IOU Colorado Ski Trip to Keystone...

Feb. 9 - 12th
By Sara Hollerich

Day 1

Anxiety struck about 5:45 as I was driving over to Mike’s so we could go pick up the vans. I was sure Carlos, the Enterprise worker, had said they were open until 7:00 but I started to second guess myself. What if it was only 6:00? I called Mike in a panic, “Can you please call Enterprise and see how late they’re open?” When I arrived at Mike’s a few minutes later he told me they are only open until 6:00.

I pulled into their parking lot at 5:55 and began the paperwork for our three brand new vans, two Town and Countries and one Caravan. I am sure they were cursing me but they were still very nice. One only had 41 miles on it when we picked it up. Thankfully the van pickup was the only rough patch that night. After we finally got all the driver license information to the rental agency and the vans topped off and delivered to the pick up spots we were able to breath easy. I did a little last minute shopping and packing then Stacey and Dana met me at my house a couple of hours later. We loaded up and headed over to Mike’s once again.

I hadn’t had time to eat dinner that evening and was very hungry. What I thought was going to be a quick stop at Fazoli’s for a small pizza turned out to take a bit longer than I had intended. They dropped my pizza on the floor. I am grateful they didn’t just pick it up and serve it. Accidents happen.

A brief stop at Mike’s and we were off. The rest of our party was picked up in West Des Moines at the Girl Scout office where we had permission to park the vehicles. Stacey, Emily, Doug N. and Scott M. (Smurphy) were in my vehicle. The road trip had commenced. I was the first driver that evening – right through a patch of icky weather. I could feel the van sliding beneath the wheels and about an hour of out trip was a bit of a white knuckle drive. If it was only me in the car I wouldn’t have been so nervous but there were four other people in the vehicle with me. Emily, Smurphy and Doug played cards in the back seat for a while. Because we were all unfamiliar with the van the backseat’s heat was on high and boiling those in the back while I was freezing up in the front because they kept telling me they were hot. Doug even took off his shirt for a couple of hours… No there wasn’t any strip poker being played.

Our stop in Lincoln, NE was a bit longer than we had expected. We got there just minutes after midnight. We found a place to fuel up but finding a place to use the bathrooms was another story. We stopped at several gas stations which would not let us use their facilities or they were closed. Mike’s van stopped at a bar – all of us thought was a strip joint – and Mike of course led us to believe that was the case over the radio. We arrived at the bar a bit disappointed that we couldn’t say that the club had to stop at a strip joint to use the bathroom. Oh well, it wasn’t a total loss they had a mechanical bull!

Day 2

The rest of the trip out went according to plan. We arrived in Colorado around 7 or 8 am. Who can remember? We made a quick stop at the supermarket, bought our lift tickets and food for the weekend. Some of the group raided the liquor store and got beer and wine for the weekend. Then we hit the road for another, slightly less white knuckle drive over the mountain passes to Dillon. The roads were a bit snowy and ice in some parts but not too bad. We stopped in Keystone and picked up our rental equipment then a group hit the slopes while all but one of the girls went snowshoeing to a near ghost town called St. John’s near Montezuma. We were slowed a little but an unfortunate incident involving a spilled drink, a girls pants getting wet, and a trip to lunch to fill our bellies and dry out pants. Good thing we did too because her butt would have been frozen had we not. It was dang cold snowshoeing. I got a bit warm because I had so many layers but the areas my face was exposed got wind burned pretty bad.

The hike from Montezuma to St. John’s was beautiful. We had a climb of 665 feet which is substantial for flatlanders like ourselves. We were all huffing and puffing doing our best to look casual, pretending like the elevation didn’t bother us. Or at least I was.

The trail was one made my snowmobiles and was pretty hard packed. Making snowshoes unnecessary but we were there to snowshoe and so that is what we were going to do. I wish it wouldn’t have been on a hard packed trail. I would have preferred to go through the powdery snow. The man at the rental shop told us not to go off trail too much because we could cause an avalanche. So for the most part we stayed on the trail except in areas we knew we could not cause an avalanche. I like going through the powder much better. It was harder work again somewhat because of the elevation.

We reached St. John’s which was at 11,000 feet. It was tucked back in the mountains about 2 miles from the nearest road. It has one resident person who passed us on their snowmobile heading home, dog trailing a bit behind. It was a beautiful spot to see. There were some old mines and homes that were falling down in various stages of disrepair. The view was spectacular. I would love to see what it looked like in the summer. There was a small stream that was buried under the snow. You could just make out evidence of it under the snow.

