As many of you know, this past weekend was the annual 36 hours of Keystone. For those of you who are unaware, the 36 hours of Keystone consists of 36 hours (9am Friday to 9pm Saturday) of nonstop drunken/high stupidity. It is pretty much one big party. There is a competition in which teams can compete in a nonstop ski-athon, but it costs a lot of money and the prizes aren’t really that great. It’s all about the partying.

We’ve had a lot of snow in Colorado in the past week, so I wasn’t about to waste my day off on Friday for inbounds skiing at Keystone. My friends Joel and Danielle and I skied Berthoud Pass all day on Friday. Conditions were pretty epic. Roughly two feet of new snow had fallen on Berthoud in 2 days and the coverage was great. It was 5 degrees for a high, but I don’t think it ever got above zero for the day. Oh, and it was still snowing.

Hiking for turns

The snow was pretty deep

Looking out over our first run

Danielle after a few face shots

Joel

We had some great powder runs throughout the day. Even with the good coverage, there were still some boulders sticking out. Joel got the worst of it with a few edge shots. I had two core shots on one ski. It sucked because I only brought one pair of skis with me for the weekend. Danielle and I drove to Keystone to continue our weekend. Luckily I got hooked up big time at Virgin Islands Ski Rental and Repair in Silverthorne. The shop guy there did two ptex welds for me at no cost and had my skis back to me in about an hour. If you ever need a quick repair around Keystone, got to Virgin Islands and give the shop guy a big tip.

Because we had only had about 4 hours of sleep the night before and we had hiked all day we were pretty tired so we took a nap in my car while waiting for some friends to go ski the 36 hours. There was an accident on US 6 just outside Keystone. Not wanting to delay the fun, we pregamed in the car.

The base of Keystone lit up

Eventually we got to Keystone and met up with even more friends. By 9pm we were skiing and drinking pretty hard. As expected, Friday night turned into an all out, anything goes ski party. I think pretty much everyone on the mountain was drinking and there were many people openly smoking mj in the lodge on top of Dercum Mountain.

About -10 or so at 1:45 am and we’re still skiing.

The party continues at 3am

Sometime after 3am my friends and I passed out in the summit house on top of Dercum. There were some little middle school fuckers who kept talking all night long. It was about 40 degrees in the room we were sleeping in. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep well.

We woke up at first light to an amazing snow covered vista. The Central Rockies were blanketed with snow and lit up beautifully as the sun rose.

North Peak and the Outback were going to open for the first around 9am. There’s been a lot of snow recently so everyone had fresh tracks in mind. As about 100 people lined up at the closure rope waiting for ski patrol to open up the backside of Dercum my friends and I snuck onto the Outpost Gondola and got to the summit of North Peak before everyone else. While the masses were navigating lift lines at the base of North Peak we were already skiing untracked powder in the outback. The conditions were excellent, but we didn’t stop to take pictures. We did get some a good shot of the Ten Mile Range from the Gondola though-

We skied powder at the Outback till about noon when Danielle and I continued our next leg of the journey to Winter Park to meet up with some more friends. Snow blanketed mountains made the drive quite enjoyable.

We passed out at a friends house in Winter Park and saved up energy for Saturday night’s party, which included standard drunken antics such as building a snowcave inside Chris’s house.

We woke up Sunday morning to clear skis and more snow

We met up with my good friends Sarah and Jen, who had come up with her friend Kristi from the Jibij team. Kristi is still recovering from tearing her ACL at the US Open last year, so we were able to keep up for the day. We spent the day doing laps at the park and generally relaxing on cruisers and bump runs. It was a welcome rest day at the end of a long weekend. Towards the end of the day my friend Weston showed up to show all of us alpine skiers up with his tele set up.

Winter Park showing good conditions

Danielle

The weekend culminated with a gorgeous sunset over Berthoud Pass on our way back to Boulder. It’s a incredible life we live.

Peace and Love Newschoolers!

-Kevo