Have been back home for a couple of weeks now and missing Steamboat hugely. I also miss blogging too (I need therapy!)
I live in the South West of England and we VERY, VERY rarely get any snow that actually settles. I find this very sad and it is just one of the reasons that I love coming to Steamboat so much: I get to see heaps and heaps of beautiful fresh snow everywhere. Back where I live, the most we tend to get is a "heavy frost" (despite the depictions of Southern England in any Christmas…
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Added by Boo Boo on February 3, 2009 at 5:36am —
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Always the saddest day of any trip… snapping your ski boots into your bindings, knowing that it will be both your last and a very short ski day.
As befits an obsessive organiser, I was as organised as possible for our last day: everything was packed that could be packed, we had checked out and we had arranged to keep the condo until noon (thank you very much to Bear Claw condos for allowing that).
Another great ski day: fantastic, fast groomers; sunshine and not too cold. This allowed us to co…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 21, 2009 at 11:30am —
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Ok, I lied – one more blog before heading towards home tomorrow.
Another fantastic day: barely a cloud in the sky and lots of fast groomers to play on.
We wanted to make the most of a few lower mountain favourites first thing. We started off with a good, solid, flying warm-up run along the length of Vagabond: a really beautiful run, but, to be appreciated fully, it must be done early (before anybody else shows up). Then back up for Heavenly Daze, which was indeed amazingly “heavenly”! Then, ou…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 17, 2009 at 8:42pm —
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What a day! Busy, beautiful and a LOT of fun!
We got up and out onto the mountain to find not a cloud in the sky. The further you got up the mountain, the bluer the sky seemed to become. It was so beautiful, it was the sort of day that you see in holiday brochures or on postcards.
Yet another day of perfect groomers to carve through and we took full advantage of that invitation: heading all over the mountain in the morning. We headed straight across to Sunshine: Upper High Noon was amazing and…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 17, 2009 at 8:27am —
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Delicious! Both the sweet memories of last night’s meal (at Café Diva) and the skiing today!
Steamboat was very kind to us, again, today. Things started off VERY quietly on the mountain and we didn’t really experience much difference throughout the day: it got a little busier, but not much. The groomers were in fantastic shape – incredibly carvable. My knees, though a bit creaky, rose to the occasion and we carved down fabulous groomers all day. I think that it is a confidence thing: since I kn…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 15, 2009 at 8:43pm —
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Well today didn’t start well: by the time it was time to go out onto the slopes, my knee was feeling really dodgy. It wasn’t hugely painful, but was getting the occasional throb (even when doing nothing) of considerable discomfort and that was making me very uneasy. So, after talking it through with my husband, decided to get it checked out. I went through my travel insurance company to get everything pre-authorised.
I sent the husband out skiing for an hour – whilst waiting for pre-authorisati…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 15, 2009 at 8:15am —
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My day of enforced rest (due to dodgy knee). I caught up with blogging and laundry whilst husband went out to ski yesterday. He stayed below Four Points (because of visibility), but made the most of the groomers lower down.
He came back at about 11am and we got ready to go to the Transit Centre for our Snowmobile pick-up. We stopped off at “Chocolate Soup” (in the shops at the base of the Steamboat Grand) to get some lunch. We ordered two “made to order” sandwiches and a bottle of Orange Juice.…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 14, 2009 at 8:11am —
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Another cold day today, but really quite bright and some blue skies around: really quite pleasant. During the night, a few inches (up to 5 or 6) of soft powder fell. So, depending where on the mountain you went, there was either a dusting or a fair amount of great, soft snow to carve effortlessly through.
The amazing thing about today was that, especially first thing, there was NOBODY about on the mountain: we almost had it to ourselves! We made the “first tracks” on the lower bit of Lower Conc…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 13, 2009 at 10:00am —
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Getting up this morning was even more of a struggle than normal (I love sleep!). When we are in the US, we tend to not completely reset our body clocks (we go to bed early and get up early). So I have been going to bed at 9.30pm (I know, I am a real “party animal”!) and get up at 6.30am. I tend to find that all of the skiing and fresh air demands a good 9 hours of sleep… So last night, with our Rangars Sleigh Ride Dinner, we got to bed at about 10.30pm: I had to prise myself out of bed at 6.45 t…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 12, 2009 at 7:14am —
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Today we woke up to some beautiful groomers. There was still more than enough deep powder for those who wanted it: we saw lots of people darting in and out amongst the trees. There was some sunshine forecast for today, but the sun didn’t quite manage to peak out amongst the clouds. However, the light was still good over most of the mountain.
