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Category Archives: Local
LJ All Day — Alpine Slide Year 2
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August 29th, 2019
Winter Park Alpine Slide Year Number 2 LJ All Day Adventure Day. Taking LJ All Day on adventures like these the are most awesome days of being a dad. Every year gets better and better! I can’t wait for the compilation 10 years from now showing LJ growing up through Alpine Slide adventures :)
If you would like to know the important facts about the Winter Park Alpine Slide, children must be at least 2 years old to ride with an adult. That’s the only important fact to know. Buy the all day adventure pass and pray for no rain. Children 4 and under adventure pass for only $15. The Alpine Slide at Winter Park is Colorado’s longest Alpine Slide dropping 610 vertical feet in over 3,000 feet of track.
Birthday ACE Run
I had a sweet Happy Birthday ACE Run on Hole 2 at Pioneer Park in Hot Sulphur Springs! It’s the shortest hole on the course, but completely invisible from the tee. Nothing but chains.
This is my second disc golf hole in one.
Having a Beer with Dad
I had a nice trip down memory lane last night looking at some old Dew Tour media from 2007. Following the kickoff June Baltimore stop of the then “AST Dew Tour” I ended up traveling around the country for nearly three weeks, which made me miss Fathers Day. Upon my return, I took my good ol’ father Les Hydle out to dinner and his first ever Barmen. I think he liked it … especially the amazing head.
Haha – miss ya pops.
FYTB – Broncos vs Patriots Recap
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“In what could have been his last game in the Mile High City Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos toppled Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in a defensive slugfest 20-18.Tom Brady threw two interceptions on the day to Von Miller and Darian Stewart. The Denver Defense hit Brady all game long, and Terrific Tom only found the end-zone once late in the game to Rob Gronkwoski. Manning threw 2 touchdown passes to Owen Daniels, and for the second game in a row threw zero interceptions.
The Broncos will face the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50, and will be led by DeMarcus Ware and the Denver D.”
You Are Never Too Old For Airplane
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Don’t let me explain this to you… just watch it. It’s moving. Literally.
“How do you build a community based on trust, communication and beauty? Though teamwork, curiosity and trust Fractal Tribe shows you a stunning solution.
Fractal Tribe is a badass and sexy tribe of artists, engineers, and performers who produce consistent performance art that is not to be missed. Their skill in combining theatrics with dance, fire, acrobatics, aerial arts, and music creates more than a show but a full visual, auditory and kinesthetic experience. In addition to creating provocative and inspiring entertainment pieces, Fractal Tribe also enjoys leading workshops, developing community and sustainability projects, and exploring cutting edge performance technologies. Fractal Tribe’s high level mission is to inspire individuals to realize their own intrinsic value and actualize their true potential within their individual communities. By doing they hope to fractalize the model of non-competitive empowerment groups everywhere.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
Anthony Merriott — You will be missed :(
I can’t believe what I heard the other day from a good friend Amy Pesicka Kraft :(
“I just got a message from Anthony Merriott’s wife, that he passed away yesterday. I don’t know Anything else or any other details. Just wanted to let you know.”
This incredibly saddens me because I have had a closer then regular relationship with Anthony after he moved to the Phoenix area several years ago. Below are some writings and ramblings on my saddened thoughts.
To Facebook:
“Heeeeeeeeeey Anthony … I would always say nearly every time I talked to my good friend who has apparently been taken away from us way to early. I enjoyed reconnecting with you on the golf course 10 years out of High School when I would visit the Phoenix area on a more regular basis in 2008. Even though we haven’t talked lately, I know how excited you were to have such a beautiful child Ashton with your loving wife Aimee. We had some serious conversations back then … and I apologize for losing touch with you. Although we don’t know many details on what happened to you yet – it doesn’t discount the fact that you will be severely missed :( — Rest in peace my friend.”
To Aimee Rastatter-Merriott:
“Aimee … I am so very sorry for what you are going through. I wish we had some more information as I am upset at losing a friend — but I know that will come in time. I haven’t seen Anthony since we golfed back in 2008 when I used to visit Scottsdale / Phoenix / Gilbert on a more regular basis and can’t wait to get home to review the media / photos / and elements of fun we had together. Until then, please keep either Amy Pesicka Kraft posted on any new developments and we will be sure to relay this news with our Columbine friend base back here. Again – I am so very sorry and saddened by hearing about this two days ago :(
With Love,
Greg Hydle”
Congratulations Pikes Peak Hill Climbing and Proposing TJ Fry
Congratulations to good friends TJ Fry and Dani Rae for their successful engagement at the top of the 2014 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb :) Fry ran a 14:08.322 for his first hill climb up Pikes Peak, but more importantly delivered himself and his car successfully to the top in order to carry out his proposal.
