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Epic Race Mountains 19 & 20 – Orelle & Val Thorens – Les Tres Vallees, France

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Well, Hydle slept in his clothes last night. I guess even rockstars hit a wall sometimes! Rhinehart got everyone up at 8 am, and was antsy to get going, since we knew this was going to be a big day covering lots of terrain to check off our two mountains, Orelle and Val Thorens for the day (about a 1.5 – 2 hour commute from Meribel via lifts. But hey, if you’re gonna be commuting, on skis on a lift isn’t a bad way to go!). We got organized, I ran across the street and bought a few groceries for breakfast while the guys looked at the maps, and then we got on the road toward the gondola area in Meribel.

We jumped on our first gondola of the day (one of maybe 8 gondola/trams that we rode. Most resorts in the US have one or two token gondolas. Les Tres Vallees seems to have like 20, but don’t quote me on that).

Not much eventful happened other than the unstoppable breathtaking views of the Alps nonstop from every peak we reached, but we had a big commute of “lift/run/gondola/run/gondola/transfer to another gondola/” etc, so we were just skiing to lift after lift to get our mountains checked off for the day.

About an hour and a half into the skiing/lift riding, we made it to the base of Orelle, where you actually have to ride a gondola DOWN into the valley town of Orelle. I think in good conditions you can ski into the valley floor, but the coverage isn’t great there so far, so we had to download the gondola which was a pretty long ride, maybe 15 minutes, into the town of Orelle to get our stamps at the tourist office.

We ran into a brother sister team of epic racers there, as well as another team of a Grandpa/Son/Granddaughter (who is 9 years old and epic racing!!! Dang. I think I got to ski for the first time when I was like 12, can you imagine getting to ski 26 resorts through the US and Europe with your Dad and Grandpa when you’re 9? Lucky!!)

We rode the gondola back up with the brother sister team, Jannah and Jeff, and of course ran into Adam Warot there again because we run into him everywhere!

We decided to get lunch at the restaurant at the top of Orelle, and went through a lunch line where we had to order food from the lady at the end. The menu was entirely in French, and when we asked the lady that we ordered from if she spoke English, she quickly said “no”. I’m not sure if she didn’t speak English, or if she didn’t feel like trying, but the next lady that was serving the food could speak English so I’m not sure why she couldn’t have offered to ask the lady next to her to help us out (although I have heard the French are not friendly with speaking English so it was expected I guess.)

We ordered Spaghetti because it was the only thing on the menu we could understand (and Rhinehart ordered meat and potatos because he is gluten free, and basically all he has been eating here in Europe has been meat, cheese, potatos and wine, poor guy).

We had a nice lunch on a sunny deck overlooking the Alps and the Orelle Valley, and then branched off again to start making our way back to Val Thorens and eventually Meribel.

In Val Thorens we didn’t do much other than ride a sweet magic carpet tunnel up into the town and go to the information office. The town of Val Thorens is pretty sweet, the ski runs kinda run through town, and there is a whole scene going off, après ski, snow parks, people cruising around, nice hotels, etc. It definitely seemed like the cool spot to stay if you’re into après ski/being right in the scene. Obviously a couple clubs were thrown into the mix too because that’s how they after party in Europe!

We met up with a couple more epic racers, Nick and Sean, and headed back toward Meribel since it was getting late. We ripped it up on the runs back home which was fun, and the guys went through a park again.

Once we made it back to town, we ran into more epic racers, Jay and Wendy, chatted with them for a while, and then grabbed our skis and hiked back toward our hotel. Right when we got back to the hotel, Hydle decided he wanted to explore the town a bit more to prepare for the race. But first, he wanted to teach me how to carry my skis better. I brought my big powder skis, the VJJ’s with me, so they are big and heavy and wide and tough for me to carry/handle especially considering I didn’t grow up skiing and don’t have great skills in ski management.

So Hydle decided to run some drills for me, teaching me how to hold my skis over my shoulder, how to switch shoulders with one hand, etc. This was fine, but then he decided he wanted to explore up a staircase/escalator. It’s a good thing he did because we realized this escalator takes us straight up to the slopes which we can ski into the gondola instead of hiking, and if we figure it out tomorrow, we can ski right back to our hotel, so that’s good. But then he wanted to run drills with me. This was like 5 pm. I had been skiing and in my ski boots all day, and all I wanted to do was take them off, but he decided it was drill time for me to learn how to manage my skis, pop in and out of them quickly, learn how to turn around on the snow quickly, and learn how to pick them up and put them together and throw them over my shoulder quickly (because Friday is the real race day and every second will count then!). I’m fine with drills and actually appreciate them, but I was not in the mood, but I was trying to hang with it, but was losing my patience also.

It was pretty funny because he was testing my patience too for some reason (I knew he was testing my patience because “everything is a test” he always says!).

Finally Rhinehart decided we should head back and shut Hydle down so we got back to the room, took off our boots where Rhineharts socks smelled up the whole room (apparently he has worn the same pair every day so far in Europe!) haha. Then we walked across the street to grab some stuff for dinner, headed back and I cooked up some chicken, rice and veggies while the guys edited and worked on their computers.

Another fun day in the books, although it was a long one. Things should get a little easier (commute wise) from now on until our big day on Friday! Can’t imagine how sweet this mountain would be on a powder day. It must be insane since there is just unlimited terrain…France!

Rhinehart’s Video – Orelle

Hydle’s Video – Val Thorens
Rhinehart’s Video – Val Thorens
Cooley’s Video – Orelle
Cooley’s Video – Val Thorens

Epic Race Mountain 18 Verbier, Switzerland

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Hydle woke us up (after our big night) at about 8:30 am, and by this point he had already gotten up, moved the car, checked out the downtown area and eaten breakfast. Remember. We went to bed at 3:45 am. But, as Hydle once said to me, “Cooley, I’m a fucking rockstar” so I wasn’t surprised. Now, for the record, Hydle is normally the slow poke in the group, but he was over the top upbeat and chipper for it being 8:30 am after a late night. So, Rhinehart and I were struggling a bit to get up, and Hydle was making it very well known that he would like to get on the mountain asap since he was basically ready to go, even though we had just woken up. So whatever, it was his turn to wait, so we took our time getting ready, and made it downstairs for the best breakfast we’ve had on the trip so far at the Ferinet, where Hydle went for a mini round two of breakfast because he was bored waiting on us.

After breakfast, Hydle told me I needed to practice walking fast in my boots (because this is an EPIC race you know), so we hiked from the downtown area up to the gondola at high speeds for ski boots, all while I’m still a mess from the night before. Ugh. Haha.

We met up with some epic racers – Colin, Trevor and Ryan – in the ticket line, and rode up with them all the way up to the Mon Fort. The top of Mon Fort is about 10,000 feet high, and it’s the highest peak at Verbier, overlooking the Swiss Alps, and the Matterhorn in the distance. When we got to the top of the tram, there was a really cool viewing deck and super cute fondue and drinks hut with incredible views.

