It has been more years than I like to
think of since we've been skiing in Steamboat Springs. Two of
those trips involved parking on Rabbit Ears Pass and skiing to Mt.
Werner on the Hogan Park trail. On most of our trips we
stayed in the cabins at Perry Mansfield, and this trip was no
exception. Kelly, Janis and their daughters Emma and Mary and I
stayed in the Pine cabin. Here Bingo and Helix investigate a
snowman who was waiting for us when we arrived Friday afternoon.
It was a long drive to Steamboat, and
we didn't really have time to do any serious skiing, so Kelly and I just
put on the skis at the cabin front door and skied in the fields to the
west. The sun was just setting and I had to snap a couple pictures
of the clouds.
On Saturday, Janis dropped Kelly and
me off on the pass to do a bit of skiing. She was VERY
uncomfortable with the roads, and didn't want to go any further than the
westmost set of trails. Kelly and I had never skied these trails
before, so it was some unfamiliar territory.
We tried the 1C trail on
Saturday, then the 1B trail on Sunday.
Rabbit Ears Pass never
disappoints. The snow was beautiful, and even though the clouds
hung low, the scenery was gorgeous.
We were a bit ahead of schedule for
our pickup, so we decided to go a little way on the 3B route to kill
some time. We were the first to go today and had to break
trail. This area gets so much snow that the first skier has to
break trail every day.
The depth of the snow is always a
surprise. Step just a little off of the ski and you sink to your
waist.
This is the map of our actual
trips. On Sunday we cut back to the connecting trail prematurely,
so I marked to regular part that we missed in yellow.
Sunday was another perfect day.
The trail was broken, but only a few skiers had preceded us.
