On my final day in Steamboat, I headed southeast out of town past Stagecoach Reservoir to Kristi and Danny’s house. We shot an epic Sport The Dress™ session in the mountains near their home. After the shoot I headed back to Boulder the back way, over Gore Pass. On the way, I was hoping to find a trail suitable for mountain biking, without any real knowledge of the area or a map.

After a while of rallying down the desolate but well graded gravel road in the WRX, I came across a trailhead for an ATV trail. It was well packed down and looked like it would make for a solid mountain bike surface. So I headed up the trail and embarked on a solid 2 hour granny gear climb. It was pretty challenging with muddy areas, stream crossings, and roots, but I was able to ride almost the whole thing.

Once at the top, there was a great view at the top of this erosion slide gully thing. I have no idea what it’s called, but it was really deep! You can see the area where I started, at the far left, behind the pine tree, in the base of the valley.  It probably took me only 15 minutes to get down, but it was a ripping descent!

I’m always following the weather during the winter, tracking the big storms that yield glorious dumps of fluffy powder. I wasn’t able to get away too much this year, just too much business stuff combined with a pretty dry winter.  Well the storms finally showed up in late March and early April, and I was determined to get my money’s worth out of the pass.  So through the glory of Facebook, I found a co-pilot, 2 places to stay near Vail, and we set out for 3 days of bottomless powder hunting.

Things started out normally enough the first day at Vail. Until about 2 hours in the day I randomly shared a chairlift ride with a couple, and the girl had a piece of bridal veil material in her helmet. Turns out they were in town from Houston to get married at the swanky new Arabelle Resort in Lionshead. So we were chatting about weddings, and I mentioned that I have a shoot planned soon where I’m going to do portraits of the bride and groom in the dress and tux on skis. Tricia looks at me and says, “Can we do that on Sunday!?” Fortunately I had my camera gear with me, and I booked the shoot, thereby lengthening my trip another day. Well now I know that I need to get up skiing more often next year! And does this mean that I can write off my pass next year as a business expense?! Look for pics from that shoot soon on The Light Side.

Two runs later I went into the lodge to meet up with Io. She was talking with a man, who had a cute little girl pulling on his leg. Turns out he does energy-body work in Boulder. I asked him if he was interested in trading some family photos for body work . . . Yes! Two shoots hooked up in an hour! The next two days went pretty much as planned. I did a crazy amount of tree skiing. The next shot shows the aspen trees that lead down to the High Noon lift in the far Western back bowls. I’ve never skied them before because the slope is southwest-ish facing and is usually pretty bare. But after feet and feet of snow in two weeks, I was able to hit the chute just to the right of the lift, fresh tracks all the way. Very deep and steeper than it looks!

The second day at Beaver Creek was my best day there ever. We woke up that morning, and it dumped a foot of snow in 6 hours. It snowed crazy hard and I would have taken more pics but I was way too busy shredding. It was snowing too hard anyway. I hit tons of glades: Bachelor Gulch, Coyote Glade, Thresher Glade, Heads Up, 4 Get About It, Corkscrew, Stickline . . . my only regret is not hitting some of the steep upper glades earlier, by the time I got there they were closed. Next time I’ll know where to go first.

My last photo from this set is of a random guy who I shared a lift ride with. His beard was so awesomely coated with icicles that I had to take a portrait. Can you say, face shots?

So, I booked photo shoots, while skiing deep powder. I think it’s apparent that I need to manifest a place to live in Eagle County!