The group we were with all decided we should do a hike up from the viewing deck to this peak (just like a 5 minute hike up, but super steep up) to a big cross. The hike was a little bit sketchy, there were snow covered steps (and we were in ski boots) and ropes on either side that you definitely needed to hang on to, considering if you fell, you would definitely be sliding all the way down this snow covered mountain. For reference, this same ski slope that you would have slid down has a huge steep ramp dropping into it that the world speed record on skis was set on, so you get the point.

The top was incredible. It’s hard to explain with words how vast and big the Alps on, they surround you in 360 degrees with no end in sight in any direction. All I could keep thinking is what it must have been like for the first explorers to encounter them thinking about trying to cross them not knowing how long they would go on for!

After our hike back down, we ran into some other epic racers, Carol and Sarah who are both from Vail, and both have kids in high school. We convinced them they should do the hike up to the top too because it was worth it, and Rhinehart was a total gentleman and offered to hike up with them so they would feel more comfortable heading up. The rest of us headed back down to the mini fondue hut with the rest of our group, and ordered a round of drinks and some delicious fondue.

Rhinehart, Carol and Sarah caught up with us, and we all had good conversation over fondue and drinks, and then all of a sudden the door flies open and Adam Warot rolls through the door just like Kramer from Seinfeld and says “I thought I smelled epic in here.”

After hanging out as a big group in the hut, we all were ready to head down, which was our most fun run of the trip so far I think. It was pretty steep and moguley at the top, but the bottom was wide open, smooth and soft.

We all kinda got split up after that, so it was back to the three of us, and we headed through the park and did a couple laps in the main ski area, and then decided to head down to our final stop, Bar 1936 toward the bottom of the mountain. Um. This was the worst cat track I’ve maybe ever taken considering HALF of it was uphill! Wtf, there are a lot of things about European ski resorts that are just so different (including the fact that nothing is roped off for out of bounds, even if there was a cliff, they wouldn’t warn you about it if you decided to go off the run which is perfectly legal here). Basically they just don’t give an F, including when you may have to ski an uphill cat track for a long time without warning you about it!

After a lot of poling, skating, and sweating, we made it to bar 1936 which was our final stop, and ran into Carol, Sarah and Adam again. We had a round there, and then decided to get on the road because we needed to drive all the way to Les Tres Vallees, France that night and wanted to be able to see as much of the drive as possible since we were gonna ski through Chamonix which is a world famous ski area that we all admired (and everyone said the drive was beautiful).

Well, they were right. Once we were on the road, we drove down windy roads from Verbier onto a valley area, and then we drove straight back up a super windy road, gaining a ton of elevation just on short switchbacks overlooking Verbier and the valley floor. It was also a big moon night, so the mountains were glowing and lit up in the dusk, so pretty.

After driving through adorable little mountain towns, we came across a town that had an incredible church lit up in the middle of a valley (where it seemed that nobody else was living in the town). It was both lonely, and beautiful at the same time.

We finally made it to Chamonix where we decided to pull over and have some dinner. We stopped outside this inviting looking restaurant/hotel called Les Rhodendrones. We parked right outside the kitchen window where a really welcoming lady looked at us and smiled and waved us in.

It turned out this place was a pizza place, so we sat down and ordered some food, drinks, and we ended up hanging out there for about 3 hours! Hydle made some friends who helped give us tips on how to make the drive into Les Tres Vallees since there was a road closure detour on the way, Rhinehart edited his video the whole time, and Hydle also got a shot bought for him by a hammered guy who was convinced he was Mc Fitti, and Hydle was perfectly content to just let him believe that’s who he was. Haha. And I pretty much just drank wine. And blogged.

Our waitress was the best one yet. She was so friendly, accommodating, and even let me make a call on her personal cell phone to inform our hotel we would be arriving late in Meribel.

Our little visit in Chamonix just gave me a taste of wanting to come back and actually ski it, but we had to continue on to our final destination at Les Tres Vallees because we are on a short timeline to be on track to finish the race on December 20!

We powered on, Hydle drove like a champ, we figured out the detour despite not knowing the names of anything on the street signs, and finally made it to Les Tres Vallees, where we made it to our hotel where Hydle immediately passed out on the couch (he deserved it for driving such treacherous roads) and Rhinehart and I unpacked the car and parked it (this was about midnight by this point – long day after staying up til 3:45 the night before and skiing and driving all day!).

Long fun day from Verbier – Chamonix – Les Tres Vallees. Worth it!

Cooley’s Video – Mountain 18 Verbier

Epic Race Mountain 17 Stuben, Arlberg, Austria

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We got up and out of the house fairly early, said our goodbyes to the super cute family running the Apart Korona and were on our way to Stuben, which was probably only a 10 minute drive from the hotel.

The guys were starving because they had gone out late the night before in town, and Francis hadn’t even eaten dinner!

The town of Stuben was adorable, so small and cute, with basically just one lift shooting up from the village and a few runs.

We searched around for a bit trying to find a sit down breakfast but because we showed up at 10:30, breakfast in town was shut down. So somehow we ended up at a really cute café/ski shop/grocery store, and had a grocery store style breakfast, which ended up being a super cool little place!

Then we headed over to the poma lift on the bunny hill of Stuben to play around a bit. We ended up getting some pretty sweet low speed turns in on soft snow since nobody had really skied over on that area yet. Again, had more fun on a subtoptimal condition/run than could be expected.

After some fun there, we headed over to the lift that takes us up Stuben, and took one glory run. It was pretty fun, had some soft snow on the sides (softer than any of the other resorts) and then headed back to the car since Francis had to pick up his girlfriend from the airport in a few hours.

We loaded up and got on the road, and guess what, clouds and precipitation started rolling in. OF COURSE. Because that is our MO. Every time we leave a resort, it snows right when we leave! It snowed/rained a little on the drive into Zurich, Switzerland, and it was actually really beautiful because everything was covered in ice/snow like a winter wonderland!

We got to the airport pretty easily, and Francis had to take off to catch up with his girlfriend, and he left us there so we could grab a rental car. We figured out our rental car, and then went into the airport for some dinner/late lunch. The airport at Zurich is really well planned, brand new looking, and basically seems like a mall, that happens to have planes fly to and from it.

We ended up having a sub-par meal that was outrageously expensive – like a $45 meal per person for something that wasn’t that great but meh, everyone warned us that Switzerland was hella expensive and they were right!

We got on the road, drove for a couple hours and finally made it to Verbier! We got into town maybe around 10/11 pm, and had no idea where we were gonna stay for the night. We had decided earlier that we were gonna play this one night by ear, because every trip needs at least one “adventure” where you fly by the seat of your pants! Thank god we did, because it ended up being the best night of the trip so far!