Unfortunately I incorrectly anticipated how cold it would be today (I thought that it was going to be sunny and so warm) and put on a slightly too lightwei…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 11, 2009 at 8:44am —
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We didn’t manage to get to the Ski Haus… we were so hungry that we headed straight for the Ore House (Pine Grove), with the intention of doing Ski Haus after dinner. Unfortunately, by the time we had dinner, the Ski Haus had shut!
Dinner at the Ore House was great. For the first time ever, we were sat upstairs: we didn’t even realise that they had an upstairs (despite going there probably every year for the past 9 years!) – apparently they normally use it for private parties. We really liked th…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 10, 2009 at 7:21am —
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Oh my goodness what a day!
After the trials of yesterday – “tricky” conditions and painful boots – the sun really shone on us today. Steamboat Ski and Bike Kare seem to have worked wonders on my boots and I was pretty much pain free today. I am going to give them another go tomorrow before returning to to store (to either make further adjustments or to thank them).
Today really was a “Blue Bird” day – Colorado at it’s best: some good groomers, beautiful sunshine, stunning views and warm sun on…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 8, 2009 at 5:56pm —
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Unfortunately my ski boots had been starting to play me up... I bought them from Steamboat Ski and Bike Kare during the last few days of our trip last year (I loved my old boots, but the shell had warped and was starting to leak very badly). So, although my new boots were good, I probably didn't have enough time to get them adjusted before we went home last trip.
So with sore achilles (the boot/lining pinching at the pack of the heel) and now very sore shin bones, we decided to take them back t…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 8, 2009 at 8:30am —
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...in more ways than one! A "10 out of 10 Powder Day" and "10 out of 10" the score that the people on the Morningside lift kindly gave my "head over heels" wipe out this morning... ;-)
Firstly, last night. We headed into town at about 6pm for an early dinner and got a walk-in table at our first choice - "Bistro CV". I had wanted to try this restaurant since it was recommended by SteamboatRider last season, and it didn't disappoint. Bistro CV prides itself on well sourced, very fresh, mostly org…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 6, 2009 at 4:25pm —
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Last night we had "take-out" dinner from the Drunken Onion. The Pulled Pork, Mashed Roasted Yams and Broccoli were all nice, the Honey and Cinamon Ice Cream was REALLY good. Will definitely go back there again and try other things: they have lasagna, stews, homemade soups, fresh salads, fresh rotisserie chickens etc... Oh, and more ice cream flavours to try!
We watched a couple of downloads (we are quite enjoying "30 Rock" at the moment) and got an early night.
Boy was it a struggle to get up…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 5, 2009 at 5:26pm —
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Well we ALMOST has a slight disaster at the start of this trip... We have spent the past week staying with relatives in the LA area (which was lovely) and I had used airmiles (with British Midland Airlines) to buy United flights from Santa Ana (Orange County) to Hayden via Denver. I had received email confirmation for the flights (and checked for further confirmation and assigned seats on the United website) prior to our trip. However, something went wrong with the British Midland booking, and w…
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Added by Boo Boo on January 4, 2009 at 6:02pm —
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Five weeks ago we put our house on the market to sell it. Property prices are falling, quite markedly, in the UK and we were looking to move soon anyway. So, despite missing the height of the market, we have been advised to sell. With the intention of moving into rented accomodation for a while and coming back to the property market, once house prices have fallen, as strong buyers (with no chain).
We thought that everything had gone "quiet" for Christmas, when we get an offer last week. We have…
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Added by Boo Boo on December 15, 2008 at 11:55am —
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This year has been a very unusual one. I am normally super-organised: Super Value Passes are purchased by mid-August (to get them at their cheapest), airplane tickets are usually booked in the British Airways sale in September, accomodation is booked by mid-October (to get best availability and cheapest prices). This year we had to wait to see how a few things turned out and I only got the go ahead to book this past weekend! So these last few days have been a panic of booking things...
On the b…
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Added by Boo Boo on December 4, 2008 at 10:38am —
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