I woke up at 6: 20 AM this morning. It was like Christmas day when I was a kid, I was just too excited to sleep. I tried to go back to sleep for another hour, didn't happen. I laid in my bed for the next hour before rallying and getting out of bed. Threw on my snowboarding clothes and was out the door. I had to scrape frost off the window of my car and it actually felt good. It made me miss living in the mountains. After the ice was gone, I hoped in the car and headed up the mountain toward wolf creek.

It was chilly when I got there, but I knew the sun was going to be out all day and things would warm up pretty quickly. Besides, I never wear jackets when I snowboard unless I absolutely have no choice (read sub 35 or so). See, the sun was doing its thing:


First lift of the day. Can't wait to get off it and take my first run of the 2010-2011 season.


Conditions were sketchy at best. Lots of bare spots, rocks and tree branches poking out just about everywhere. There weren't a ton of people on the mountain today, so we all dealt with the snow together.


This is what I would refer to as the bridge of death. I'm sure that if there is enough snow than this spot is not all that sketchy, but when you're dealing with a ten inch base, it's very sketchy. The thing about it is that it's at the bottom of a step decline and then goes immediately back up a sharp incline so you need to approach it with a lot of speed. There wasn't a ton of room for error either since it was narrow and the snow was all packed and was basically kernals. Ski patrol came in and tried to shore it up.


Not all of the runs were terrible. There were definitely some sections of pow here and there that allowed for an edge.


Best part of Colorado, the epic views


The sun became merciless. It wasn't too hot for me, but it was too hot for the snow.As morning gave way to afternoon, the snow began to melt, quickly. The hard kernals of death turned into a combination of that with slush, which created some really tricky conditions. Seeing as it was my first day out, my faculties were not all about me. I hit a jump, tweaked it out, and came down on a slush pile that stuck my board and result in me going end of over end on hard/soft snow. Luckily, only superficial wounds:


Nothing shitty beer can't solve.


A full day of riding, from 9AM to 430 PM. It will take me approximately 18 hours of driving, several hundred bucks and a strict diet of fast food, but to me and others like me, it's always worth it.