March 11, 2010
Heading west to the Rockies
by Tony Chamberlain/
The spring sun shines along I-70 in Colorado. (photo: Tony Chamberlain)
OK, I talked myself into it. I was going to put off my spring trip to the Rockies this year, but couldn’t stand the description from all my friends about the snow depth and conditions.
Not that it isn’t terrific skiing all over New England right now – but with the Olympics and other stuff, shoulder surgery in November, for example – I never quite got my fill of snow and vert this season. And I would just as soon be heading for Sugarbush, Sugarloaf, Wildcat or Black – to name a few of my Northeastern faves – but this western trip is about catching up to old friends and making some turns in that deep blue 2-mile high sky.
This trip also retraces some seasons of misspent youth when I lolled around in that sunshine. I was bemused some years later when my son, upon graduating from college, announced he was also going to ski-bum at least for a winter before getting serious about the job search.
I’m so glad I never gave him the old ‘These times are different from my day’ speech. He will always remember his 140 days of skiing and boarding as ‘A Very Good Year’ of his life.
So, with all those spring thoughts brimming in my head, and with my six-month healing time sentence just about over, I went online, to Jet Blue, and 10 minutes later was printing out a ticket to Denver. Round trip out of Logan: $178.
Friends at Breckenridge offered to pick me up in Denver, but (especially since they closed Stapleton and moved the airport halfway to Ohio) that’s a big nugget to lay on a friend. Besides, I enjoy driving my own rental from the flat prairie of that airport – which smells of unseen cattle – toward that magnificent white wall of the Front Range that just explodes with sunlight in the morning as you set out.
Up into the snowless brown foothills, Lakewood, lifting up to 6,000 feet to the lovely kinky towns of Frisco and Dillon, and over the great Loveland Pass at 11,000 feet. Up here, of course, winter has returned, and you have to drive like it. It can be slushy with constant road spray, though when you stop for coffee along the way and get out of the car, there’s that spring sun on your neck.
So (I guess age has made me lucky enough to be spontaneous in this way) my trip is booked. If I didn’t have friends with places for me to couch surf I would end up at Hotel Frisco or maybe go all the way to Minturn, which sits between Vail and Beaver Creek. (Hmmm, where do I begin this morning? Tough choices!)
As much as I’ve always loved the skiing here, I’m not much for the typical apres ski scene anymore. But I am nearly as excited by the prospect of taking a road trip after the lifts close, from Minturn along Route 24 to Leadville. This runs over Tennessee Pass (really part of the Vail Pass structure at 10,500 feet) and is one of the most beautiful panorama rides in the state of Colorado.
The entire trip (as I pre-eyeball it) should cost less than combined one-game tickets to the Celtics, Bruins, Red Sox and Patriots. And much as I love my home teams, I’d really rather be skiing and road-tripping around the Rocky Mountains.