I don’t have much else to say here… I Love Awesomeness and this is awesome. Watch the video below for the full story.
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Vail Resorts Epic Race – Explanation of Awesomeness
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***NOTE*** – Next week this post will be post dated back to December 24th, 2013
Merry EPIC Christmas-Holiday-New Year and Happy End of Work Day on December 24th, 2013.
As many of you know I have been charging around the world with a couple awesome people skiing and “in a way” competing in something called Vail Resorts Epic Race. The Epic Race was conceived by Vail Resorts as a contest for the first 10 people who successfully skied every Vail Resort in the 2013/14 season which included 26 ski resorts spread across 4 different continents. 12 were located in the US and the remaining 14 were in Austria, Switzerland and France — The reward for the first 10 people who accomplished this goal would be a Vail Resorts Lifetime Epic Pass. Of course, when I first heard about this randomly awesome competition in early October I knew it would be a fun endeavor to attempt to win what would be known as “THE” ski pass of all ski passes! What I didn’t know is that when it came down to the final day of the FINAL resort to open in Brides-Les-Bains France… was that there would be 131 people from across the world contending for this most EPIC of Epic Vail Passes. Vail Resorts didn’t even expect this kind of final day outcome… and even though Vail has stated that we would all know the final results from this most epic of epic races by end of work day today, I’m happy to announce that they have decided to take some “EXTRA” time to review all the content and all the angles from this 29 day race!
To summarize what Ashley Cooley, Devin L Rhinehart and I have all accomplished in the last month is pretty difficult to comprehend. I think it can best be described as a test in school, like your final final of the semester. Only if you didn’t pass this final, there was ZERO chance of you passing… or “winning” in this case – which all made sense to us. So I basically used that approach to find some motivation to get our team into and through the final day. All three of us from “Team Fun” were in the top 10 percentile through school as we grew up… so we simply needed to apply these rules of life to the final day and if we succeeded and tried our best … we should probably be ok on the final leader board. Sounds simple enough, however there were some additional requirements to get you to the top. 1 – time, 2 – paying attention to detail… and 3 – being sure all your previous content for the race was up to snuff. Of course there is always LUCK involved too, but we had plenty of that on our side with Ashley being the lucky one. Devin was our Time freak, and I was pretty much Mr Detail. Put us all together and we find ourselves at number 20, 21 and 25 on the final “unofficial” Vail Resorts Epic Race leader board. However, when you throw a little detail into it you will notice that 9 people in front of us automatically get tossed from improper uploading on the final day — Two of those don’t even have video links. Add another level of detail and 4 more get dropped for not following resort rules – aka “you can’t hike outside of resort hours”. That brings Rhinehart up to number 7, me at 8 and Cooley as the top girl finisher just out of the top 10 at 12.
Of course, these are unofficial results — even by my count. I have no idea what Vail Resorts will ultimately choose to do or how nitpicky they are going to get in judging this most EPIC of epic races! When you start digging into 26 mountains of content it becomes pretty overwhelming pretty fast! How do I know? Because I’ve done it. One of the cool things about this race is that everyones piece of content from accomplishing all 26 ski resorts is public which is why I am happy to see them taking the extra time to get the correct 10 finishers on top of the board. After jumping into the 52 photos and 26 fifteen second minimum videos from each contestant, I know who gets tossed and who sticks around. And almost every other racer knows too… Except for the one element that is publicly unknown in this race, which is who actually emailed Vail Resorts a photo of their completed European ski stamp passport by 11:59:59pm on December 20th, 2013. Assuming everyone in front of us accomplished this 1 simple task … I see myself finishing in 7th place – Rhinehart moves to number 6 and Cooley… well there is a super slim small chance that she could pop into the top 10, but even though I know there are technicalities with some uploaded content between us, I do not expect Vail to jump to that level of detail to pop her into the top 10 — If they do choose to go that route, then I would probably be dropped for having goggles or sunglasses on in one of my photos or videos. Sunglasses were never actually addressed, but goggles were recommended to be off your face as you must be visible in all photos and videos and you must include #epicrace in your titles and your Facebook posts and you must choose 1 video and 2 photo locations from a list of required elements at each area and have all your content upload by midnight of the time zone of the mountain you were visiting and you must have lift scan data from the given mountain on the given day and you can only ski 1 US mountain or 2 European mountains per day and you must accomplish this all during resort operating hours and you needed to shoot horizontal video opposed to vertical iPhone video and you need to talk loud through plastic on GoPros and and you can’t promote other brands or use copyrighted material on and on and on… can you see how run on and on this contest could get let alone judging it all!? Either way, at some point there needs to be a line drawn in the final judging criteria in order to release the official leader board and award the top racers their Vail Resorts lifetime season pass!
