Skiing at Keystone

Sunday brought an inch of new snow, so we skied at Breck, mostly on Peak 10. We took long breaks to watch the Colts-Chargers game in a reggae-themed lodge at the base of Peak 9. Yesterday and today, we skied at Keystone, where the crowds were thin and the skies were blue. And we finally took some pictures!

We woke up this morning to a bright pink sunrise out our bedroom window, so we ran out onto the porch to take some pictures. These are looking down at the town of Breckenridge:



When we got to the slopes, we took the gondola up to the top of Dercum Mountain and skied down the Schoolmarm run, a 3.5-mile-long green run that affords fantastic views. Here are a couple shots of the Gore Range with the Dillon Reservoir in the foreground. The towns of Dillon and Silverthorne are at the right edge.



Here’s a close-up of Buffalo Mountain, the most prominent mountain of the Gore Range with its two avalanche chutes, known as “Big and Little Elvis”:


Brian got Sarah to pose in front of the Gore Range:


This next shot shows most of the Tenmile Range and part of the Mosquito Range. Four of Colorado’s famous fourteeners (14,000-foot-high peaks) are at the left end of the picture: Bross, Lincoln, Democrat, and Quandary. The next peaks from left to right are Peak 10, Peak 9, Peak 8, and Peak 7, the four mountains of the Breckenridge ski area. Peak 6 is at the far right of the picture, and Peaks 1 through 5 are out of the frame to the right.


Here’s Brian posing in front of Mt. Guyot and Bald Mountain:


And Brian with yet another scenic mountain backdrop:


The Keystone ski area consists of three mountains: Dercum Mountain, North Peak, and The Outback. This is the view of The Outback from North Peak:


Here’s Sarah in action:



We spent a lot of time in the terrain park this morning, standing out of the way and marveling at the talented skiers and snowboarders jumping over 20 feet in the air, doing flips and 540s and assorted other tricks. Here are just a few of the crazy photos that we took – don’t try this at home.











Here we are, riding the lift from The Outback back to North Peak, toward the end of the day:


Finally, here’s how we ended our day, skiing down to the River Run base area of Keystone:


The blue sky for much of the day made for some great photo-taking opportunities. And the skiing was great, too. It was in the 20s all day and sunny – we actually broke into a sweat skiing moguls! Some arctic air comes in overnight, though, and the rumor is that the high tomorrow might only be around zero degrees Fahrenheit. Brr! We’re thinking we’ll snowshoe instead of ski!