Silverton Mountain Ski Trip: Not So Happy Birthday

So here's the scoop on the Silverton Mountain trip. I got arrested on my birthday. What happened? Well let's look into that a little more.

We started the morning bright and early with the first run hiking up as far as we could go. We were all stoked on being there and having a good time. So we are hiking on the boot pack (skis on our packs) and are behind and mixed in with a group that didn't have a guide with them. They walked under a rope that crossed the trail about 5 1/2 feet above the ground, doesn't have a sign stating guided only beyond that point, and we herd in right behind them. At this point we were were concerned that were crossed into a "guided only" area of the mountain. We didn't want to get into any trouble as we were skiing "unguided." This is a different type of a resort and there are a lot of rules left up to interpretation.

The sign at the top of the lift said our desired run was open, but didn't say if it was restricted to guided groups only or open to unguided skiers.

So the man in the front approaches the first mountain professional we see to clarify if we could ski our chosen run or not. He [the mountain professional], asks us which guide we were with and when we stated that we were unguided but wanted to check with him to make sure that we were allowed in this area, he grabs his radio, states that he has caught 4 poachers, and that he's sending them down to meet with the owner of the resort.

So we're kind of confused. We head down and meet a ski patroller that says we need to talk with the owner, that everything should be alright, and that once we explain our story, the owner should let us ski. So we meet the owner, tell him our story about 5 times, the tool asked us to retell it over and over, and then the sheriff's deputy shows up. Now we're detained, getting processed for "skiing out of bounds", and missing out on all the fun we intended on having for my birthday. I can't believe that this is going on. The owner clips our passes and walks away to talk to the deputy. As he walks back to us he says, "You guys are more than welcome to buy another pass and ski for the rest of the day."

EXCUSE ME?!?! So you kick us off your mountain, call the sheriff on us, talk with us till the deputy shows up, clip our passes that we didn't even get to use, and now say that we can pay for another pass to ski? Who do you think you are you pompous rat fink tool?!?!

So as the deputy talks with me, he genuinely says "Happy Birthday" and wishes that he didn't have to give me this citation which the owner told us was a misdemeanor with an "up to $1000" fine. Plus it's a summons citation not a pay this freaking huge fine citation, which means we have to return back to Silverton in a month. That's about 450 miles away from Ogden. Not a good thing. Luckily my buddy Clint was there with us, a Master Sergeant in the Air Force. This is good because the deputy tells us that the county judge and other individuals are all retired military and really like those in the military. That means that they might let us off.

Now we're all dejected, don't want to pay for another pass from this Mickey Mouse operation, but want to ski. We head up to the Red mountain Pass and find some low angle terrain for a short tour. Why low angle? Because the avalanche danger was still considerable.

I had the most sour taste in my mouth. How is all this crap happening on my birthday. We kept joking about it and ripping on the tool of an owner to try to mitigate the pain and agitation that we were experiencing.

The next day we were "marked" individuals at the resort. When we pulled up the owner pointed us out to all the other employees and was chatting about us on the radio. Seeing our doomed state before us, we decided to pay another $50 to upgrade to a guided pass. To some the day up the skiing was good for 4 day old snow.

The extremely sucky thing was that I sprained my knee on the last run of the day. All this crap on what was supposed to be a celebration, turned my 27th birthday into a wretched weekend to remember. I will admit this: this will be a funny story in the future. I'll update you on what happens with the charges when things come about.

Trip Pics

My Birthday Present to Myself: Powder Skis


The Dejected Tour Party


The "Unjustly Charged"


Group Pow Wow


So Many Possibilities


Group Shot:
Clint, Justin, Jared, Dave, Me


Getting Ready to Drop


Hike 2 Pow Wow


Chutin' It


Open Turns

Saturday Night fun

Saturday night was a good night. We definitely had a lot of fun. Justin, Jordan, and I went to the MLS Western Conference Finals Game: New York Red Bull vs. Real Salt Lake. And yes, you are probably also wondering how a team from New York is in the Western Conference. I really don't know and my only reasoning is that the MLS is pretty small. Unfortunately Real lost 1-0. They had 3 good scoring opportunities in the last 10 minutes and couldn't capitalize.


