Once in Verbier, we parked, and decided to just walk into the downtown to try to figure out where we should end up for the night. We stopped into this amazingly cute antiquey looking bar called the “New Club.” Nobody was in the bar except the owner, and we were stoked!

He poured us a round, and we started chatting with him about the town, his history, the bar, etc. He was super cool – his name was JP – Jean Paul and his wife ended up coming out also. JP started talking to us about where we should stay for the night, and he was sounding a little concerned about whether or not anyone would be working the reception desk for any of these hotels at this late of night. Apparently, in Europe hotel receptions close at fairly normal business hours, versus in the US they are available all night long.

So Rhinehart and I decided to walk up the street in the downtown area of Verbier to check out a couple hotel options JP had given us. We ended up at a super hip/trendy place called the Hotel Ferinet, right in the center of town, on top of a club that was going off, and asked banged on the door when we saw someone through the window to see if he would let us in.

We got in, and asked the guy if we could get a room for the night (this is at midnight by this point) and he said yes, he had two twin beds in a room for $220 Franc per night (probably $250 US). Super pricey for two twin beds considering we had three people, but it WAS in town, and we were ready to experience Verbier and also didn’t have a lot of options left at this point.

We decided this was the place, and headed back to the New Club to grab Greg and get settled in for the night. We closed out with JP and his wife, and then Greg decided to serenade me on the grand piano. It was so hilarious, he was staring straight into my eyes with the most ridiculous look on his face, while Rhinehart filmed it. But, I have to give it to him, shockingly (but not shockingly because Hydle IS good at everything) he turned out to be a pretty amazing piano player despite never having taken a lesson. I was laughing so hard at the look on his face, leave it to Hydle to be over the top amazing and hilarious at the same time!

After that, we headed into town, got settled in quickly, and then headed out to get our Verbier party on! We started things off with the club right below our hotel, had a round of 4 drinks total for like $60 bucks…so insane, but everyone warned us Verbier is expensive!

The club below our hotel closed down at 1:30 am, but we had just started to party (and are partially still on US time which was the afternoon at home) so we headed to the real “club” after that right next door, The Casbah.

The DJ there was killing it, and we rocked it out and had so much fun. Hydle was a celebrity again and had lots of attention from people, including one really drunk girl who came up to him and in broken English said to him “You’re perfect” and then grabbed his earmuffs, hat and sunglasses and was kinda obsessed with him for a while!

We finally called it a night, and as we were leaving the club, we asked the bouncer “Where do we get burritos?” and he said “No burritos here, but the only place open right now is the secret bakery right up the street” and pointed up the hill. We started walking that direction, and definitely wouldn’t have ever found it even though we were constantly talking about how hungry we were (this was 3:15 am). A couple walking in front of us turned around and in a little bit broken English and said “Follow us, we will show you where the bakery is”

About 100 yards up the hill and to the right and down a staircase (kinda toward the basement of the building) there was a little window with a baker baking fresh bread. If you knock on his window, he comes up and makes you a quick sandwich on a baguette. Bummer for Rhinehart being gluten free, he only could eat meat and cheese, but the rest of us chowed down on one of the best drunk munchies sandwiches I’ve ever had, fresh baguette, meat and cheese! Apparently this is basically just a bakery that has found a side source of revenue feeding hungry drunk clubbers, while he is baking his daily bread at 3-4 am. Pretty freaking amazing!

We passed out in our twin beds, and woke up about 4 hours later for a big day of skiing at Verbier! So, while pricey, Verbier did not disappoint!

Cooley’s Video – Stuben – Mountain 17

Epic Race Mountains 15 & 16 – St Christoph & St Anton, Arlberg, Austria

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This morning we all kind of struggled to get up and moving – except for Rhinehart who is always first and ready to go, so he made us breakfast – eggs, cheese and prosciutto – while we all got ready.

We thought the buses ran every 10 minutes, so we didn’t pay much attention to what time we were leaving, so at around 10:10 am, we realized the buses only come once an hour, so Francis had to drive us the short distance into town.

We got our stamps done at the tourist office in St Anton, and then parked the car and crossed over a “closed” bridge (not sure why it was closed though) to get into the village. We jumped on the brand new Ganzig Bahn gondola which is ridiculous – it’s huge, high tech, brand new, and has these humongous wheels that rotate the gondola up like an elevator before it takes off up the mountain.

Today was a perfect bluebird day, no clouds anywhere so the views were amazing. From the top we dropped into the village of St Christoph and ran into a couple other fellow epic racers again (we are roughly on the same schedule as it seems maybe 20 other racers so we run into them periodically at the photo/video spots at each resort).

The information office at St Christoph was super old and historic “hospice” hotel there that offers amazing ambience and fine dining, and is a 5 star hotel. The history of St Christoph dates back 600 years ago when a shepherd founded a shelter for wary travelers making their way through the Alps. History is so much greater in Europe!

From St Christoph, we made our way up the St Chrisophobahn lift, which takes you to the center point of the St Christoph and St Anton lifts, and you can see down from up there into either valley (a village on each side). It’s so hard to describe how grand this mountain range is, especially when you’re at the top overlooking everything from a 360 view.

We had some really fun runs after that, and kind of kept getting lost so we actually rode probably most of the lifts at the resort, which turned out to be pretty fun. It’s crazy how long the runs are here, and how steep even a normal groomer tends to be at these mountains.

The gnarliest lift I’ve ever seen was shooting up from the St Christoph area to a mountain peak that seemed like it wouldn’t really be skiable because of how intense the terrain was, but apparently they don’t give a crap here in Austria and will put a lift on anything. There was also a tram, which I believe is was one of the first trams ever built taking you almost to the top of the super gnarly mountain peak also. Neither were open but if they would have been, I know the guys would have wanted to ride it, and I’m not completely sure if I would have done it. The lift was a two or three person lift, shooting straight up to the top, and the terrain down from there looked pretty insane, probably would have been the steepest run I’d ever had access to, so as much fun as it would have been, I’m also a little relieved it wasn’t open!

Speaking of lifts, at the bottom of one of the runs on the St Christoph side, we were riding a 6 pack lift up – most of the high speed lifts here have lap bars, and then an additional plastic bubble cover that you can pull down in bad weather. Because of the bubble, I couldn’t put my arm around the back side of the chair like I normally do when I ride lifts on the scarier side, and um, all of the lifts here in Austria are pretty scary and way far off the ground. I kept asking the guys if I could put the bar down, and they kept insisting no way and that I needed to suck it up and that this was good practice for me since France is supposed to be scary also. But, we got to a point where I had a mild freak out and told the guys I didn’t give a shit what they thought, and I was putting the bar down. They all gave me crap and said I had to buy the first round at the bar because I wussed out, but I didn’t care, at least I wasn’t scared anymore! And, THANK god I did, because shortly after that, the lift stopped, and swung back and forth at a high point over the ground, ugh! And then, just to freak me out a little bit more, after the lift stopped, a guy came on the loud speaker in German and said something which we didn’t understand, and all I was hoping was that he wasn’t saying that the lift was broken and that we would all have to be rescued because we were pretty high up there!

