Steamboat Springs: Part 1

Mr X and I went enjoyed a long weekend in Steamboat Springs this past weekend. A perk of our snowboarding season passes was that we each got a few free passes to Steamboat Ski Area as well. We each took last Thursday off from work to take advantage of these passes. We've been pretty frustrated with the snowfall most of this winter so far, but last week we got lucky because it dumped snow all week up in the Steamboat area. I think the total for the week was about 50 inches. The first day of snowboarding we were greeted with 14 inches of fresh powder. The second day we had 4 more inches of powder when we started but it snowed all day, covering up all the tracks as they were placed. It was really incredibly nice. We couldn't have timed it more perfectly.

The town of Steamboat in the evening. You can't really see the mountain peaks because they are covered in clouds - it was snowing at the top in this photo.

This is a view from the top of the ski resort, looking down into the town and valley below, after the storm had cleared.

The trees were so thickly covered in snow that the branches were sagging heavily down. If you brushed the branches as you flew past them you would momentarily be engulfed in a smallish blizzard again.