Carolyn was the first of our group to make it to the town followed by Stacey and I, then Karen. On the way back down we ran into Emily and Chris who were almost to the top. We encouraged them to finish the last 200 yards to the town. The climb took a lot out of you.

Then trek down was much easier. I took off across what appeared to be a large open meadow we had passed on the way up putting my snowshoes to the use they were meant for. Every once and a while I would sink deep into the snow. It was so much fun. We got back to the car at the same time we were supposed to be meeting the guys. I tried to call Mike but my battery was so cold my phone wouldn’t work. Half way down the mountain we were finally able to reach them. I dropped off the girls to return their snowshoes and pick up their rental skis and Carolyn and I drove to Dillon to pick up the key to the condo.

We picked up the women on the way back through town and went to the condo. It was rated for 16 people – the exact amount of beds and hid-a-beds that were present in the room. We drew cards for rooms and settled in. Smurphy, Doug N. and I went to Dillion once more to get the remainder of the groceries we were afraid to leave in the car all day. When we returned dinner was served and we settled in for the night. Mike, Melissa, Duane, Doug P. and I hit the hot tub for a quick dip then went to bed. We were really tired.

Day 3

We all got up fairly early with the plans to hit the slopes nice and early. Most of us made it there around 10 am. Out of 16 of us 15 went skiing that day. Carolyn hooked up with a group of snowshoers from the Nordic Center and went on her own for the day.

I was glad I had gone skiing the week before on a hill I was familiar with. It really helped my confidence. It was so much fun to get back out on the slopes. It has been many years since I have skied much. I used to be much better. My comfort level is about blue. I tried one black diamond. The beginning and end were ok. The middle was another story. I panicked and wouldn’t go down except on the side of my skis or on my butt. Better to do it that way then to get hurt. I am a bit of a chicken and I am ok with that.

We did at least one run on every mountain. My favorite runs were the one you got to ski through the trees and Mozart. My least favorite was the black diamond we went on. We skied until about 5:00. By the end my legs felt like Jello, but it was so much fun. One bad part about skiing with such a large group is that everyone on the slopes looks alike. I had a conversation with someone I was sure was part of my group on the way down. When I reached the rest of the group I realized I had been talking to the wrong person. Oh well! He was probably wondering why I was talking to him. It can also work for a person too.

That night we had tacos for dinner. They were very good but I wasn’t very hungry so I gave one of mine to Mike. Guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach.

Melissa, Mike, Emily, Doug P. and I went ice skating and a few other members joined us at the bar. It was fun to get out on the ice. I hadn’t been ice skating in years. Only one fall when the blade of my skate disappeared into an air bubble in the ice. It sounds worse than it felt. That is the nice thing about falling while skating – you slide and you’re wearing a bunch of layers to cushion your fall. We grabbed a quick drink then headed back to the condo where we played cards into the wee hours of the morning.

Day 4

I got up early to go out cross-country skiing. The morning started out a bit hectic. One of the members, Karen, was having a lot of trouble breathing so we had to take her to the emergency room. Mike, Emily and Duane escorted her to the emergency room while the rest of us packed, went shopping and skiing.

Stacey, Carolyn, Lee and I went up the road a little ways and got to cross-country ski for about an hour. I would have like to have gone longer but you do what you can. We had a nice morning anyway then went back to the hotel and helped finish packing and loading the vans.

Two vans headed back while the third stayed and waited for Karen to get out of the emergency room. It turned out she had pneumonia and the elevation was making it even harder for her to breath. Once they got out of the mountains she felt better.

We had a nice drive back. Stacey, Doug N. and I played what is possibly the worlds longest game of Uno. A single hand took 1 ½ hours and so we quit after that hand.

My group made it back to Des Moines just after 11 pm and dropped off the first group of people at the Girl Scout office then headed to Mike’s to drop off another group. I took Stacey and Dana back to my place and dropped them off then headed back to Mike’s to wait for the rest of the group. I got a bit of sleep before they arrived and we were able to return the other two vans.

It was a fun trip and I think everyone got to do all the activities they wanted to.

Members in attendance: Scott M (Smurphy), Scott Z., Doug N. (NewD), Doug P. (Sporty Doug), Karen S., Carolyn S., Chris H., Melissa R., Sara H., Stacey S., Emily V., Mike C., Brady W., Dana K., Duane H., and Lee H.