After the very chilly game finished, we ran across the street to Joe's Crab Shack before the masses arrived to replenish and warm our famished, frozen bodies. To tell you the truth, I wasn't cold. Many freezing cold belays ice climbing have given me more than enough experience to dress accordingly when the temperature drops.

After our feast we hopped back on TRAX, headed back to the city, and went out to a sports bar-dance club. We had a bunch of fun on a guys' night out. We ran into a girls' night out group of early 30 year olds and had a fun time dancing and joking with them. It was a good night: fun was had, laughs were frequent, and good memories made.

The Fourth

Justin, his mother, and I decided to make it a good 4th. We headed out to the posh Park City to enjoy the festivities. Part of the festivities was our visit to the outlet stores. I definitely think that I spent too much, even though it wasn't that much.

After shopping, we happened upon a small middle eastern cuisine restaurant . I enjoyed some delicious hummus and then a bit of savory lamb kabob. Eventhough it was quite tasty, it still happened to maintain the Park City requisite of small portions and high price, and left me a little hungry.

We walked around Park City, veiwing this store and that, treating ourselves to the fancy life, and eventually found our way into an art studio that Justin had previously perused. I happened upon a Rembrandt that just caught my eye and kept me wanting it. It was the "A young man an in a velvet hat" original etching.



It was only about 4" by 4", simple, detailed, and eloquent, which was emphasized by the incredible vintage black framing. Now I'll tell you I was right about to purchase it, if I had only remembered to transfer $29,500 into my checking account.

The fireworks were at Park City Mountain Resort. The fireworks started 45 minutes late and they were quite lacking. I will say that even though it was a great day to remember and celebrate the things that have brought about and sustained our independence, the show wasn't what I expected. Maybe it's because I grew up in Madison and had many opportunities to see the million dollar Rythmn and Booms show, but I could have put on a better show in my backyard. But we did have a blast and made a good time of things. Here's some of the pics from last night that I caught with my iPhone.

Camping Vacation

So it was decided that we all wanted to go camping for a night. Since I live in the state of Utah, there being a ton of ational forest land around, finding a good campsite was only a 30 minute ride. The group consisted of Brooke, Camille, Dustin, his brother Archie, Archie's daughter, Justin and myself. I was really excited to go camping since I've had a new tent for about 2 months and haven't had the chance to use it.

Once we found a good site, I ran out ahead of everyone and found the spot that would be the quietest. But I forgot the think about a spot that would be out of the sun as well. But I was very happy with my selection. I managed to snag a beautiful plot a few yards away from a running stream. The sound of the water rolling over the rocks brought serenity and sleep into my life that night.



The night was quite usual for car camping. We had hot dogs for dinner, told funny, gross, and embarassing stories, we had s'mores, and eventually went to bed. Oh but that was for just Justin and myself. The other four stayed up later than us and had quite an eventful night. Let's introduce you to David and Jessy.



Well they were at the camp site across from us. Now these two 18 year olds came over earlier and invited us to have some beers, hence the picture we snagged. Apparently, after I went to bed these two got in a fight over the girls that were with them, threaten each other's life more than once, woke up the rest of the campground, beat each other up, and apparently the winner of the fight (guy with the bandana) was left behind with no car, out of cell phone service, to sit in a drunken stupor and bug everyone that hadn't gone to sleep in my group. This picture was taken during the whole incident as the rest of the group "was in desperate fear for their lives."



But thanks to my prestine tent site with the rolling waters, I did not wake to hear any of the commotion and finally had my first good night's rest in two weeks. Now hearing the story upon waking was very amuzing. After that Justin and I packed up promptly and returned to Ogden to attend church. Here's some more pictures from the outing .