After that, I started to realize that EVERYONE puts the bar down on lifts in Austria. It makes sense, they are a lot higher up than the lifts I’m used to in the states. So, I gave the guys crap back and said “hey guys look up, see that, every single lift that is going by has people with the bar down, bar down, bar down” so hopefully they will get the point and let me put the bar down the rest of this trip, or else I’m probably gonna be riding them alone on purpose!

We then headed over to the St Anton history of skiing museum (one of our epic race photo stops). What a cute little place! It had a beautiful historical style dining room downstairs, and upstairs was the ski museum. I’m so glad we went inside, it was cool to see some of the history of how skiing developed in St Anton, seems like this is where a lot of the history of skiing began!

And then, it was time to hit up the Mooserwirt – a world famous après ski bar that overlooks the Alps, is on the slopes (but within walking distance from the base if you want to hike up for a little bit). It was a trip to see this place – outside they had a stage, girls dancing, a DJ, live music, and it was so packed you couldn’t really walk unless you were trying to push your way through to get somewhere.

Inside was a little less crowded, but still very “club” like. We got a couple rounds of drinks (we had met up with Adam, fellow epic racer there also), and took it all in. I got hit on by a local Austrian guy who kept wanting to “make dance” with me and said “you good, I’m good, lets make dance” which was pretty funny. And of course, Hydle was “famous” throughout the club – people either were thinking he was Mc Fitti again, or high fiving him because he had the best beard they’d ever seen, or apparently he also got called out by a group of people thinking he looked like the guy from the hangover, not to mention every epic racer that was there knew who he was also!

After a couple drinks, we strapped on our skis, and skied down the hill to the base in the dark. Of course in Europe you can ski after the slopes have shut down, with no lights, after having a million drinks (if you choose to have a million drinks at the Mooserwirt). What a crazy place! Apparently it doesn’t even really get started until 10 pm or so, I can’t even imagine…insane!

Back at the room we worked on uploading our content, and had leftover spaghetti. The guys went out again late night tonight where I thik they are meeting up with Adam for a bit at Bar 37, and I stayed in to go to sleep! Tomorrow is Stuben, and then driving to Verbier, Switzerland!

Rhinehart’s Edit – St Anton
Hydles Video – St Christoph
Hydles Video – St Anton (Mooserwirt)
Cooley’s Video – St Christoph
Cooley’s Video – St Anton

Epic Race Mountains 13 & 14 – Lech & Zurs, St. Anton, Austria

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Well, today was pretty close to one of the most mind blowing days of skiing I’ve ever had. I am not even sure if the English language has words for how incredible the Alps are. Maybe there are words in German that can accurately describe them, but in English I don’t think anything does justice.

The Alps are Huge. Beautiful. Vast. Insane. Steep. Heavenly. Gnarly. Happy. Lonely. Fun. Scary. Intense. Scenic. Insane. Commanding. A skiers paradise, and probably an original explorers dream and nightmare combined. I can’t explain this place other than until you see it in person, there is no proper way to explain them.

We had the best time today. We had a team breakfast here at the Apart Korona, and then headed off to the mountains. Our first stop was the Information office at Lech for our Epic Race stamps. The staff there was so friendly and even gave us the Lech keychains for free!

We ran into some fellow Epic Racers in the parking lot, of course they all recognized Hydle, and we shot the shit with them for a minute, and then parked the car and got everything ready to ski. After a quick playful jaunt in the playground (aka the guys terrain park), we walked over to jump on the first lift of our lives in the Austrian Alps!

Just the ride up alone, we were all in awe, like I already said, I can’t explain how grand this place is. It was a perfect, bluebird, glistening gloriful day!

Within the first 100 yards on our first run (for the record, it was his first run of the season) – Francis ATE it on the side fluff of the run, which I got to witness. Nice work Franics!

After that, we charged down amazing huge groomers with nobody on the runs, and headed to our three spots at Lech – the Kriegeralpe which is a cute lunch spot with a fake cow out front, the Weibermahd lift station where some European skiers asked Greg if he was Mc Fitti – again. When he said no, the guy then said “well if you were, or if you at least said you were his brother, you’d get a lot of chicks!” haha. And then we took the Rufikopf tram – HYDLES first tram ride!!!! – up to the Rufikopf panoramic view restaurant where we ran into several different groups of Epic Racers who all recognized Hydle of course!

Then, we went up to the panoramic view at the top of the Rufikopf tram. As Rhinehart appropriately described it, “This is the most panoramic view I’ve ever SEEN!!” Again, no words can describe the grand and vastness of this view, and of all things, we saw it on a perfect bluebird day!

From there, we cruised down the raddest, most fun cat-track ride I can confidently say I’ve ever been on! It lasted forever, and we had a blast zipping in and out, off the side of the run, taking videos in the sunshine, and tearing up some huge fast turns.
That brought us to the Zurs village – equally as cute as every other village we’ve seen so far, but just a bit smaller. We headed into the information office, partied with Elina and got some stamps, and then we were on our way up our first (and only) Zurs lift which was still huge.

At the top was one of our photo spots – the Madloch lift. DUDE. I WISH this lift was open. Holy crap. It was gnarly steep, took you straight to what looks like the top of the Zurs mountain area (but who knows, this place never ceases to surprise you!) and it flows back down into a canyon with a bar/restaurant overlooking what is now a frozen lake (but it must be so beautiful in the summer!).

So we took our videos, and then headed over to the bar/restaurant at the top of that lift called the Bergrestaurant Steepkopf. Insane mountain views from every angle of this place, it felt like we were in a movie!! We ordered a round of drinks from one of the coolest waiters we’ve met yet – ADRIAN! He was so cool, he played with the camera, and chatted us up in his best English. We also had our first Austrian dessert – an Apple Steudel with a vanilla cream sauce. Basically heaven in my mouth!

We shut down the place (they have to close when the lifts close and download the lift with the lifties) so we took an icy, but equally icy but gorgeous ski ride down with insane alpenglow views of the Alps on the way down.

We grabbed the bus back to Lech to get to the car, hit up the grocery store, and headed back to our hotel. I cooked up some spaghetti, the guys edited, and then Hydle and I decided to check out the sauna. Ok. I thought it was going to be just a sauna. What we didn’t realize was it’s basically a spa. It was a huge room with relaxing beach chairs in a warm room, a hot as shit sauna, a steam room, relaxing music playing, decorative plants, window shades that are on a three rail system that Hydle admired, and a shower with multi shower heads in all directions. Apart Korona – straight up killing it!

