Pirep and Ski Report

[Bill Greenwood]

We are well into ski season and if anyone is going on a ski trip here are suggestions.
First of all, we have great snow here in Colorado, really good conditions right now.
I like this time of year, not usually crowded, not bitter cold. and mostly good snow.
For airlines. remember they can go in most weather. Do check as they often "get" gullible passengers when they talk about flying into some places, I e Vail and neglect to mention there is no airport there.
If you are flying your own plane, here's a few guidelines. Go in good weather, you may be a superb ifr pilot in flat lands, but mountains are not impressed with such a rating. And remember this time of year it gets dark early about 5 or 5:30. FILE A FLIGHT PLAN, and pick a route over the milder terrain, not just direct over all the higher peaks. Colo has 52 mountains above 14,000 ft. Carry sleeping bags and fire starter and signal devices,if you had an unfortunate landing out, you need to survive for at least a couple of days while they search for you. Or many days if you were too stubborn to file the flight plan.
If anyone is vacationing here and wants an overlook at Mt. Flying, I'd be happy to. Its not a CFI course, but you buy lunch and I will give you my experience over about 40 years. Go skiing, its really fun, if expensive, but be careful.

 

[denverpilot]

There once was an airport in Vail... well Avon at least... and some really cool Dash-7s that serviced it. And you could buy a ticket book of airline tickets at the grocery store, and walk through the gate at Stapleton to the airplane with your skis that you put on a cart as you climbed in...

 

[Bill Greenwood]

Today, right now. 11 am is one of those days when flying in the mountains is just glorious and easy.Visiblilty in the blue sky is probably 60 miles, nothing in the way, and calm winds. Only thing better might be skiing today.

 

[AA5Bman]

I just don’t understand people and their relationship / misunderstanding of social media.

These things do not connect:

My favorite thing about this time of year is uncrowded slopes! <—> So I’ll just post about this to the bajillion users of social media and tell them about it!

When it’s about solitude in wilderness places I kind blow my top.

PS - before I am flamed for being a grumpy old man, trust that I know this already.

 

[woodchucker]

^I highly doubt it’s been a secret up to just this very thread.

I’m in Salt Lake and play the reverse card. Utah? This place sucks. Mormons everywhere and you can’t get a drink to save your life. And the skiing? It’s garbage.

Few years ago flew Salt Lake to Rifle with my ski gear. Parked the plane and my buddies out of Denver picked me up and we had a glorious time at Aspen for four days.

On the way out hired a local CFI for a short field touch up. Flew to Glenwood Springs for a landing there. Fun times.

 

[AggieMike88]

Bill, are you certain you want all us Texans headed your way to partake of your winter wonderland?

In a different thread, you had hinted we should remain on our side of the Raton Pass.

 

[Bill Greenwood]

Can a Texan learn to ski? I mean actually ski on something other than a flat place and do it like you know what you are doing?
Yes, in theory a Texan can learn to ski, but it is as rare as a (used car dealer) telling the truth. more often a goal than an fact.
P S as for (used car dealer) insert the word of a group that I am not supposed to write about ,but who are not known for their honesty. I know at least one honest used car dealer in Waco and Temple.
P S no 2. I moved to Colorado about 1970, and started to try to learn to ski. 13 years later I won the first of two downhill races I ever won. easy course, fast skis. And I won the 2nd next year. It sure doesn't take that long to learn to fly, about 4 to 6 months.
By the way one year my Sons ski coach was the sister of last years downhill ( speed) coach of the US national team, and who used to coach Bode Miller.

My Son, who skis like a cop eats donuts, told me one day as I got older and was lamenting being on the downhill side, no pun intended, of my skiing ability, said in all seriousness, not even joking, "Dad, you are the best skier I've seen, for a Texan." If you really want to feel old, when you think you are pretty decent, go out and race head to head, same easy course against your 10 1/2 year old Son who was born here and who has raced for 5 years.

 

[Lachlan]

Can a Texan learn to ski? I mean actually ski on something other than a flat place and do it like you know what you are doing?
Yes, in theory a Texan can learn to ski, but it is as rare as a (used car dealer) telling the truth. more often a goal than an fact.
P S as for (used car dealer) insert the word of a group that I am not supposed to write about ,but who are not known for their honesty. I know at least one honest used car dealer in Waco and Temple.
P S no 2. I moved to Colorado about 1970, and started to try to learn to ski. 13 years later I won the first of two downhill races I ever won. easy course, fast skis. And I won the 2nd next year. It sure doesn't take that long to learn to fly, about 4 to 6 months.
By the way one year my Sons ski coach was the sister of last years downhill ( speed) coach of the US national team, and who used to coach Bode Miller.

