Sally Barber Mine and Big Air

Last Saturday, we took a day off from skiing and snowboarding, and instead we went on a snowshoe hike to the remains of the Sally Barber mine. The hike starts just a couple miles outside downtown Breckenridge, so not surprisingly, it was quite popular. We saw several groups of cross-country skiers on our way out to the mine and back.

We started hiking up through some lovely forest, with typical Summit County mountain views:


After just 1.5 miles or so, we reached the mine:


It’s situated in a beautiful spot, on an outcrop with views of the Keystone ski area in the background:


Here’s the view from right behind the mine remains:


After a few minutes of enjoying the views, we were joined by a dog that kept jumping on us and gnawing at our hands. Then its owners showed up, a couple of cross-country skiers, who offered to take our picture:


After that, we headed back down.

We had seen in the local newspaper, the “Summit Daily,” that the U.S. Freeskiing Open was going on at Copper Mountain, which is just a few miles west of Breck off I-70. So that evening, we headed out there to watch the Big Air competition. That’s where skiers go off a huge jump and do massive tricks in the air. The Switch 1080 was by far the most popular trick in this year’s competition – that’s where a skier goes into the jump backwards, does three full rotations in the air, and lands backwards. Many skiers spiced it up a bit with grabs in the air.

We were in the front row, so we had a great view of all the action. After his first jump, Jossi Wells, an X-Games medalist from New Zealand, came over to his posse right next to us and debated the merits of various possible tricks that he could do on his second jump. Wells was a fan favorite after his interview with the two sportscasters who were commentating for the SkiNet webcast of the event. While most of the interviews were inane, Wells spiced his up with some off-the-wall answers.

We watched the qualifying round, where 39 skiers each did two jumps, with the best score counting. Then the top eight moved on to the quarterfinals, which were a head-to-head single-jump competition to make the semis. At that point, we were freezing, so we headed out. The next morning, we found out that Jossi Wells had made it to the final, where he lost to Colby West. Some pretty cool photos of the event are online here.

More Skiing and Snowboarding

After the excitement of the snow sculpture festival, it was back to the daily grind: skiing and snowboarding just about every day. On Sunday, January 27, we went to Breck and we both skied. Monday it stormed outside all day, so we stayed home. Sarah read John Grisham’s “King of Torts” cover-to-cover – she hadn’t read an entire book in one day in ages.

Tuesday we saw that Beaver Creek had a half foot of new snow, so we headed over there for the first time ever. As we left Breck, it was cold, windy, and snowing, so visibility was nonexistent due to blowing snow. But we carefully drove over Vail Pass on I-70, and gradually it cleared up so that by the time we got to Beaver Creek, it was just cold – not snowing or windy. Never having been there before, we consulted a trail map and decided that Grouse Peak should have some good terrain for us. It took three lift rides to get from the base to the top, though, and by the time we got there we were icicles. Temperatures were barely above zero and it was windy on the lifts. We stepped inside the ski patrol hut at the top of the mountain to get out some hand and foot warmers and to generally warm up. The ski patrol folks were nice. They said it was a good thing we hadn’t come the day before – due to high winds, the upper part of the mountain was closed. Once again, we were glad to have taken Monday off. They recommended a run off the side of Grouse Mountain called Screech Owl, so eventually, when we were sufficiently warmed up, we headed to that run. The snow was positively amazing! There were some huge moguls, but the troughs were completely filled in with fresh snow. We had to ski carefully – it would have been easy to stick a ski tip into a mogul and lose a ski, and on a powder day like this, losing a ski could be a permanent sort of thing, rather than a quick recovery!

Next we tried Raven Ridge, the run right next to Screech Owl, and it was entirely different – the snow was wind-blown and crunchy and it was nearly impossible to maneuver. We went into the lodge afterwards to drink some tea and warm up again, and chatted with a guy who called it a “survival run”. He wasn’t kidding – it wasn’t really skiing, but rather picking a path with extreme care and concentrating on your balance to avoid toppling over. Nevertheless, Brian fell about four times on that run. Not much fun.

We moved over to Larkspur Bowl next, and it wasn’t nearly as crunchy. Later in the day, we would do some lovely gladed skiing in a huge area of aspens off to the side of the bowl – the powder in the aspens was incredible and largely untracked.

We also spent some time skiing in the Rose Bowl, and then we skied the Birds of Prey downhill course, which was constructed for the 1999 World Alpine Ski Championships. The topmost section was insane – unbelievably steep bare ice. Fortunately, there was a little cat track that bypassed the super-steep icy section, so we took that. At the end of the cat track, we saw a snowboarder riding down the steep part, where “riding” actually consisted of sitting down and scraping down on his back edge and butt. The rest of the course was still steep but hadn’t been groomed, so we skied the moguls the rest of the way down.

Wednesday, January 30, was still really cold and the snow was still fantastic. We went to Breck, and Brian snowboarded while Sarah skied. We did some double-black-diamond runs, which was a first for Brian on a snowboard – they’re pretty easy when you can bounce over soft fluffy moguls and turn whenever you feel like it. At lunch, we saw three grown adults dressed up in full-body elephant, cow, and monkey costumes. We never did figure out what that was all about.

Also at lunch, Sarah noticed a bright red spot on Brian’s face. He looked in the mirror and didn’t notice anything through his several days of stubble, but the next day, after shaving, he noticed a purple/gray patch. After doing a little bit of research we decided it was frostbite, which we confirmed in a chat with ski patrol the next day. Frostbite! You hear of people getting frostbite and losing fingertips or toes on Everest expeditions, but frostbite at a ski resort in Colorado? Who would have thought? Ever since then, Brian’s been keeping his face covered when outside, and it’s recovering nicely.