Now we are editing/blogging/uploading/listening to Mc Fitti, and there is some talk of the Moosewirt next. It’s late, but we are also kinda still on Colorado time, so it’s like 1 pm at home still…so whatever, we might rock it!

See you tomorrow, Epic Euro Race Time – OUT!



Hydle Lech Video Mountain 13
Cooley Lech Video Mountain 13
Cooley Zurs Mountain 14

Epic Europea Travel Day!

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We made it! We left yesterday, December 10 at 2 pm, and Nabor Ryan (Rhineharts Dad) drove us to the airport – thank you Nabor Ryan! After a successful early arrival to the airport (yes, early, and Hydle was not happy about it!) we boarded our sweet humongous double decker Lufthansa plane. Our flight attendant was smokin hot and super nice, and she killed it the whole flight.

Flying to Europe on Lufthansa was almost like flying first class minus the extra leg room – we got served dinner, hot towels, all we could drink wine and beer, snacks, and then breakfast in the morning, and we got to watch unlimited movies that were pretty sweet also. Hydle also drank three vodka OJ’s the next morning before breakfast!

We landed in Frankfurt which was an insanely huge airport, and proceeded to lose Rhinehart who was in total zombie mode because he took half an ambien on the flight. We cruised through the airport which also seemed to double as a super nice ass mall, and then eventually got to our gate where Rhinehart caught up with us.

We had one final flight on a small little prop plane from Frankfurt into Innsbrook that only took about an hour. This was probably the sweetest view I’ve ever seen from an airplane flying into Innsbrook. The plane basically dives in through these huge peaks of the Alps and then circles around the city before landing pretty much in the center of town.

When we landed, Hydle had a friend he had randomly met a year earlier on his last trip into Innsbrook who offered to pick us up and hang out with us for a few hours while we waited for his other buddy Francis to meet up with us.

Bine picked us up from the airport and we went back to her super cute little apartment in the city to drop off all of our stuff, and then we walked to the bus stop and hopped on to go to the top of the city overlooking everything to get a drink.

The views in Innsbrook are unreal, the Alps are huge, and there are ski resorts everywhere leading into the town. I couldn’t believe how huge and steep some of the resort runs looked, it definitely made us all super stoked to ski!

After a drink at the top of town, we rode a bus back down into the town to go to the original place that Greg met Bine – the Stiftskeller! We had some beers and authentic Austrian food (sausages and pretzels and saurkrat and meat) and Bine had some other friends (including the other original friend that Hydle had met the year earlier, Ella) come meet up. Everyone was fun and friendly and spoke English so we had a good time, and then Francis who is gonna be our fourth wheel/local chauffer for the next few days also showed up.

Bine wanted to show us the Christmas Market in the downtown area so we all walked through the Christmas market which was so ridiculously cute and Christmasy in the village, and then we grabbed an authentic hot wine drink and took some pics. After that she talked us into meeting up with some friends for one more drink at the Mustache Bar – El Mustachio!

At El Mustachio there was a group of guys that saw Greg and then started kinda laughing and smiling, so one of Bine’s friends said “Oh we should probably let you guys know, Greg looks exactly like a famous rapper in Europe named Mc Fitti” (see video above, it’s hilarious how much Greg looks like him). The guys eventually came up to Greg to ask him if he was Mc Fitti, they chatted a bit and he high fived them. Greg’s doppleganger for sure, and turns out even though he raps in another language, he’s pretty damn good and his music video kicks ass, Mc Fitti FTW!

We headed back to Bine’s house and packed up our stuff into Francis’s car (thank you Francis!), and headed out toward St Anton since we are skiing two of the #epicrace resorts here tomorrow. Francis killed it driving while the three of us jetlagged out and passed out for the hour long drive.

We arrived at our hotel, which is adorable and really clean – it’s more like a condo/mini apartment really – called Apart Korona. The family that runs it lives here, and they were really nice and greeted us for check in and showed us around.

Now we are all doing computer stuff, I’m blogging, and just made three rounds of horrible microwaved popcorn. The microwave is struggling so we kept having bags full of half unpopped, half burned popcorn, and our room smells like smoky burned popcorn now! Hah!

Time to ski tomorrow, can’t wait, it is so gorgeous here, tomorrow should be fun! Epic European time!

Epic Race Mountain 12 Mt. Brighton, Michigan

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The flight last night was easy and we got some more attention through the airport in the form of Hydle meeting a fellow beard guy, so we took some pics with him and then were on our way to grab our rental car and head to Mt Brighton!

We got in to Brighton around 11:30, and decided to hit up Redddddddddddd Robin, yum! The guys powered down some late night milkshakes and dinner, and then we got to our hotel room, edited a bit and then slept like babies for the night.

This morning we took our time getting out of bed and the hotel because we knew we weren’t gonna need a lot of time on the mountain considering it had two lifts, one rope tow and a total vertical rise of 250 feet (elevation 1,100).

The hotel was 1 mile away from the hill – this seemed weird to me because it felt like we had stayed in a suburban downtownish area of Brighton, not a “mountain” town and there were by no means any “mountains” or really even any hills around town. So, on our drive to the hill, we were chatting away, and all of a sudden, Mt Brighton was in our sights and we all shouted out “whoah, there it is” in total shock at the same time. It was pretty hilarious, out of nowhere there’s literally just a big hill covered in snow when the rest of the surrounding area is flat and dry!

We grabbed our snowblades and not knowing that there was an actual entrance, we cruised down a dirt patch on the side of the building and onto the slopes. Our first run was up the most ridiculously fast rope tow, that was literally just a high speed rotating rope. I thought I knew what a small town “home mountain” was like until coming to Mt. Brighton – nobody was manning the rope tow, and the lift operators weren’t scanning tickets (we found out at the end of the day that they scan tickets upon entering the “entrance” like an amusement park (which we didn’t use).

We did some hilarious gaper laps on the rope tow, Rhinehart did a couple daffys off this run, and then we went over to their “high speed quad” – I guess when you only have 250 feet of vertical, you wanna move people up those lifts quickly

We took pics at the top of chair 3, and then cruised over to the magic carpet section where I took my video, and the guys talked to the lift operators who were working on the magic carpet. Even though it was fully dry outside and no snow anywhere besides the hill, it was dumping on this run because of all the snowmaking they were doing!

The last stop was at chair 1 and the race course. Imagine if you put a race course on your average mountains bunny hill and you get the idea!

We finished up the day and had to get back to the airport, so after having more fun than expected at Mt Brighton, we packed up and headed to the car and then the airport.

It started snowing a ton on the way back to Detroit, where we started to realize that so far, every time we have left a place, it snows (or in the case of Tahoe, dumps) right after we leave! Wtf, we are due for some fresh snow with all this storm missing we’ve done so far!

