Keystone, Vail and Denver Colorado
December 2006

This is the annual ski trip to the Keystone ski area.  This year we had five attendees: Tommy Trest, Holger Piprek, Karl Ebert and his nephew Travis Otter along with myself.  On the first day, Tommy, Holger, and I skied with Travis snow boarding at Keystone.  The second day the same four of us skied / snow boarded at Vail.  The third day, Tommy, Holger and I skied back at Keystone while Karl and Travis went out to ride snowmobiles.

The skiing was excellent this year as most of the lifts and runs were open at the two mountains.  Keystone had a 36 hours of straight skiing running from Friday morning at 9:00am until 9:00pm on Saturday night.  We planned on taking advantage of it but found it too cold at night this time. 

This year like many other trips, there is the possibility of the occasional skiing collision.  Most of the time it always seems to be with Snow Boarders, who tend to be young and careless and always at Keystone on a weekend.  This year was the worst we have ever experienced, which did not ruin the trip, and strangely they occurred with skiers at Keystone.

On the last day, I was standing on the side of a blue run and a Snow Boarder came crashing into me, luckily at a slow speed; but later on a diamond blue run while I was standing and about to start down the final phase of the run when I was hit by a Skier who hit me so hard it knocked the breath out of me.  The skier was a man about my age and he apologized over and over, explaining he lost control on the steep reclining run on some ice. I accepted the apology and went on.  Unfortunately, a worse experience, later that day, came along.

While on a nice easy Green run near a "Slow" sign, Tommy was over taken and hit from behind by a skier.  After this skier hit Tommy, two more skiers, apparently associated with the first collided also and made a cloud of snow powder according to Holger who was the closest and saw it unfolding.  Holger started to reprimand the skiers who all totally ignored him to the point Holger asked if they spoke English.  These skier were evidentially racing which is forbidden.  I skied down a little bit to look for a Keystone Marshall down the hill when Holger flagged one down shortly after I left.  After the Marshall arrived the skier who hit Tommy finally started to talk a little while his two friends left the scene.  Fortunately Tommy was not hurt, but one of Tommy's skies had a broken clip.  Tommy asked the skier if he was going to pay for his broken ski and the skier said no.  I eventually climbed back up the hill after Holger skied down to let me know how things were progressing.  I confronted the skier and got inches from his face and yelled at him.  Mountain Marshalls asked me to back away twice, which I eventually did while the skier did not say a word to me.  The event concluded with nothing but a report taken by the Marshalls while a Keystone Maintenance Technician arrived and jerry rigged Tommy's ski so that he could use it.  We moved on and had a bunch of good runs.

Accommodations

Friday, December 1st - Keystone
A very over cast, cold, windy and snowy day

Saturday, December 2nd - Vail
A beautiful bright day, no wind.

Sunday, December 3rd - Keystone
Another beautiful day with no wind in the morning and a little in the afternoon

Monday, December 4th - Road back
No skiing.  Took a trip over Loveland Pass into Denver