well prepared for the heralded "mostly downhill" second half.

The second half of the race had much more incline than I was led to believe. I learned that although the couse had been shortened, there were many new hills added in the reroute to the new finish line. I'm curious how much elevation had been added to the normal 2200' of climbing on the standard 51k. (for comparison, the IDS center downtown is just under 800' tall) The course was getting much busier with the fresh half-distance racers, and the downhills were snowplowed down to the underlying ice and becoming treacherous. Many marathoners were falling down on the technical descents, and I spotted several racers taking off their skis and walking down.

A few long climbs into the second half, I was beginning to feel the cumulative effect of the race. At all the aid stations, I'd been taking down reasonable amounts of HEED, but in all the excitement I hadn't stop to eat any of my gels or energy bars that I'd brought along. I took down some water, but after one more hill, I was completely bonked. I took down a gel, but it was too late. A hard lesson learned.

I had about 12K left, and my glycogen levels were flatlined as I passed yet another "Caution: Big Hill Ahead" sign. I started to get passed by familiar racers from my wave, and was again reminded that I'd not been fueling myself properly. A long false flat had me decomposed down to a weary V1. I don't remember much after that until I saw the 2km mark, and heard noise. I began to feel adrenaline slowly course into my body, and my pace on a long slow incline began to crescendo. My speed built as I saw the finish line, and I finished the race in sprint V2 fashion.

I finished in 3 hours, 49 minutes; placing me 14 of 16 in my age group.

I'm doing the 58km Vasaloppet next weekend.

Lutsen

I shut my cell off and left the real world this weekend without telling anyone(except for the 9 guys with me) and went skiing in Lutsen.

I drank almost an entire liter of Tanqueray. I said lots of funny shit.
I got some pointers from a new friend who used to be on the US ski team.
I skiied really fucking fast.
I played lots of P&A
While encompassingly inebriated, I ran in a dead sprint in my boots and deftly jumped onto the tailgate of a moving pickup, stuck the landing, and made some new friends on the way to the bar.
I saw superior for the first time.
I looked at the double blacks, laughed, and "11"ed the whole way down them.
I skiied in the rain. For the first time.
I scared the living shit out of some snowboarders.
For the first time, I stopped in the middle of my beer and gave it to Brian because I was too drunk.
I got rejected by some subpar girls who drove from Illinois.
Two words. Hang. Time.

PS. I've added photos from my latest trips to my Flickr page

I lost my phone

RIP

Andy's Motorola V710

Sept 2004 - Mar 2006

Died when V710 was ejected from Andy's jacket during a skiing crash. Andy was uninjured and both skis were recovered about 100 yards downhill, but the V710 body was not recovered.

V710 was Andy's trusted communications liason for nearly two years, but in recent months had lost photo capability, and had intermittent MP3 functionality. The day before the accident, V710's outside LCD failed. It's early demise is sad and will be missed, but Andy knows it will be happy at rest in Snowbird, UT, at the scene of the crash somewhere below the Gad2 liftline cliff.

If I had your phone number, I probably don't have it now. You're probably going to wanna to forward it to me if you want to hear from me in the future. If I didn't have it and you want me to hear for me, here's a convenient chance to give it to me.

Bode

So Bode was out drinking the night before the downhill, so what.

It's not like they all get to go back in 4 years. There's other shit to be doing in the olympic village other than meditating for 23 hours a day in between events.

Like socializing with other athletes. Particularly the sculpted, muscular yet delightfully lithe Olympi-ettes who probably don't even speak English. Gestures and grins (and probably raised eyebrows) are the only communication necessary or expected.

There's no way the Torino Olympic village could be anything other than the highest concentration of human hormone/pheromone anywhere in the world. The Olympics must be a wild orgasmic culmination for the world's pinnacle gene pool. Pass that up for a couple extra hours of sleep hoping that they will translate into a 0.0059 second performance burst? Weigh the options in your head.

Let Bode stay up and have a few beers in peace, please. Might I add that he still skiied better than everyone in North, Central, and South America--probably while nursing a hangover. Shit. He'll probably be back in 4 anyways. Be sure to wave your favorite finger high in Whistler, BC

Photo Diary + Trip Synopsis

I posted some photos from my trip on my flickr account HERE.

I'll try to give everyone a detailed recap here at some point in the near future, but I've got a ton of things to do around my apartment. AND catch up on sleep.

For the time being...

Tuesday: Sightsee around Denver. Drank some Fat Tires.
Wednesday: Copper Mountain. Sunny day, hard snow.
Thursday: Vail. 12" of snow. We skipped lunch to ski all day, and hit alot of the acclaimed backside bowls & basin, but missed at least half of the mountain without skiing the same run twice.
Friday: Winterpark. Some overnight powder, nice day, some wild tree skiing.
Saturday: Rest. Coors brewery, Red Rocks, Gentleman's Club.
Sunday: Breckenridge. 12" blizzard. Cold, but perfect snow. Nail biting 5 hour drive to the airport to catch my flight. Got home around 1:30am.

Home Sweet Home

I'm back, I had a great trip.

More to come, I'm tired.

Colorado

The plane landed safely and Brian & I are now in Denver. I took some sweet photos of the sunrise from the airplane. It was above the clouds, so few of us were able to appreciate it.

Today, we relax, check out the city, and get ready.

Tomorrow: Copper Mountain
Thursday: Vail
Friday: Winterpark
Saturday: ???? Relax, Sightsee.
Sunday: ????Decide on a mountain, ski, Fly home.
Monday: LOTS OF COFFEE AT WORK.