Ohhhhh Cars...

After leaving Summit County we headed towards Colorado Springs so we could get the car checked out and visit with Jen and Tom again.  We are so glad to have decided to do this, as it turned out the car needed another new transmission.  The one that was put in 4 mounts ago in Massachusetts was under a 6,000 mile warranty, however, we have gone over 12,000 at this point.  So we have been here in the springs for a week now.  Tom has been away on a buiness trip, and Jen has been a great hostess!  We have explored Garden of the Gods, Red Rocks Park, Bear Creek Park, and Jen even took a day off from work and we went riding (DAY 30) at Monarch Pass Ski Area.  Although it had not snowed in a week, we still had a blast, but missed our magnatraction lib tech snowboards on the groomers.  We also had a great dinner at the Blue Star, and for our next to last night in the Spring we, for the first time ever, got to eat Ethiopian food.  It was incredible!  Go to Uchenna, and have some of Chef Maya's food if you ever make it to this town...  The wait was about 1 hour, but when we finally tasted this amazing food, we realized we would have waited 2 hours!       

The drive to Monarch....

Ben and Jen

Jen navigating a trail called "High Anxiety"

Ben enjoying "The Taste of Jerusalem"

Lovin' Bear Creek Park

Summit County

We arrived in the Silverthorn area after driving over Rabbit Ears Pass in a whiteout snowstorm.
It was a gathering of friends from Vermont who brought us there and it was soooo  good to see them all!  Over the next 4 days we were surrounded by good conversations, great cooking and lift access snowboarding!  Ari and Dale were able to get us passes to Copper.  After 27 days of hiking for our turns we were  grateful to be carried up the mountain via ski lifts!
We also met a new friend who is on Ski Patrol at Breckenridge and she gave us free passed there.  We are so lucky!
We couldn't have asked for better conditions, and were blessed to get to play in some real Colorado Powder!

Copper!

Copper Mountain from above

Josh and Kate loving Breck!

A day of playing in the fluffy woods!

Notice the Mountains in the top third of this photo

Ari and Josh

Steamboat

We arrived back in Colorado with snow and high avalanche danger in the forecast. We turned to one of our guide books to find somewhere with low angles to play on for the weekend and we found Pearl Lake State Park.  This was a short but sweet tour, gaining about 900 feet through the aspen trees above the lake.  Looking over the lake were the 2 beautiful yurts, that you can see below, unfortunately they were locked up.

The gully that we rode will always be known as the Pole Eater trail, the first day, while navigating some thick trees Ben lost one of his poles and we had to hike back for it.  The second day, at the top my (Hannah) bag got caught by a large branch and although I was able to shake it off it ripped off the top part of my pole.  The second day was by far the better then the first, as we had a better idea of the terrain and we woke that morning to 6 inches of new snow.  This run and the trees reminded us of the run behind our house in Vermont.  

 

Tahoe Pics, Nevada's Ruby Mountains and SLC

We spent the night on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe near where Ben worked years ago.  The drive around the lake was beautiful.  We also had a great dinner with Ben's friend Jeff.

Then we drove through the Ruby Mountains of Nevada.  Which were so beautiful, but unfortunately if you didn't want to hiked for 2 days straight to get to the good snow then you would need a helicopter, which was about $1000 a day.  

From Nevada we continued on into Utah where we drove through the Salt Flats, then on into SLC.  In the city we spent the weekend with Ben's friend Adrienne, and had a blast.  We also visited the Salty Peaks Snowboard Shop, where they have a museum dedicated to the sport.  Below are some pictures of the funky snowboards we saw there. 

and finally some pictures of the Utah mountains, where the avalanche danger was to high for us to tread on so we'll have to come back another time...