We actually were really early for our flight, and Hydle didn’t know what to do with himself. He was equally as out of sorts being early as Rhinehart and I are when we are running late!

So we went into the sports bar at the airport, and quickly realized everyone working in there was cranky. But we rolled with it, had some lunch and the guys edited.

We got on our first flight – to Atlanta, which is ridiculous because it’s not anywhere closer to Denver, and now we are on our final flight to Denver, where the one and only D-Roge is going to pick us up again (thank you D Roge!!)

The Broncos won, and other than being overdressed and got wearing our onesies, it was all in all a really fun weekend full of skiing and traveling that we would have not normally ever done.

Europe on Tuesday, we are all getting really excited watching the other epic racers who are already out there. The snow and terrain looks great out in Europe not to mention the appeal of the villages. Can’t wait to go! Epic Europe time!

Epic Race Mountain 11 Afton Alps

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We are back on the grid and epic racing! The morning started off with another 3:45 am wakeup call (dude who am I? I don’t do this, I need my 8 hours sleep!!)

Darren Freaky D Roge offered to pick us up at 4:15 am from Hydles house. Boggles my mind why anyone would volunteer such a thing on a Saturday morning, but he insisted so we got in his truck and headed to the airport – all three of us wearing his onesies – in the wee early hours of the morning.

The airport was a breeze, and we got quite a bit of fun attention, including a flight attendant who gave us free drink tickets, a chick who asked for a snapchat with us, and a 12ish looking girl with dreads wanting a pic with us.

When we landed, we headed to the rental car counter where an attendant asked if we were epic racing, uh ya, we’re epic racing, why else would we be wearing onesies through an airport at 8 am on a Saturday morning!

We got a sweet mini van with the doors frozen shut…after climbing through the back and then battling through it a bit more, we were on our way to Afton Alps with a weather forecast of a 1 degree high for the day.

We got straight to the hill, strapped on our snowblades (also thanks to Darren Freaky D Roge) and proceeded to go up the closest lift (which was close) to the parking lot.

I thought I had these snowblades down, and started cruising around, and then Hydle asked if I would grab his camera and film a shot of him blading. I did, got the shot, and then started to do some turns down the rest of the hill, where I quickly found a really steep patch of icy corduroy, totally wiped out flat back style, and slid down the hill for hundreds of yards, while Rhinehart and Hydle cheered me on and fist pumped my crash. It was hilarious although I did have a minor elbow injury, since I instinctively put my hands behind me to catch my fall, even though I now know thanks to Hydle that you should NEVER put your hands out when you fall…welp, learned that lesson the hard way! Oh and also, I kinda broke his camera since I was still holding it during my crash, and it was stuffed with snow when my crash was finished.

We went to Paul’s bar after that to regroup on my elbow injury, and take a look at the map to figure out where we needed to go.

After some lunch, we headed back out to get in a few more turns, and then finished up the day back at “Paul’s”

Since we had run into Adam – fellow epic racer – earlier in the day, and he happened to have brought a shot ski with him, we finished off the day with some rad green shot ski shots care of Jackie the awesome bartender, and then the guys finished up their edits while I periodically shouted out how much time we had left before we need to leave for the airport again tonight.

Another fun day of the #epicrace is in the books. Tonight we head to Detroit, and are gonna hit Brighton tomorrow! So Epic!

Operation Elevation at Heavenly, #EpicRace

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On Tuesday, Heavenly was closed again due to winds, so Hydle and I took a day off to get caught up on things. Tuesday night I had asked Daryl and Jess (my local friends who are watching my dog for me on this epic trip) if I could take them to a nice dinner, so we ended upgoing to our local nice restaurant called Evan’s. It was snowing outside, and we basically had the restaurant to ourselves – it was cozy and fun and the food was great!

Wednesday Hydle and I decided to get our hotel and rental cars booked for Michigan and Minnesota, so we spent the morning planning that, and then finally got our act together and headed for Hydle’s first day at Heavenly!

It was bluebird and beautiful out – we got to the mountain about 2, and spent some time at the observation deck first where Hydle managed to pose for one of the most glorious pics of him and his beard overlooking Lake Tahoe!

We cruised around the mountain for a few runs, the snow was pretty damn fun and it wasn’t crowded at all so we actually got to turn it on for once on our skis!

Once we got nice and cold, we headed to Tamarack Lodge for a round of drinks and snacks. Hydle was impressed with the lodge, and kept referring to it as the equivalent of another lodge at Vail in Colorado.

We had some fun with our waitress Geneva, and then as we were starting to close up so we could make it on the gondola ride down to enjoy the sunset, a ski patrol guy named Chris walked up to our table.

He introduced himself, and said “how would you guys like to take a cat ride to the top to check out the sunset?” Um, are you kidding me? Hell ya! Obviously we said yes, and Hydle asked if we could bring a beer on the ride and Chris said “of course you can!”

The ski patrol crew helped us board the snowcat literally named “The Beast” and our driver, also named Chris was awesome.

We cruised up the run to the top of Heavenly while the sun was setting. I still can’t really believe this happened to us, but then again, Hydle pointed out that I’m a lucky person which is true, so I guess it makes sense!

At the top the views were unbelievable – the sun was setting and making the clouds and mountain tops glow pink and orange, and we took a bunch of pics and videos up there.

Hydle captured one of the most incredible panorama pics I’ve ever seen. We had such a good time up there! Hydle already was saying Heavenly was exceeding his expectations and this was before the cat ride! Way to kill it Heavenly – very impressive and I was stoked for him to have such a perfect day for his first time out at Heavenly! Obviously we can’t wait to come back and ski the mountain when everything is open and kicking ass!

The colors from the sunset were still fading away on our gondola ride down which finished off the day perfectly, and then we headed into the village to have dinner, before heading home for an early night!

Thank you to Heavenly, all of the ski patrol and cat guys named Chris, and Operation Elevation for making this one of the best day’s of all time on the mountain, what a rad day!

Today we are heading back to Colorado, then Minnesota and Michigan this weekend, and then Europe on Tuesday!!

Epic Race Mountain 10 Heavenly

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Monday was our Heavenly day, and they had the mountain closed due to wind hold, as a storm was coming in later in the day. We hit the mountain and played around in the village taking what pictures we could to still have some fun and give the guys content for a good video edit later.

We ran into my friend Heidi in the ticket office, took some videos with them there, and then Rhinehart rocked out 10 Daffy’s all over the village. After that, we headed over to Lake Tahoe TV to film the Hi Sierra Report – my friend Crystal who works there wanted to interview us for their weekly segment.

