I’ll Meet You At Rendezvous

Today, there is an 86″ base of snow, (395″ total) on the Steamboat Springs Mountain. Snow is falling this morning, and making it impossible for me to see the middle to the top of the mountain right in front of me — there’s simply a big white cloud in front of me. The temperature is 29 degrees, and the winds are 20-25 miles per hour. Dad and the big boys have already left for the day. We have one day left on our ski tickets. I’ll write this post, and gather the little boys and brave the weather and out we’ll go. After one more cup of hot chocolate.

For illustration purproses, understand that Steamboat is a complete mountain range: Mount Werner, Sunshine Peak, Storm Peak, Thunderhead Peak, Pioneer Ridge and Christie Peak of 2,965 acres that form 165 trails. The Blue and Green trails, for beginners, are seperated from the Black Diamond trails, weaving and merging around one another until they meet in open areas. One of the things I love most about Steamboat is that these trails do meet.

The challenge of making the turns, and finding the sign to keep you on your trail is half the fun of skiing down the mountain. Plus, the fact that many of these trail meet makes it possible for groups of skiers of different levels to ski together — taking our own trails to meet our level and meeting at the open area and moving on again.

Sometimes, to get to the trail you want, you’ll need to jump on one of the 18 ski lifts, a system of mountain elevators of which some are only available in the midway point of the mountain… as in you have to ski to get there.

Yesterday, my 15-year-old wanted to meet up with his dad, who just texted him that he was at the Rendezvous having lunch. He was currently with me at the top of the Gondola, Thunderhead Restaurant, which is not even the top of the mountain.

 

 To get to Rendezvous, he skied Spur Run over to Sundown Express (lift) and made it to the sunshine Peak, 10,384 feet above sea level. From there, he skied through High Noon and merged onto Roundezvous Way and eventually parked his ski infront of the Roundezvous Restaurant just in time to get some chilli with his dad.