Sunday morning we woke up, had a quick hair-washing session in the Walmart parking lot using a gallon jug of water and some shampoo and then headed out to Aspen, about a 40 minute drive. We were pleased the the lush, green mountains gradually morphed into snow caps as we got closer to the Snowmass ski resort. We bought our lift tickets for a seriously reduced rate of $32, got fitted for our rental equipment and got all of our gear together. As we were not expecting to be snowboarding in this trip our "gear" was rather limited. Luckily it was warm enough to ride in a t-shirt. We also lucked out with free helmets from the rental company.
Jonathan stocked his jacket with enough food for a week, unaware that the lift ticket was only for 5 hours. But had we encountered a summer avalanche we had enough peanuts, pretzels and beef jerky to last us quite some time.
A gondola took us to a midpoint station on the mountain where all the snow was (the bottom of the mountain had pretty substantial dirt patches where the snow had melted). The highlight of the gondola ride was the solar powered speaker system. There were two hook-ups for a phone and an ipod that you could connect to and play your music through the gondola's speakers. Apparently its the only one of its kind in the world. Ironically, it doesn't work as well in the winter as the snowy weather limits the amount of sunshine available to keep it charged.
Once the gondola dropped us off on the snowy section of the mountain we spent 5 hours riding. The summer snow was definitely much thinner than the rich powder the west is known for but the conditions were still great considering it was June! Kate helped Jonathan learn how to ride on his "toe side" and after a 2 minute tutorial he was turning from heel to toe the rest of the day (I'm sure anyone who has learned to snowboard can appreciate what a substantial feat that is!)
We rode until the ski lifts shut down, relaxed for a bit in the lodge (and enjoyed some of Jonathan's loot) and then took the gondola back to the bottom of the mountain. We drove back to Glenwood Springs, tired and sunburned, and hung out in the McDonald's parking lot for a few hours napping, reading, using Ronald's free wireless internet and cleaning out/reorganizing the van.
At 7 that night we hit the road again for an all night drive to the Grand Canyon!
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