At Lake Tahoe TV we filmed a 2 minute segment for me, and they showed my Gold Coaster video, and then Hydle was up. Hydle was hilarious as he was wearing his white sunglasses, ear muffs, and red hat while being interviewed, and he started things off with recording himself while being filmed for TV. Then Rhinehart was up, which was also hilarious because he was wearing his full ski gear including his gloves for the interview.

Once we were done filming, we had to get Rhinehart to the airport, and decided to stop at the Boulder Lodge on the Nevada side on the way to the airport just to get some final shots.

Everything was closed, but the guys still took some more video, and then Hydle said “Hey Rhinehart, film this” while I wasn’t paying attention, and he bombed a snowball right at me and drilled me in the shoulder all on camera. This made Rhinehart’s edit in case anyone wants to see me get smoked by a snowball (nice shot Hydle!).

On the way to the airport we grabbed lunch at my favorite Mexican place in Carson City where Rhinehart ordered a Mexican coffee that he said “tasted like high school” haha.

We dropped him off in Reno, and said our goodbyes, of course rubbing it in a little bit that he was going back to work and we got to go back to Tahoe to ski and hang some more!

On the drive home we found out that Hydle won the first week’s GoPro – congrats Hydle! The corporate team at Vail seems to really be enjoying Hydle and Rhineharts edits (along with all of us obvi) so I’m stoked he was the first to be recognized for his awesome content!

I’m bummed Rhinehart didn’t get to ski Heavenly, it really has the best views of any ski resort I’ve ever been to, and it’s my home mountain! Oh well, next time Rhinehart! Tahoe til you know!!

Epic Race Mountain 09 Northstar

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The drive to Northstar was Rhinehart’s first real view of Lake Tahoe “til you know!” It was a sunny bluebird day so the lake was beautiful, and Darin Talbot narrated our drive around the lake so Rhinehart could learn some facts about Lake Tahoe!

Once at Northstar, we rode the gondola up to the mid mountain and took a total of 4 runs, two of them were through the park so Rhinehart could do his daffy of course. By then it was time for the Bronco’s game to start, so we headed back down the gondola to the village.

We went straight to the Rubicon pizza place in the village and sat at the bar to watch the game and ordered some pizza. The game started off with the Broncos down, but after halftime they started to get it back together and pull ahead. A mom from outside kept coming in to watch the game while her son was skating at a birthday party, so we eventually bought her a beer and celebrated the Broncos together.

At around 3:30, the smores people came out, so we ran outside to get our photo with the smores (it was one of the items on the list) and then went back in to finish up the game with a Bronco’s WIN!

After the Bronco’s win, we finished our beers and headed out to take some spins on the ice skating rink. It may have been the beer, or it may have been that it was the end of a cycle before the zamboni came back out, but I was pretty shaky on the ice. We messed around a bit and took some spills, which I’m paying for today with some bruises, but it was worth it!

Finally, once we were done with ice skating, we headed over to Tavern 6,330 which was our last photo spot (we had taken a pic there earlier but we wanted to hit it while it was open). The bartender Trever was telling us that the signature drink there was a Bloody Mary and that all the other Epic Racers that were coming in were ordering that, so we decided to go against that and told him to make us his other signatures, which he did, and they were all three delicious!

It was a long day, but super fun and worth it with the Bronco’s winning, and we drove back to my place where the guys powered down some soup from the night before and edited their videos.

This morning we got up to check the snow report, and Heavenly is CLOSED due to wind…ugh, what a bummer, especially for Rhinehart considering it’s his last day here and he’s never been able to ski it before :( But we’re off soon to go play somehow before we head to take him to the airport!

Epic Race Mountain 08 Kirkwood

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The drive out to Kirkwood was gorgeous, it was a first for all of us and we enjoyed the crap out of the drive.

It was a bluebird day which has been rare for us so far, so we were pretty excited to get in some fun turns. We got the best parking spot on the mountain somehow, and then took a few photos in the village, and ran into #wherescoop and chatted and took a few photos with him.

There was one lift and one run open, so there wasn’t much to do on the hill, but like always the boys managed to make the most of it. Rhinehart found a spot to get in his signature daffy, and Hydle took an epic line that was “so huge” (um see the video, you’ll see what I’m talking about haha).

As Rhinehart was filming Hydle take his huge line, a kid launched off a jump and exploded into a gnarly yard sale. Rhinehart went over to help the kid gather his skis and stuff, and found out his name was Charlie, so he got the nickname Gnarly Charlie (see Rhinehart’s video for a rad slo mo shot of Gnarly Charlie’s yard sale!)

We took a total of 3 runs, and then headed to the bar at the bottom where we ordered a round of drinks in the sun and a fellow epic racer Adam showed up and sat with us. Once the sun went down we got cold, and decided to head over to the Kirkwood Inn for our final photo/video spot and have some après ski.

The Kirkwood Inn was awesome – super cute old cabin with a nice big fireplace, and a creepy photo of Zachary Kirkwood in the back corner. We sat next to Mr. Kirkwood’s pic and the fireplace and ordered some drinks and apps and took some more videos, and epic racer Adam caught up with us again.

We closed up the day by heading back home to my house, and had a bunch of friends over for editing, cooking, and drinks. Another fun day in Tahoe, and now we’re off for Northstar! Go Broncos!

Epic Race Mountain 07 – Canyons Resort

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Our alarms went off at 2 am. Yep. 2 am. Hydle was struggling a little bit to get up considering he went to bed I think around 12:30 – at least I went to bed around 9 pm so I was doing alright. It took us a bit to get the car loaded up and out of the house. Rhinehart was getting frustrated because he also woke up at 2 am, but we didn’t reach his house until 3:15 am!

Once we grabbed Rhinehart, we were rolling by about 3:30 am. Hydle drove the first leg with Rhinehart keeping him company while I slept some more! At around 7 am, Rhinehart took over driving, Hydle went to the backseat to sleep and I kept Rhinehart company.

We arrived at Canyons right at Hydle’s goal of 10 am. This beat the navigation time estimates by about an hour and half. 6 and a half hours to Canyons in Park City, Utah. Not bad!

We took a series of really fun photos and videos in front of the Canyons welcoming sign, and then went to the parking lot which has a people mover that gets you to the village from the lot.

There were only two lifts open for their opening day at Canyons, so we had plenty of time to play with the staff. Hydle and Rhinehart chatted it up with the lifties, and we took some fun Epic Mix photos at the top of the first lift.

There were also really only two runs open so there wasn’t a whole lot to do other than play around on the groomers a bit. The boys were good at making the most of it like always and played around through some of the soft side runs, and Rhinehart did his signature Daffy in the park a few times also.

After a some laps we headed to the Red Pine Lodge outdoor bar and hung out with some super fun staff in the sunshine. Hydle ordered the “Triple Epic Burger” and Rhinehart ordered the “Most epically epic gluten free burger” – we had a blast hanging at the bar, eating burgers and making videos.