My Son, who skis like a cop eats donuts, told me one day as I got older and was lamenting being on the downhill side, no pun intended, of my skiing ability, said in all seriousness, not even joking, "Dad, you are the best skier I've seen, for a Texan." If you really want to feel old, when you think you are pretty decent, go out and race head to head, same easy course against your 10 1/2 year old Son who was born here and who has raced for 5 years.

Texans are pretty good at some things. Especially good at telling the whole world they’re from Texas. Another thing they excel at is migrating out of the great republic and spreading their diaspora across the land. And skiing in jeans. Don’t forget the jeans.

 

[Bill Greenwood]

Never skied in jeans in my life. What is a diaspora? Weall don't use those big words down here.

 

[Lachlan]

Never skied in jeans in my life. What is a diaspora? Weall don't use those big words down here.

Diaspora- the scattering of descendants from their homeland.

 

[Crashnburn]

And then there are Texas But people, told to me by a former Texan. I used to live in Texas, But I moved." (Not me, I'm from KS.) I think Texas was his least favorite state, but he might have been in denial( and that's not just a river in Egypt).

 

[Bill Greenwood]

Denverpilot, boy you must be a long time Colorado guy, how long since that Avon strip? Must be 20 years or so. For those who don't know, Avon is a small town, pretty much an industrial and commercial center about 10 miles west of Vail on hwy 70. What used to be a really, really cool small airport was in a small field just south of the hwy. There was a small paved runway running east and west, and by runway I mean really about like a 2 lane road. I don't know the length, not long, I'd guess maybe 3000 ft. and there was a small terminal building. Its a bit down in the valley,but not really in a hole. Now not many planes could serve that as an airline, but at DeHaviland Twin Otter is a special plane, maybe a dozen seats and two small turbine engines on a high wing and very good at STOL operations. Rocky Mt Airways used to fly them into Avon for Vail, and they flew into Steamboat also. I rode on one once into Innsbruck in a pretty short ifr approach in actual imc. They use the dash 7 for parachute drops at Longmont also.
The airport is gone, but if you know where to look you can still see the runway or could a few years ago.

 

[danhagan]

If you really want to feel old, when you think you are pretty decent, go out and race head to head, same easy course against your 10 1/2 year old Son who was born here and who has raced for 5 years.

I'm an average skier ... have taken my son on family ski trips 1 and 2 weeks to Telluride for the past 22 years. At your sons age, I started losing races, when he reached high school age, he was extremely fast and ran with the locals in their races. His buddies put a phone and app on him on one of the runs and he was getting some truly scary top end speeds. My only advantage is that he goes to college in a city near sea level and truly feels the altitude the first couple of days now in Telluride ... when in El Paso, he never had that problem (score one for the old man!)

Put that app on your son in one of the "gated" test run courses ... scary when there speeds exceed 80.

 

[denverpilot]

I just don’t understand people and their relationship / misunderstanding of social media.

These things do not connect:

My favorite thing about this time of year is uncrowded slopes! <—> So I’ll just post about this to the bajillion users of social media and tell them about it!

When it’s about solitude in wilderness places I kind blow my top.

PS - before I am flamed for being a grumpy old man, trust that I know this already.

LOL we have a whole tourism board banging that drum for the ski areas.

What he knows is most people have day jobs so slopes are relatively quiet on weekdays. Always have been.

What he didn’t share was you’ll want to kill yourself or 20,000 other motorists if you attempt a ski trip up I-70 on a weekend day now.

It was good to get rolling early when I was a kid so you didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes near ski area exits.

Nowadays just pack a lunch and hope some moron didn’t attempt the hills with bald tires. If so you might be skiing by noon if you’re lucky.

Which is what drove the price and amount of condo building way up up there. People go up the night or two nights before if they don’t want the “joy” of I-70.

Denverpilot, boy you must be a long time Colorado guy, how long since that Avon strip? Must be 20 years or so.

Pushing the underside of half a century, I suppose. Knock a couple years off for being born at an Air Force base while dad was deployed on the left coast and a bonus year in Norfolk that I barely remember.

I grew up skiing. Stopped mostly when I married a Colorado girl who doesn’t like it but also because it’s usually as expensive or close to flying. Kinda hard to justify to sit in traffic for hours unless you can borrow someone’s property up there or have your own.

Dad owned real estate in Steamboat which is as close to the awesome skiing I remember as a kid gets here now. Unfortunately but not really a big deal since I wasn’t skiing by then, it was pre-arranged to go back to his ex wife (who we still like and talk to occasionally) when he passed.

And now with the new health condition I won’t be skiing ever again, anyway. Deep roots here but seriously considering getting far away from ice and snow someday maybe. Seriously dangerous for me now.

My first flight instructor flew for Rocky. They still had the Dash-7s but were transitioning and about to become Continental Express.

The history behind the Rocky Mtn and Aspen Airways arch-rivalry behind those two was always in the news here back then.

