After climbing in t-shirts for 6 days in the park and the approach of Winter Storm Lora-Nora whatever- we decided to head over the mountains to the mining town of Telluride. The morning began with the normal rituals and the glance to the thermometer which was pegged at 30 degrees this morning. I wasn't too expectant of anything short of wet snow fall and cookie-dough snow conditions with these temps. The clouds hung very low in Ouray this morning. (pic 1).
The hour long drive was punctuated by the groovy tunes on satellite radio and the deceiving road conditions along the way. As we got to Telluride there was a light snow beginning and the temp was still around freezing. We parked in the convenient underground parking and took the gondola to the village to get our rentals-I should have gotten some powder boards in hindsight.
As soon as we boarded the gondola for the mountain something magical was falling from the skies that wouldn't stop until the next day. John was new to deep powder, and after the first run I was giddy. The temps began to drop gradually and at some point it was headed to perfect ski conditions mid 20s but it was still goin down and so was the snow. It seemed like it was snowing 2-3 inches and hour. The wind was having it's moments and we got up pretty high on see forever......but it was blizzardly up there and nothing was really opened.
We skied all day in deep deep powder. I released for the first time in a couple years and lost my ski for 20 mins with half the ski patrol looking for it, but in the end I found her where I thought it would be -uphill instead of down where they insisted it was......alls well-thanks for the help!
Telluride will chew you up and spit you out on the blacks and double blacks make no mistake.....I caught an edge and stretched my MCL in an awkward fall just before I released later and lost my ski. I took our last day off ice climbing to nurse my geezer frame but geezer #1 climbed all day on day 8. more later.
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