Then we cruised down and had to go take some pics and videos at the orange bubble lift, and met some more fellow epic racers.

By now it was about 2 pm and we had to get on the road, considering we had to make it all the way to South Lake Tahoe! I drove the first leg while the guys sat and edited on their Iphones,

When we got to Elko, Nevada, Rhineharts video was ready to be uploaded, but we majorly struggled to find fast enough internet in Elko to even upload his video to Youtube. So after striking out a few tims, we ended up at a Verizon store where the guys finally got it to upload.

Hydle was impressed with Rhinehart’s edit from the day, and they reviewed and re-reviewed the video lots of times, and Hydle offered his feedback, and then started filming “directors cuts” of his edit which was hilarious for me to watch them interact with each other.

The drive was a total of 1,100 miles, which we did in one day. 3:30 am through 12 am. When we got to South Lake Tahoe, my good friend Dwyer – who has a place in South Lake – kept asking us if we wanted to swing by for a beer. At first we thought we couldn’t pull it off, considering the day we had, but somehow we all got a second wind and headed to his house.

Dwyer poured Rhinehart and I some nice red wine, gave Hydle a Coors Banquet, and we hung out checking out the work he’s done on his house, played a little “island pong,” ate some pizza and snacks, and then finally decided to head back to my place around 1:30 am….and then still somehow decided to get in my hot tub back at the house. Holy crap. What a gnarly long day, but totally fun and totally worth it! We slept in this morning, and now are heading to Kirkwood for everyone’s first time! Feels good to be home. SAFE!


Epic Race Mountain 06 – Beaver Creek

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Happy Thanksgiviiiiiing! This morning we got up and I made a yummy breakfast casserole with our leftover Mac n cheese from the night before that Hydle said “tastes like Christmas”

Our goal this morning was to get to Beaver Creek, knock out our photos and videos, and then get back on the road back to town for everyone’s respective Thanksgiving dinners. Hydles Mom gave us specific instructions to be back for dinner by 2 pm or the turkey goblins would get us!

When we got to Beaver Creek we got lucky by asking the parking attendant at the full parking garage if we could get in and he let us in and we got the most VIP spot in the garage!

Our first goal was to go directly to the brand new 2 day old escalator to get some footage taken for our videos – um, we had a lot of fun on the escalator! We were making all of the employees laugh because they couldn’t quite figure out why we were doing laps on the escalator with our skiis and poles in hand, and of course hilarious looks on our faces…we were cracking ourselves up in the meantime also.

After fun times on the escalator, we were eager to get on the slopes as it was probably the best day yet we’ve seen on the mountain so far – sunny, crisp, and the snow was surprisingly soft on top of nicely groomed groomers.

We rode the chair up with a fellow epic racer who is doing the race solo named Jason – and then took a couple epic mix pics with him.

After that we rode again all the way up, and cruised down to the Raptor downhill race course which was in full race mode, lots of people and racers in their speed suits at the top of the course. We grabbed a pic there and then headed down to take some more ridiculously sweet (probably our best yet) epic mix pics.

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We took some more footage cruising down some great runs, and by that point we all decided in order to make it back to Thanksgiving on time, we needed to head out. We totally wished we could have stayed but turkey goblins don’t wait for skiing!

Hydle said we made record time driving back to his house – 1:10 flat. And then he informed me that in order to make it to Thanksgiving on time, I would not be allowed to go inside the house to a) change out of my ski gear b) put on makeup. I was not excited about showing up to Thanksgiving where I was about to meet about 25 new people wearing stretchy ski thermal pants, ugg boots with ski socks, and an underlayer top with no makeup on. But we were on a time schedule, so we showed up to Thanksgiving in our ski gear – definitely a first for me on many levels!

We agreed with Rhinehart that in order to ski Canyons in Utah Friday and then Tahoe Saturday, we would need to get on the road by about 2 am.

So after a beautiful Thanksgiving meal with Hydle’s family (and Rhinehart said his was great also) we got back to Hydle’s house where I got ready for an early morning departure, and Hydle edited probably the best escalator video of all time. Epically early ass morning tomorrow, goodnight!!!


Epic Race Mountain 05 – Keystone Night Skiing

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Rhinehart had to work again today (the day before Thanksgiving?!) but we all had decided ahead of time that in order for him to maximize his hours at work and also maximize getting days knocked out on the epic race, we would utilize night skiing at Keystone on their opening night of skiing.

Rhinehart put in his time at work while Hydle and I did some more final chores and errands around town. The Touareg got a new “rack” – a sweet Thule setup, and then we went to Christy Sports to meet up with Mo and get mine and MOM’s new VJJ’s mounted up with new bindings. Hydle and I also were able to grab a quick lunch at Machetes in Cherry Creek with some friends – Maggie & Clayton – who were in town for Thanksgiving.

Rhinehart showed up in a full suit straight from work around 4, and we got on the road to head toward Keystone.

The sunset through Loveland pass on the drive up was breathtaking enough that we had to pull over and take some glamour shots of it. Driving into town seeing the full Keystone Mountain lit up with the village holiday lights twinkling was pretty spectacular, I had never seen a mountain that pretty at night time!

Since it was of course, “Wear a Bow Tie Wednesday” for Rhinehart, Hydle and I had to step up and participate in “Onesie Wednesday.” This was a great decision because I actually have not ever skied Keystone NOT in a onesie, so good thing I was able to keep the streak alive!

We got on the mountain and I was reminded again how fun Keystone is to ski all the way from the top all the way to the bottom – it’s huge!

We had some fun taking pics and videos around the mountain, got some much deserved compliments on the amazing onesies (Thanks D-Roge!) and suit, and basically just played around all the way up until closing time at 8 pm!

I realized tonight that Rhinehart and Hydle are perfect teammates for each other in this race. Hydle needs someone who can play and interact with him in front of the camera on the spot, and Rhinehart is really good at reading Hydles mind and playing back. They’re also a great match because Rhinehart is learning alot from Hydle in terms of new techniques in editing, and it seems that Hydle enjoys showing his “apprentice” some new tricks. It’s fun to watch from the background :) On the flip side, it’s fun to see Hydle learning what the “real” world looks like through the eyes of Rhinehart – and managing this trip through a “Paid Time Off” schedule, something Hydle has no comprehension of whatsoever.

We closed off the night by making some friends around the fire pit in the village for a bit, and then headed straight back to Rhineharts family cabin (Thank you again Rhineharts!) for some mac n cheese, editing, and laughs.

Moral of the story from today is for those of you who thought pulling off the Epic Race with a corporate job wasn’t possible, the proof is in Rhinehart’s pudding, sending it straight to the mountains in a full suit just to get in some epic turns!

All in all it was quite the relaxing, enjoyable evening full of fun skiing. Beaver Creek and Thanksgiving tomorrow! Epic!