If we are on that list — Fantastic! If for some reason we don’t quite make the official top 10, then we will still enjoy the experiences that have been had and the Vail Resorts Epic season pass for next year that will be awarded to anyone who completes all 26 Vail mountains in the 2013/2014 season. In keeping with the original spirit of “Team Fun”, I will end this post with the 1 simple rule we had while blowing over 2700 miles in the car and almost 14,000 miles in the air to accomplish this 1 impressive task of skiing 26 ski resorts in 29 days in 4 different countries — “Skiing is fun… and that’s about all!”
It was amazing meeting so many *awesome people* on this incredible adventure! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!
*Awesome People*
Nick and Scott Annis
Joe Jensen, Weather Man Steve Sacco and John Victor
Michael Lahey + Epic Race Mom Sharon Mcmonagle
Devin Rhinehart, Ashley Cooley + Greg Hydle … “Team Fun”
Bill and little man Charlie Fiveash
London man Steve Curtis
Japan master Zoe Huebner
The Beard of Ando!
Golden locals Michael + Nila Ferrone
Newlyweds Jessica + Dave Schnoll
Sister + Brother team Jannah and Jeff Din!
The Wilson Duo
The Beard of Sean Regan!
The Jackson Hole Greece of Nick Greece
My manager… Kim Jackson!
Windy Wendy Smith
Ultimate video bomber Parker Jackson
The always proper Carolyn Pope!
Crazy Face Troy Martinez
The child in Annie + David Childs
The always Rad Rad Roubeni!
The hair of Tom Slazinski
Epic start with Matt Dority
Webmaster Will Tran
Crazy Man Kai Whittier (never actually met but heard ridiculous stories)
The Curls of Kim Klopp!
Tera + Garrick Keatts
The Silent JK Johnny Kuo
Sock Firestarter Zac Irwin!
The Humor of Jason Walence
Master Ski Sabbatical Jay Irwin
The entire Liu Family!
Will you marry me Matthew Walence
Ryan Garnett, “Pets Heads Falling Off” Colin Dean, and Backflip Trevor Posey!
Green Icelantic Machine Hollis Carter
Our Shit Got Jacked Alexandra Malkin + Aaron Marks :(
Completed the Epic Race Right Jessica Jackson Hill!
The Finished in Fine Fashion Lawrence Bayer
The Dreads of Jonathon Blair Ermer
Yellow Man Giovanni De Francisco!
The Ned Man Kip and Legitimately Last Place Final Day Finisher Kip Lagorin
One Take Timmy Jarred Simpson
The One and Only Man of Epicness Himself … Adam Warot!
Devin Rhinehart Crushing It
Way to crush it out there Devin Rhinehart – you Vail Resorts Epic Race Winning Engineer of the Day. This one just might simply be worth an I Love Awesomeness Award.
Blockquote for Google cred:
Devin Rhinehart has been selected by his peers as Wednesday’s Engineer of the Day for the Denver office. Devin is a mechanical engineer and has been working at URS for five and a half years.
Devin was nominated for his willingness to learn and his ability to apply his knowledge to his work. Devin demonstrates a passion for the engineering profession. He has shown great leadership in the mechanical group and goes above and beyond what is expected of him.
Devin enjoys skiing, biking, fishing and hockey. He won a lifetime pass to Vail Resorts in the Epic Race this year. Devin graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently pursuing a MBA at the University of Denver.
Epic Race – Corporate Never Takes a Vacation
Today is our 5th day of competition, and unlike many others in this race, the corporate stud, Nabor Devin Rhinehart had to return back to his day job to remain in good standing with his company and boss while still staying sharp and competitive in the competition.
