JEA!

Tuesday Night: I’m pumped. And packing. I’m supposed to fly out Thursday, and I need to get this shit together. Snow is in the forecast, and we need some desperately. Sounds Perfect.

Wednesday: I wake up to a beeping alarm. Actually, I lied, my alarm plays music. Anyways, it’s a snow day. Turns out the day of school I was planning to skip…. Didn’t need to be skipped after all. By 9:00 that night, we have 1.5 solid feet at my house, and 2.5 in the mountains – and still dumping hard. By tomorrow morning there will be 3 feet. 3 motherfucking feet, and I’m getting on one motherfucking plane! That is the most snow the east coast has had in YEARS!!! and it just figures, I’m flying to Colorado, where apparently it hasn’t snowed in 3 weeks. I’m hoping those 4 foot dumps they had back in December make a pretty good base, or else I’m gonna be pissed.

My car Wednesday night.

Thursday: I wake up at Oh-dark-thirty to drive to good old Portland-Westbrook Municipal Airport, and get there in PLENTY of time. Turns out I got to sit around for a good wait, so my brother, Brad, and I decided to find ways to entertain ourselves.

Turns out this is done in part by wait for live operators to pick up, then yelling at them for stupid things. Fuck I need a haircut.

We finally get on the plane, and head out. Destination: Chicago.

Chicago Lights in the airport

Turns out our plane just got back from Japan or something?

Anyways, We get to Chi-town on schedule, and mosey our way over to board, (or be bored?) for our trip to Colorado.

"That John Denver is full of shit, man"

We get to Denver, rent a Jeep, and begin the snowy, windy-ass drive up to good old Copper Mountain. Get there and pass the fuck out. I’ve been traveling, and I’m tired.

Friday: We drive our asses up to Vail, cause we want to ski there one day, and we figure this is a good day to do it. Turns out we were wrong. We get up there, it’s snowy as fuck, and 60 mph winds, with big gusts. All the bowls are closed except for one, it’s cold, and I can’t see the end of my pole. (I have a big pole) Anyways, I-70 closes for the first of 2 consecutive days, and we’re stuck at Vail (not a bad place to be stuck) until 6:00. We go get pizza, walk around, and go back home. No pictures, cause I couldn’t see anything, except for the metric fuckloads of fur stores and old ladies in Vail Village.

My bro getting smart in Vail village

I smell a Maggot nearby.

Saturday: Back at Copper. A good day. Sunny, and “cold” by their standards. I’d say about 25 degrees F. To us east-coast ruffians, that seemed like a balmy day in May. I actually had to take the liner out of my coat, and open vents on the helmet. Our good friend and guide, and also the guy letting us use his condo, Brad Doi, skied with us today to show us the mountain. Not to be confused with my little brother Brad. Anyways, Doi’s idea of fun is to ski double-black bump runs back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back, and see who will die first in the group. Anyways, after a solid morning of this, needless to say, my east-coast, park made hams were really feeling the burn. Kind of like Richard Simmons. Only not as gay. And without the leotard. (Ok, maybe with a leotard).

Anyways, we declared him the winner, and were content with lunch, groomers, and park for the rest of the day. Oh, and we find out later that my dad got in some freak accident skiing and broke his fibula.

After skiing, we walked around Copper Village, and I passed out in a giant chair, while tourists were gawking and taking pictures. Fucking tourists.

That night we partied in the village, and watched fireworks, which I took a shitty picture of.

This sums up most of that afternoon and night in Copper village.

mmmmmm. Beer.

Sunday, and Monday went off without too much event. A lot of bumps, (I don't usually ski bumps in the East), and some snow. The whole time we were there I think there was around 18" of new. Leaving the east coast wasn't a bad thing after all. And their powder is FLUFFY! Here's a picture of me and my little bro at the top on either sunday or monday.

and that's Jacques peak, which is across the way.

TUESDAY!: Tuesday was an ideal day. Backcountry Pow all morning, with some fresh park all afternoon. We took some lifts, and a free snowcat ride to some backcountry with 9 other people. Here's how it went down.

The ski from the lift on the front side to the back.

Dropping in. Jea, I rep NS.

Deepness of pow. Like 12" of new on a nice base.

me in the snowcat.

You can see the snowcat line up the right.

The Decent

I stuck my pole in the snow to see how deep it was. That's my strap. I have 120 cm poles. and I couldn't feel the bottom.

In the afternoon, we went to the park, where they have JUMP LINES! We don't get a lot of back to back jumps in the east, so I was pumped.

And I tried my best all day in the park to throw switch 5's.

Wednesday I went back in town to Denver, Thursday I went to check out CU boulder, and do what any kid should do in that town.....

GO TO JIBIJ! So I went over to see the store, and my bro and I bought a couple of sweatshirts, and got some stickers from Josh. He's a good guy, and it looked like he was bored sitting in there by himself watching ski movies, so go visit. But he did have the new P4's in the back, which are really light, even with a demo binding on them, and sick. So we fooled around there for a little while, and then continued on our way.

Anyways, the trip turned out great, Copper is sick, Thanks to the Doi's for letting us stay at their place, and I hope I didn't totally screw up every picture in this whole thing.

Peace from the East,

Ben Sawyer