February 2005
The first phase of the trip was an excursion up to Jackson Wyoming for Jonathan, Sharon and Chris. We spent 3 nights there and the boys downhilled at Jackson Hole while Sharon xc in Grand Teton National Park. Here is Jonathan getting focused for the tram ride that climbs 4000 feet to the summit of Jackson Hole. | We had nice views and challenging terrain. Made even more challenging due to the big thaw a couple days before followed by subzero temps. Made for some ultra hardpack conditions. We did get 5 inches of fresh snow which allowed us to find a few nice pockets of fun. A very impressive mountain. | |
Sharon enjoyed great views of the Tetons while exploring the national park. | Sharon flew back to Colorado and the guys drove about 5 hours to Park City Utah where they met up with the midwest contingent of Jeff, Eric and Craig who arived that afternoon. Park City held some of the events in the 2002 Winter Olympics and is a great American ski town | |
No time was wasted in properly displaying the official insignia of the yearly trip. We made sure that the flag was clearly visible to passers by of our ideally situated ski in/out condo. | That night got started off with a jolt since it was Fat Tuesday. We checked out downtown and managed to get sponsored by a local and let into the bars. Utah has some goofy laws. | |
Day one on the slopes of Park City Mountain was ambitious. After some cruising early, we ventured up to the summit for a look at the expert terraine. | The 3 toughest, or craziest, of the crew, Eric, Chris and Jeff hike over to the summit of Jupiter Peak for ultra challenging action. | |
It was a bit nerve racking to look down a 50 degree slope!
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But we prevailed, not without some humbling moments, and were able to look back at yet another
conquered peak.
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At this point in the trip, Chris made a journey to Illinois to pay last respects to a dear loved one. Grandpa Hauger passed away on February 6th, 2005 and was laid to rest on February 10th. The family gathered in Milan and shared fond memories of a great man, a great life, and a great legacy. | ||
The snowriding was still to be had in Utah and here Jonathan digs the terraine park | The 4 remaining mauraders hit The Canyons resort the next day under bluebird skies. Was that U2s The Edge or Craig spotted at lunch? The Canyons was huge and spanned 5 peaks. | |
On day 3, the boys were back at PCM for a rather icy start to the day. Carnage was scene all over including this medevac. Fortuantly, they weren't hauling off any of our team here | The now infamous HELMET CAM had already been used extensively on the trip. But it was Jonathan's turn to turn geek and don the 85 miles of wires, cables and other awkward equipment to capture his epic Jupiter Peak run. | |
Not to be left out of everything, Chris made it back to the mountain on the afternoon of Day 3. This day actually turned into a night event when we took advantage of the decent night skiing on the mountain. It had started to snow in earnest so it didn't take too much proding to get us back out there. | Day 4: Back over to The Canyons. It was a snowy day and the men were fully equiped with the proper battle gear to wage war on the slopes. | |
On about the second run, Craig bombed down a run and into a vortex and wasn't heard from for most of the day. Mobile phones, walkie talkies and old school text messages didn't do any good in our frantic effort to find each other. | But the show must go on and the rest of the bunch hit some awesome terrain off of the 9990 chair. We found a great run that had about 10 inches of pow. | |
As sheer luck would have it, Craig found us right before we headed up for the last run. The inaugural top to bottom flag relay! We were definitely a site out there brandishing our colors for all to see. | Papa Pirate Eric shows good form when screaming down the peak and bringing the trip to a memorable ending. | |
We had 4 hours of raw video footage after the trip was done which
made for a fun DVD movie. Here is a trailer for the DVD extravaganza.
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Here's a map showing the Park City area. It is only 20 miles east of Salt Lake City. |