Gnarpow!: December 2010

My apologies for dropping another book, but just needed to vent and it kept coming.

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Day 13 - Tuesday the 28th @ Welch.

NEVER seen so many idiots in one place. This place was effing packed from the get go. Rode with a buddy that was back from MT for break and pretty much did what we could with what we were dealt. It was so packed you could hardly get up to speed without getting cut off or running into a f**king crowd of people or somebody sitting down in the middle of nowhere. I've also never seen so many people get bucked off the chair lift. A huge combination of complete moron riders, skiers with their binding tension set way too low so that any slight bump or catch would rip their frickin' ski off, and lifties that held the chair way too long so the first swing back of the chair made you look almost straight down at the ground. Don't know how many times they had to stop it because of somebody's ski getting pulled off on launch. Also saw a kid skier, maybe 7 years old, get dropped off the lift face first into the snow. His dad bailed to pick him up.

Not much for drinking and riding, mainly cuz I don't like to be impaired at all, and I need all the help I can get, but we ended up hitting the bar just to cut some of the frustration. Went back out after a stiff rum and coke and it was a lot more fun. We were hootin' and hollerin' from the lift, making all sorts of noises, just having a good time amongst all the chaos. We also ended up riding a lot of "out of bounds" crap because this place basically eliminates all chances of having fun. It's either stick to the zombie filled groomers or nothing.

Also, they FINALLY had the "park" setup so we checked that out. I don't know what the fvck these guys are smoking. I'm really losing my stoke on this place fast. They had a damn blown snow mound directly in front of the first feature. You'd think it was a starting ramp or something, but the side facing the rails was pretty much straight down. Completely ungroomed and needed to be machined down.

Lastly, the back "bowls" were probably a bigger joke than the "park" was. They had one whole run that was made out of ungroomed, blown mounds. They looked like frozen fucking tidal waves! What's the damn point!?! Groom the damn things down, maybe make some rollers or rhythm sections, and do something with it. I thought the concept of this whole back bowl thing was to semi-simulate being out west? They had 2 "runs" closed because they weren't groomed, but had perfectly good snow all over them. Isn't that the point!?! And then there was a super gnarly untouched area amongst the trees and under the lift, and of course that was roped off so you can't have any fun there either. What the hell. Seriously just frustrated with this place already. You basically sign your life away by purchasing a lift ticket, so why restrict EVERYTHING to the point where everybody is a fucking zombie just riding some bullshit groomers like we're all skiers!

My apologies for venting, but it's just getting frustrating for me. I'm at a point right now where I've gotten a rare taste of awesome (by MN standards, mind you) snow conditions on a couple occasions so far this year. Especially at Lutsen right before Christmas. Riding deep stuff on my Slasher was frickin' jizz for me. And being able to freely go basically wherever the hell I wanted to go there was so relaxing and exhilarating at the same time. It feels so much cooler to blaze your own trail and go where you want instead of just sticking to the stupid laid out trails. Several times I got myself into areas where I probably "shouldn't" have been, but damn, it was such a rush. Makes me envy watching videos of people on actual mountains doing tree runs and just going wherever. And really makes me just want to pack up and get the GTFO of MN. I need a change. At least for a while.

*Pictures of this "awesome" day to come.