Some may wonder how in a race of this caliber our team could be taking a day off, or rather, a day to go back to the office, but since Vail Resorts has confirmed since day one of releasing the on mountain locations…
“Photo/Video Locations for Brides-Les-Bains will be announced on December 20th – a) posted to the website and b) available for pickup at the Brides-les-Bains tourist office that morning”
…this allows for a few days for the hard working life balanced competitors like Nabor Devin to maintain a successful career, grad school, and compete in the #epicrace! What. A. Badass.
So, Hydle and I took a day off for errands, chores, and logistics planning while Nabor Devin put in some solid hours at the office. I am sure he epic raced harder than anyone out there today. Work Hard. Play Harder.
Epic Race Mountain 04 – Eldora
Day 4 started off with Nabor Ryan (Nabor Devin “Rhinehart”s Dad, who has so much personality he could be straight out of a movie) cooking us up some of the best gluten free pancakes and “links” that I could have ever imagined!
After our delicious breakfast, packing up, and a goodbye wave off from Nabor Ryan in the driveway, we were on our way to Eldora for the first time for all three of us! This is not significant for me being a California native, but it is significant for my two coloradoan teammates, considering it is actually one of the most accessible ski resorts from the Denver area!
After road tripping – with Miley Cyrus’s Bangerz album on repeat) through Central City (note: this town is worth revisiting, as it is a super cute gold rush era town with casinos and an adorable Main Street) and then taking some sweet team photos in front of the welcoming Eldora sign, we arrived!
Upon arrival, our first task was to take a photo by the Nordic center sign, where Hydle proceeded to spin some donuts in my car around Rhinehart…and then we were off to gearing up and getting on the mountain!
We parked three rows from the lift, and then cruised up a sweet two man chair called “Cannonball Lift” – dude, what is better than a resort that has a two man chair from the base camp! We also learned that Eldora has a lift that is the oldest lift in Colorado (unfortunately didn’t get to ride it as it was closed but I’d like to!)
We took some video footage and then rocked out a few super super fun, soft, groomer runs. My favorite mountains are the small local ones and we were having a blast at Eldora.
As is standard, I was ready to take a break before the guys, and headed to the Corona Bar to enjoy a delicious beer alone!
Once the guys showed up, we had a round of drinks and some lunch, and then headed back out for one more glory run and then skied back to the car!
After skiing, we drove through Nederland for some happiness and smiles, which we achieved in full ski gear while riding the famous Carousel of Happiness! The happiness level on the Carousel of Happiness was at all time highs, which kept us elated on the drive back to Golden!
As we were driving through Golden I asked Greg what his favorite restaurant was and he said “Sherpa House” without any hesitation right as we were driving right by it. Rhinehart quickly agreed and we called Lauren to see if she could meet up for dinner which she also agreed to.
We posted up in the corner and got lots of attention from the staff considering Hydle is a local Golden celebrity! We chowed down on the best chicken tikka masala and the guys edited their videos for the day, with plenty of laughs while reviewing the footage.
Super super fun day, we all loved Eldora and capping it off at the Carousel of Happiness and Sherpa House was a great way to finish off our 4th day of epic racing!
Epic Race Mountain 03 – Breckenridge
This morning was super early so we could get up to Breck and get some turns in before the crowds started. Thanks to Mary, she knew it would get crowded and she was right! Started the morning off with Ryan’s untouchably fluffly and delicious scrambled eggs, bacon and toast… and then off to the mountains.
We got our first shot of the day at the overlook over Breckenridge the town, and then headed up the gondola to the lifts.
Right off the bat we hit some really good and fun groomers, but the day was cold, so Hydle and I bailed out to the T Bar for a couple beers and a quesadilla.
After lunch we did some laps through the park where Rhinehart did some rad daffys and some other fun tricks while Hydle filmed. We also met up with Rhineharts brother Colin who ripped through the park also. There were tons of guys ripping it up in the park, pretty fun to watch, but apparently it’s also rider beware, the jumps supposedly are not user friendly if you don’t know what you’re doing!
Lauren and I worked on improving our turns throughout the day, and the guys did a lot of filming in the park and on the groomers.
The mountain was a little crowded and it was pretty cold, so we decided to call it a day around 1, but not without first deciding to hit up the Gold Runner Coaster – it’s a roller coaster, on the mountain, that you self control on how fast you want to go. Um, probably the most fun thing you can do on the side of a ski mountain (at least for me so far).
We rocked out that roller coaster harder than anyone else today for sure, and then called it for the day.
We’re staying at the Rhineharts cabin again tonight (thank you again) and have been editing all afternoon.