Wednesday night we watched the Republican debate and laughed along with the audience when Ron Paul made fun of McCain and Romney for their pedantic debate about “timetables”.

Thursday we went back to Breck and both snowboarded. We watched the Democratic debate that night and puzzled over the exact differences between the nearly identical healthcare plans of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Friday we woke up and found out that Vail had seven inches of new snow, so we made a beeline for the slopes, Brian with his snowboard and Sarah with skis. We went to the back bowls, but the visibility was close to zero, so we went back to the front side and skied some fluffy groomers. Eventually the fog lifted, and we went back to the Sundown Bowl and did run after run in different parts of the bowl, rarely running into another person and constantly plowing through deep fluff. Nothing beats Vail on a powder day!

On Saturday the snow report looked good yet again – we’ve just had an amazing series of storm after storm dumping snow on us! But since the slopes are usually crowded on Saturdays, we decided to take a day off.

Snow Sculptures

January 22 to 27 was the week of the 18th Budweiser Select International Snow Sculpture Championships in Breckenridge. A bunch of huge blocks of snow – 12 feet tall, weighing 20 tons each – were laid out in downtown Breck. Then 16 teams of up to four people each showed up at 11 a.m. on January 22 for the shotgun start, armed with hand tools and ready to turn their vision into reality, using snow as their medium. The teams came from around the world – the U.S., Canada, and Mexico were each represented by multiple teams, but teams also came from China, France, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Spain! Imagine traveling across the world to sculpt snow!

Sarah and I dropped by the sculpting area on the first night to check on the progress. To give an idea of how big the blocks of snow are, Brian stood next to the Spanish team’s block, which hadn’t been carved much yet:


Also on the first night, we checked out the advertising ice blocks. These weren’t part of the competition, but they were impressive nonetheless:


We saw this guy making some more advertising ice blocks:


Using a stencil, he carves out a design, then fills in the carved area with snow.

The sculpting area was near the ski slopes, so we over were there several times over the course of the week. It was neat to see the progress being made. The first night, the blocks had been hacked up a bit, but didn’t resemble anything at all. By the next-to-last day, the blocks had been turned into rough versions of their final forms. The teams worked overnight on Friday and on the final day, the precise final cuts were made and details and texture were added.

We came back on Saturday, January 26, after the sculpting had ended, to photograph the final products. While we’d practically had the sculpture area to ourselves on the first night, it was mobbed on this day, as hundreds of people showed up to see the final sculptures and the awards ceremony.


A team from New York carved this one titled “Curiosity”. Three polar bears snoop on an Eskimo fisherman, but he doesn’t see them:


The Lithuanian team carved a hockey faceoff titled “Who Will Be the Best?”:


Remember the block of ice that Brian was standing next to in an earlier picture? The Spanish team turned that into “Inauguration, Tomorrow,” a “sculpture within a sculpture” in which a father and son peek under a sheet at a sculpture of a warrior on a horse. We thought it was especially creative:


A team from Ontario created our favorite sculpture called “Just Spooling Around,” a cute depiction of two cats wrestling with a spool of rope. This close-up shows the face of one of the cats. The team filled balloons full of water and froze them for the eyes and tags of the cats. Apparently, ice is a new medium – in most competitions on the snow sculpting circuit, only snow is allowed, but this year Breck decided to allow ice. It was a trial-and-error process, the team captain told us – some of the ice balls would be riddled with cracks, while others would come out of their balloons crystal-clear.


And here’s the full sculpture:


Behind the cats, you can see “Break Out,” sculpted by the local Breckenridge team. It’s a social statement about using alternative energy sources – you can see the sun, water, a windmill, and corn breaking out.

Here’s another cute sculpture from a Vermont team called “Teeter-Toddler,” showing a father and son on a winter outing:


This next sculpture was titled “The Warrior and the Moon,” sculpted by the team from China. The level of detail in this sculpture was impressive:


At the side of the sculpture area were a few attractions that were sculpted out of the same 20-ton blocks of ice but weren’t officially in the competition. One was a slide, which was extremely popular:


The awards ceremony was scheduled for 3:00 and we happened to be there at the right time, so we stuck around. The advertising ice blocks in front of the stage were now topped with gorgeous molded-ice leaves:


We thought the awards show would be a 10- or 15-minute affair – present some medals and then we could all go to happy hour. It wound up taking something like 45 minutes! First were the requisite speeches thanking sponsors and volunteers. Then came a long procession like the Olympics opening ceremonies. Each team was announced, paraded up onto the stage carrying their country’s flag, accepted participation medals, and walked off the stage. With 16 teams, this took a while, but it was entertaining – some of the teams had funny outfits, and the Breck representatives who were handing out the medals tried to go European by kissing each sculptor on both cheeks, surprising and confusing some of the sculptors.

Here’s a shot of two of the U.S. flags and the Chinese team’s flag flying against the bright blue sky:


Finally, it came time for the awards. The winning sculpture was “The Warrior and the Moon,” the intricate creation of the Chinese team, which turned out to be shorthanded – they only had two sculptors, rather than the allowed four! Finding that out made their creation all the more impressive.

The people’s choice and kids’ choice awards were announced the next day. The people’s choice also went to the Chinese sculpture, while the kids chose the cats “Just Spooling Around”.

The sculpture competition was a lot of fun, and just one more fun activity that we didn’t expect when we decided to hang out in Breck for the winter!