Yee-haw!!! It's the day after the Superbowl, and I did the best possible thing... I went snowboarding! And it was ridiculously awesome!!! Thanks to Jimmy Lin and myself, we decided a long time ago that if the Chargers aren't in the Superbowl, we will pass up seeing some or all of the game if it gives us a chance to ride. The reasoning behind this: way back in 2000, when Jimmy met me in Big Bear on Superbowl Sunday to ride, it was dead on the mountain! So it seems that it's the most watched sporting event in the U.S. every year, and that means a majority of the skiers and boarders won't be hitting the mountains on this day.
Before we get into all that, there was the beginning of my day. It consisted of getting up before my alarm at 5:39am and jumping out of bed, ready to suit up and get my butt in gear. Got me some McDonald's for breakfast: chicken biscuit, hash browns, and a coffee. What would happen on my commute later on that morning would prove that actually drinking coffee helped me stay alert. I was on the 25 south at 6:20am, so I was making good time. If I can manage to get on the freeway by 6:30am I'm normally gonna make it to any mountain before opening time, and this day would prove no different. Only I had a slight issue with my commute on the way up to Vail this particular Superbowl Sunday.
I was making great time. It was 7:30am, and I had passed Frisco, which is normally about 25-30 minutes from Vail on the 70 westbound, assuming there is no traffic. Well, there wasn't a lot of traffic this morning, so I was going at a comfortable pace, only passing mainly semis on the way once past Frisco. The rode was definitely slick because I could see the white sheets of snow and ice in either lane. I was doing about 50 mph, and I felt completely safe. I was thinking, "I'll be fine as long as I don't have to make any sudden stops or sharp turns." I should really stop thinking these things.
Maybe five minutes later, I'm in the left lane and I'm coming up about to pass a semi that is already in the right lane about 1/4 mile ahead of me, maybe 1/2 mile. Guess what? Yeah, he was doing about 30 mph and he turns on his blinker and immediately gets in my lane! I see this ahead of me, and I immediately know that I am going too fast because he is not gonna speed up in time to keep me from hitting him at this pace, and I don't have a lot of room to safely slow down. I start with cussing, "Sh--." I keep saying this over and over again to no-one in particular since it's just me in the car. I AM GOING TO HIT HIM, unless I slow down. I don't down-shift, which in retrospect would have been a smarter decision. I instead opt to tap on my brakes and see how much I can slow down. The tapping isn't working too well. I'm still going too fast to hit him. I can feel my car starting to slide, but I have no other options. The wheels locked up because I was either gonna try my luck at sliding and slowing down while on the brakes, or rear-ending the semi ahead of me! My car starts to shift to the right, and the tail end is coming around. I do the over-correction steering move, and then I'm sideways sliding, still going too fast. The passenger side is downhill, facing the semi and now I can see the AWD Subaru that he was passing! Friekin' ALL WHEEL DRIVE SUBARU was going 30 mph!!! This person, in my mind, should never be allowed to drive a Subaru again in their life!
Well, while sliding downhill sideways, I managed to slow down enough to give the semi time to accelerate and get on his way so I won't hit him. The Subaru, however, was still doing 30 mph! I was now in danger of hitting the Subaru! I can still remember catching up with Mr. or Mrs. AWD, and thinking that now I'm gonna crash into this AWD vehicle! The whole time I was just waiting to hear the CRACK!!! that happens when you are in an accident. Thanks to myself, and Jimmy, I have been in two accidents so I know what it sounds like inside the car when you crash into something, so I have experience! I was maybe three feet away from the Subaru at my closest point. If I had a passenger, they could have stuck a lacrosse stick out the window and whacked the Subaru with it! Miraculously, I slowed down enough to miss the Subaru as well!!!
But this is not over! No, not yet! I am still sliding, but now I am headed for the concrete divide on the left-hand side of the road! Now, I think I'm gonna hit the divide! And yet, another miraculous thing happens as I turn the wheel to the right and some-how decide to hit the gas to get the front tires spinning again. I managed to miss the divide! At this point I am going very slow, maybe 10 mph, and my wheels finally begin to grip, and I straighten out as my heart is leaping out of my chest! Now it's decision time: 1. Do I stop on the side of the road and try to compose myself or, 2. Do I just keep driving and let the adrenaline wear off eventually.
There were about 3-4 other cars that I had passed that passed me on the left when I was slow and go in the right lane after my out-of-control incident. I opt for option # 2. I decide that I should just keep driving because if I stop, it's not gonna do much for me to "compose" myself at that point. Since I averted that disaster, I felt that I would just take it slow and get to Vail. And the Subaru was so slow, that I still passed it maybe a mile down the road! As Jimmy put it, "The most fun I never want to have again."
So that was the morning commute. I still get to Vail at 8am, and get my gear on. I am on the Gondola right as they open at 8:30am. I get on the mountain, and now I really have to make this day worth it since I almost crashed my car on the way up there! Vail is huge! Over 5,000 acres, and this is the fifth time on the mountain this year. I go to the familiar back bowls, and look at a map at the top. There is still a whole side of the mountain that I haven't seen yet. I decide to go explore, and to my surprise I find a sweet Black Diamond on the far western(?) back-side of the mountain. It's got some rocks with a few smaller drops, cliffs. I don't get enough cajones to go off the top of these and drop into some soft, albeit, crusty powder. But I did follow another boarder and a skier into the trees. Normally, I hate tree runs, but today is different. In this particular tree run, it's still a bit narrow, but I can keep my speed up and shoot through the trees! It was sweet! It was so good, in fact, that I had to do it again.
After all of that, and after getting back to some of the more familiar back bowls, I was getting hungry. I ride down to the bottom and pull out my trusty Nature's Valley Granola Bar, and munch down on it. By this time it was 12:30pm, and I call a few people to hopefully tell them about my morning commute, but no one answers except my Dad. I tell him about it, and then get some water and do a restroom pit-stop. Now it's 1:00, and I'm pretty much done for the day. I get on the lift at 1:15pm to take me back to the top so I can ride to the other side of the mountain where my car is.
While on the lift, I see to my left, Vail's Terrain Park, complete with a super-pipe and a few jumps that look too big for me to hit. But I really wanted to hit the half-pipe! So I notice that the lift I'm on just keeps getting higher and higher up the mountain. So high in fact that I can traverse all the way to the Terrain Park. So I ride over towards the Terrain Park and finally, I'm there! I immediately hit the super-pipe, and then I notice a few jumps to my left that are smaller, and therefore, I can hit them. There is a shorter pipe to the left of the super-pipe, so I hit that one because it gives me access to the other smaller jumps. After the first couple jumps, I hit the third one and launch myself in the air enough to get a decent grab. At this point, I was hooked! I kept the same routine for about an hour and fifteen minutes. I got to the park at 1:45pm, and ended up taking the lift past the Terrain Park higher up the mountain at 3:00. I made my way all the way to the other side of the mountain where my car was, and I get to my car at 3:40. It was the best Superbowl Ride Day... EVER!!!
I was on the road back home at 4:00 which, as anyone who has ever experienced traffic back to Denver on the 70 can tell you, is normally the kiss of death! Parking lot!!! Yes, there was an accident on the way back, but the normal commute is an hour forty five minutes, and I still got home in two hours and fifteen minutes. Even if it would've taken me three and a half hours to get home, the whole day would've still been totally worth it! EPIC!!! Loved it!
So... Who wants to do it with me next year? I'll try to keep control of the car this time, I promise!
Song Of The Day
7 years ago