And nooooooow, it’s time for the Broncos game, some white bean chili and guac, and possibly a hot tub, and possibly some other fun games. Tomorrow, we ski Eldora! Go Broncos! Epic!
Cooley’s Video:
Rhinehart’s Video:
Epic Race Mountain 02 – Vail Resort
Rocked out Vail today for mountain number 2 of the #epicrace. Beautiful bluebird day early resulted in complete awesomeness all around the mountain with our stellar team. Ashley Cooley’s turns are coming around and Devin Rhinehart continued to warm up some acrobatic maneuvers while sipping on fresh home made coffee in the air. So EPIC.
Rhinehart’s Video
Cooley’s Video
Cooley’s Update:
“Day 2 – Vail
Day 2 started off early with arising to the quiet sounds of Ryan Rhinehart stirring in the kitchen making us his famous pre-skiing oatmeal (thanks Ryan!), accompanied with him dropping his hilarious one liners all morning, like “shouldn’t you guys be on the road already” “wait, I thought you guys were going to be on the road by now” as Mary was pushing us to get going and out the door.After a later than desired start, and a little photo op with Ryan destroying us in the “I look so amazing nobody can handle this” competition while shoveling snow, we got on the road and headed to Vail.
It was a beautiful morning with sunny groomers, and we took a few laps through the park to also get some of our video content.
Next up was a gondola ride to the top, and then somehow we stumbled upon the mountain opening chair 2. Everyone was lined up at the ropes, and then when the ski patrol opened it up, it was a gnarly Chinese Downhill straight to the chairs (see Rhineharts video for proof!)
After that we hit a sweet powder run that had some of us struggling but was fun and worth it to get to the burritos and gluten free burgers at Mid Vail!
After lunch, we cruised down some more groomers and Hydle decided it was time for some “drills” as some of us are not as advanced of skiiers as he is! So we unbuckled our boots, and snowplowed through a bunch of runs, which teaches us to “turn” and stay forward on our skiis.
The drills were a success (although Lauren won the award for not listening the most lol) and then we called it a day and headed back to the Rhinehart cabin.
More editing and flight booking for the night after another fantastic meal of bratwursts and mashed potatos, and then calling it a night early for a big day 3 at Breckenridge tomorrow! Epic!”
Epic Race Mountain 01 – Arapahoe Basin
The first day ever of the Epic Race started off with Rhinehart drinking black coffee in the backseat of the Touareg while Hydle drove and I DJ’d some Miley Cyrus etc on the way up to Arapahoe Basin. We had a quick pit stop at Rhineharts cabin to do some engineering on the Touaregs windshield spray (which we solved by adding in the super leaded Colorado version of wiper fluid) and then headed to the mountain.
When we finally arrived (1 pm ish) we posted up shop at “The Beach” where we shot our first videos of the trip, after poaching someone’s community beach chairs for the shot. The day was cold, but we had some Cold CL’s to keep us a little warmer.
Our next location was to visit the “new” 6th Alley Bar and Grill, which was actually still under construction. Hydle pulled some strings/opened some doors and got us into the construction zone to take a sweet pic in front of the beetle kill woodwork that’s gonna be super sweet once it’s all open! We took our photos/videos there and then headed up the hill.
The snow was fun, but the visibility was pretty bad since it was so overcast, so we just cruised a couple runs and then headed to our third and final stop, the Black Mountain Lodge. We took some badass photos in front of the lodge, and then in front of the Continental Divide mountain range, and then went in and grabbed nothing other than of course a Coors Original, since after all, we were tapping the Rockies in the Rockies.
After relaxing/eating/photographing/videoing and meeting some new friends, we took a few more runs and then called it a day, the visibility and weather really made it tough to want to ski much more at that point even though we had a great time!
Once we loaded up, we took a humongous series of jumping photos in front of the A Basin welcome sign. It was a workout, but it was worth it!
Back at the cabin Devin cooked up some of the best vodka sauce sausage spaghetti of all time, and then Lauren, and the Rhineharts arrived to enjoy dinner with us (thank you for dinner and thank you for having us at your cabin Rhineharts!). Ryan and Mary did a pretty good job of convincing us we may have disqualified ourselves on day 1 (which was hilarious actually and was all in good spirits but also good looking out) but after lots of conversation and an email from the Epic team confirming we were fine, we continued on with our night and worked on booking the rest of our flights. Rhinehart and Hydle were huge in figuring out the best logistically sound order of flights, and once booked, we called it a night. Peace out until day 2. Epic!
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