A-Basin & Loveland Opening Day 10/15/08

I wasn’t expecting to ride two mountains for opening day and when it came down to it, it was like well why not? I spent the morning at A-basin and the afternoon at Loveland…giving full equal share to both mountains on opening day.

I did a brief write-up for Transworld Business with more pictures, some not seen here.

I arrived at A-Basin by 8am, a half hour before the first chair and surprisingly was in the 2nd row of the parking lot. The early morning wasn’t that busy on the mountain. I joined up with Lauren and Adrian on the mountain.

Right in front of this chair is the tv camera crews, photographers and everyone waiting to capture the moment on film. I chose to be in line waiting to get first turns and capture the first chair from there.

Our crew for the day…myself, Adrian and Lauren

The day turned out to be a great day. Hard packed groomers turned into choppy conditions as the day went on. The park was empty in the early am and then turned into the busy area which exception of the lift line at the bottom.

While in the lift line someone recognized me as Shay from the blog and got to meet a fan of the blog, thanks Beau for saying hi!

While many will say that early season conditions suck…it’s still snow whether man-made or natural and riding in October is worth it.

By 10:30am the lines had filled up so each chairlift took a lot longer than the run down. We went in and enjoyed a frosty beverage of the day while overlooking the mayhem on the slopes.
By 11:30 I was ready to head over to Loveland to see what it was like there for the afternoon. Lauren and Adrian took off and missed out on the fun. Thanks to Sellers I was able to ride for the day.

I spend a lot of time in the early and late season riding at Loveland. It’s an overlooked mountain in Colorado which means you can always count on more riding time than waiting around in long lift lines. I showed up to Loveland at noon, found parking in the front and was riding up to the chairlift each run. Complete different scene from A-basin where you stand around looking pretty for the majority of the day.

When I ride alone, I crank the music, ride fast and make funny faces on the chairlift.

In the majority of pictures I took from the runs, you might see one person in the photo coming down. I had runs to myself, just able to carve it up without worrying about who was coming down next to me.

Both mountains have one run open, but Loveland’s one run offers up a lot more length and space to ride in. Plus along the cat tracks, it’s just a gift to anyone who likes wall rides.

Bluebird day at Loveland

Most of the snow on both mountains were man-made with some recent snowfall in the area. A look at the parking lot and non-snow covered trees around Loveland. I ended the day on a high note of snowboarding. For the first day of the season, hitting up two mountains and getting to see what both were like was a great experience. This weekend should be busier but still a fun time on the slopes with friends. It’s pretty easy to tell what mountain I’ll be at this weekend.