Justin "helping" set up the tent



Apparently I own a lot of prAna attire



I was really good at employing friends to cook my hot dogs



S'more Time!!!!



My only s'more of the night



Trippy Fire Pit

More Pictures from Last Week

Justin taking the pics (yes I finally got a pick of him)



Group Model Shot



Brooke Swinging



Crematorium



Ghost Check



Crematorium on top



Salt Lake at night

Friends, Food, Films, and Fun

So I meant for this to be posted earlier, but I didn't have the pics yet. We can all thank Justin for these fabulous pics.

Now that I have a lot of free time on my hands, I always seem to get to the weekend and have no idea of what I am going to do. The past couple of months I seemed to know exactly what I would be doing days before. So I am still getting used to all of this.

I did have plans for Saturday night, but I had no idea what I wanted to do during the day. Luckily Justin and I were on the same page. We both had things to do around the house, for the first part of the day, but needed to run some errands to the same places after that.

We had a blast going to a discount grocery store and getting some goodies. After that we drove down to Salt Lake for the night plans. Let me tell you that this day was absolutely gorgeous. Our plans were to meet up with Brooke and Camille, grab a bite to eat, and then go see Son of Rambo.

We drove down to a Chinese Gourmet and pigged out on Chinese and Mongolian BBQ. Now that was quality eating. Feeling all greasy and stuffed we headed back to downtown SLC for the movie. The theater, Broadway Theatre, shows mainly independent, Sundance Film festival movies, and stays away from the mainstream Hollywood crap. Our choice for the night was Son of Rambo.

Son of Rambo is the name of the home movie made by two little boys with a big video camera and even bigger ambitions. The movie is set on a long English summer in the early 80's. It is a comedy about friendship, faith and the tough business of growing up. The movie is seen through eleven or twelve year old Will, the eldest son of a fatherless Plymouth Brethren family. The Brethren regard themselves as God's 'chosen ones' and their strict moral code means that Will has never been allowed to mix with the other 'worldlies,' listen to music or watch TV, until he finds himself caught up in the extraordinary world of Lee Carter, the school terror and maker of bizarre home movies. Carter exposes Will to a pirate copy of Rambo: First Blood and from that moment Will's mind is blown wide open and he's easily convinced to be the stuntman in Lee Carters' diabolical home movie. Will's imaginative little brain is not only given chance to flourish in the world of film making, but is also very handy when it comes to dreaming up elaborate schemes to keep his partnership with Lee Carter a secret from the Brethren community. Will and Carter's complete disregard for consequences and innocent ambition means that the process of making their film is a glorious roller coaster that eventually leads to true friendship. They start to make a name for themselves at school as movie makers but when popularity descends on them in the form of the Pied Piper-esque French exchange student, Didier Revol, their unique friendship and their precious film are pushed, quite literally, to breaking point.

It was a good film, quite enjoyable. The night still felt young, even though 11:00 pm is late for me, so we looked for other ways to get into trouble. After getting some sundaes from McDonald’s we headed to a park in the Avenues with the camera. We just wanted to goof off and have proof of our childhood playground relapse. This is what we got.

Camille, Dino and me



Brooke



Slide Fun





How to REALLY make a woman happy (give them your credit card)



Pole Dancing



Jailhouse

After the playground we decided that we were going to hike up to one of the old crematoriums. High up on the bench behind the capital building, there is an old crematorium that has been gated up so that people won’t get hurt playing on it. It was about 1:00 am and we hiked up the path under an almost full moon. I wasn’t thinking about it or even caring about it, but the closer we got to the destined place, the creepier the feeling became. I definitely could tell that we were at a place of death. It was just weird. At one point, we all had those extremely small hairs on the back of your neck rise up. Creepy. I’ll tell you that much. I of course had fun on the way back and hid in the bush scaring the girls as they walked by. All in all it was a very fun night. And it’s been awhile since I have had one of those.

It was a really fun time.