Steamboat Springs

 

Ever since we were kids, we’d read about Steamboat Springs, legendary for its “three-tier high” snow.  This season, Tiffany was able to find good hotel rates for Steamboat Springs so we decided that this would be the place to visit this year.

Mike Germano, an old friend from college who now lives in the Denver area, was able to join us.  It was great seeing and snowboarding with Mike again and I hope we get a chance to do that again soon.

Steamboat is set about 3 hours apart from the other major ski resorts in Colorado, and even then it is about a 25 minute drive on a small country road from Hayden regional airport.

The mountain was impressively large, with some really great runs. Most of the runs were groomed. The mountain as a whole wasn’t very steep, and combined with the grooming and all of the restaurants it was obviously an ideal venue for families. We never went through the day without at least one pit stop at the many warming huts to fill up on good food and lighten our wallets.

Snow conditions were packed powder that was
conductive to enthusiastic high-speed carving.  It had dumped the week before we were there, and it dumped the week after we left, but
we weren’t so lucky to have fresh snowfall while we were there.

The picture on the top shows us posing in front of the trail sign for Rudi’s Run.  We just know that this run must be named after Rudi Garmischt from Hot Dog: The Movie.  How many other Rudis do we know?

Rudi: You people… stay out of our way. You may ski on zat side OR on zat side, but stay out of zee meedle!

Dan O’Callahan: Hey, Rudi, you can kiss my ass. Not on zis side and not on zat side, but right in zee meedle!