Rocky did some amazing stuff. I’ve heard their private approaches were some of the first GPS approaches approved, and their attempt to use MLS, which was quite superior to ILS or even military VORTAC, was also impressive tech for the day.

All the fuss about “STOLPorts” being put everywhere by FAA and everyone in the industry back then... funny to look back on now, but Rocky was doing it. 100 people, 2000’ landing run? Sure! Why not? LOL.

We’d see the Dash-7s back and forth all the time over the foothills near my house headed up and back in all weather.

I finally got to meet the guy who held the number 1 seniority spot on the Dash-7 when Rocky ended. Got a couple of minutes to tell him a story — about him — that I had been told by others. A warning about Mountain Wave in winter over the foothills. Apparently one day they’re trucking along in the Dash headed back to Denver from Aspen and wham. No warning, both chart cases of his and the FO hit the overhead panel and rained Jepps down everywhere. Then nothing. Smooth.

Larry looks at the FO and says, “Call back and see if we just killed the flight attendant.”

He remembered the day and confirmed the story and said the FA had thankfully been seated and belted.

Those pilots flew in some total crap weather in very hostile terrain.

 

[Ozone]

^I highly doubt it’s been a secret up to just this very thread.

I’m in Salt Lake and play the reverse card. Utah? This place sucks. Mormons everywhere and you can’t get a drink to save your life. And the skiing? It’s garbage.

Few years ago flew Salt Lake to Rifle with my ski gear. Parked the plane and my buddies out of Denver picked me up and we had a glorious time at Aspen for four days.

On the way out hired a local CFI for a short field touch up. Flew to Glenwood Springs for a landing there. Fun times.

First rule of skiing in Aspen: DONT talk about skiing in Aspen ;-)

 

[Bill Greenwood]

DenverPilot, re driving on I-70 in ski traffic.Aspen is really a destination resort, its a 4 hour drive from Denver, in light traffic in the winter, so not many people going to drive up, ski and drive back the same 12 hours. You really need to stay at least one night, better two, either rent, beg, borrow or maybe trade a room with someone in Aspen. Now once you get here, its great. Earlier this year. Ski magazine had a reader poll and Aspen, the whole area was picked no 1 resort in N America. Now Conde Naste, more of a high end travel magazine readers pick Buttermilk as the 3rd best in U S ,behind only Sundance Utah and Telluride. The only real negative is that it is expensive, it ain't going to the tractor pull. If you cant afford it,there are other ski areas much cheaper, but not nearly as good. But go somewhere, even if not here.

 

[denverpilot]

DenverPilot, re driving on I-70 in ski traffic.Aspen is really a destination resort, its a 4 hour drive from Denver, in light traffic in the winter, so not many people going to drive up, ski and drive back the same 12 hours. You really need to stay at least one night, better two, either rent, beg, borrow or maybe trade a room with someone in Aspen. Now once you get here, its great. Earlier this year. Ski magazine had a reader poll and Aspen, the whole area was picked no 1 resort in N America. Now Conde Naste, more of a high end travel magazine readers pick Buttermilk as the 3rd best in U S ,behind only Sundance Utah and Telluride. The only real negative is that it is expensive, it ain't going to the tractor pull. If you cant afford it,there are other ski areas much cheaper, but not nearly as good. But go somewhere, even if not here.

Yup. I was always a Steamboat and stay for a nice long trip guy, and a Copper Mtn or Winter Park (Mary Jane really) for a day trip.

I have friends who HAVE to go to “Breck” (ugh, pet peeve. It’s Breckinridge!) constantly and went a couple of times with them. It’s fine but too much driving. Plus essentially Vail prices.

Doesn’t matter anymore for me. I probably won’t be skiing anymore.

 

[murphey]

Back when I was skiing, one of my favorite ski trips was leave the office about 4, get to Keystone and on the slopes by 5:30. Home by 11.

Next favorite trip? Ski all day at Loveland, the teach my 6 pm class in ski clothes. Student hated my guts.

Can’t do either anymore, with Denver traffic. That’s one reason why I started flying....hated the I70 traffic, needed another hobby.

 

[Bill Greenwood]

Dan, when my Son was a junior in high school they won the state championship in skiing as a team. I don't know how fast he has skied, I would not doubt close to 80. I used to race in local events and some around Colo. Our town downhill race course was from the top of Buttermilk Mt. down "Racers Edge run and finishing at the parking lot at the bottom, not a scary course, but it was downhill. One year they had a radar gun on the bottom part. The last 15% is pretty much a straight run, not flat, and fast but no terrain changes. I was younger then, knew I had a good run and as I went down the last part in a tuck, I recall thinking, "Hey, Im going pretty fast, don't do anything dumb, just stay forward and balanced and loose." I found out at the bottom my speed was 70 mph, the winner, ex Canadian team skier was 80 mph same place.
Man, I miss ski racing. My Son got race on Aspen Mt same course as World Cup guys, didn't win, but didn't fall.