Well, I made it back from Telluride in one piece. No injuries other than sore muscles and a few bruises from my one day on a snowboard. My roommate on this trip wasn't so lucky. On the first ski day we had a bunch of new wet snow. At around 2:00 Lewis wiped out and tumbled onto his shoulder and rolled over. His ski caught and before it released, his tibia broke right below the kneecap. He flew back to Houston the next day and had surgery two days later. They had to do a bone graft and put in a plate and some screws. As far as we know his ACL and other ligaments weren't damaged so it could have been worse. He's about 58 years old and will have a long hard rehab in front of him.
The snow conditions were pretty good. We had new snow the first two days followed by four days of sunshine. The views at Telluride are unbelievable. I ended up skiing all of the black runs except for two or three that were short and had rocks or other obstacles to worry about. I didn't try any off-piste tree skiing since I would have had to do it by myself. Nobody from our club will follow me into the trees. I did get in some good high-speed runs on a long, steep black run that had been groomed. I even convinced most of our group to try that run and a good time was had by all...
On Tuesday, I decided to hike up Gold Hill for a run. I waited around at the top of the lift until I found someone who was willing to show me where to go. The terrain up there was similar to the North Face section at Crested Butte. Definitely not a place to ski alone. I hiked up with an Australian girl who was living in Telluride for the season. After about ten minutes I stopped to drink some water, take off my gloves, and catch my breath. When I looked up she was already about 50 feet up the hill ahead of me. I didn't even come close to catching up with her. I could definitely tell that I was over 12,000 feet above where I live. Imagine climbing snow-covered stairs carrying a pair of skis for 30 minutes. Woof. She had to wait for me for about 5-10 minutes at the top. About the time I got there two of her friends [both guys :(] showed up and we headed down. They headed for the trees and I went down a nice big open bowl that fed into a large gully. I never saw them again. The snow was nice and soft with about 2-3 feet of powder. As I got to the gully I hooked up with a couple from Noo Yawk and we were able to find our way out ok. On Friday I decided to make the hike a second time. There was a couple of women from back east that wanted to go up there and I volunteered to show them where to go. They were both skiing on "Scorpian" skis that were about 3-4 feet long and fairly wide. Picture a short fat ski with the tail cut off right behind the binding. We took off up the hill and after a few minutes I stopped and looked to see how they were doing. No sign of them. I waited a few minutes and still couldn't see them so I kept on climbing. I took a few more breaks and made up to the top in about 30 minutes. A ski patroller coming up behind me said they were "huffing and puffing but still coming up". I had to wait another 25 minutes for them to get up there. At least the views were terrific. I could have left them to ski with some other people who had hiked up but that's bad karma to say you'll lead some newbies through dangerous terrain and then split on them. I took them down the same beautiful bowl as before (Little Rose) and showed them how to get back to the lifts. They seemed a bit clueless and probably would have gotten lost in a creekbed or gully without someone to tell them where to go. I'm such a nice guy...
BTW, there were more good-looking female ski bums in Telluride than in any other ski town I've been to. Of course, the ratio is still in their favor. I rode a lift with two local shred-betties (girl snowboarders) that both had credit-card debts in the $6000 range. They were both living in a house with some other ski bums with no car and working as waitresses. It must be nice to not worry about your financial future.
As far as the mountain goes, I liked it a lot. The lifts, however, were incredibly slow. Hard to get in a lot of runs. The restaurants in town were pretty reasonable for the most part. Supposedly the high-dollar places were really hurting for business. Most nights even the cheaper places were nearly empty. It'll be interesting to see how the town fares over the next few years. Real estate prices were of course out of sight. Saw a 912 sq. ft. 2/1 house in town for only $375,000. It was a plain frame house built around 1895 with nothing fancy about it. It wasn't even close to the lifts. Don't think it'll sell too quickly. About 30-40% of the town is for sale.
Think SNOW!!!