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.
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!
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!
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!”
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!
We might be crazy…or ridiculously out of control awesome, but somehow Hydle, Rhinehart and I decided to go full force and enter the Epic Race… The “Epic Race” which means we’ve decided to try to be three of the first 10 skiiers to ski all 26 Vail resorts in the 2013/14 season!
Our group consists of the following “team”
Cooley “The Chick” – self employed, living in Tahoe, ‘learnable’ skier level, never skied 26 days in a season, let alone in a row, but ready to try…and will 100% chance definitely sleep more than anyone else in the group, or at least get grumpy trying!
Rhinehart “Third Wheel” – corporate job engineer guy who still is going to make this trip happen on paid time off, everything he knows about skiing he learned from Hydle…gluten free
Greg “The Beard” Hydle – “Skiing is fun, and that’s about all!”
The rules are that you can only ski one US resort per day and two Europeans resorts per day, and the estimated day that we could be winning/finishing the race would be December 20 in France, as that is the resort that has the last opening day this season.
The most likely scenario is that there will be a tie up until this final day/final 26th resort (it doesn’t open until December 20, so the assumption is that there will be a LOT of racers that have completed the previous 25 resorts leading into this final opening day, so everyone who has will be ready to win on this final day.)
So, unless we fall behind, we will most likely be tied with the winners all the way up until the final day.
Each day you ski, you are required to document your day of skiing with (1) :15 second video, and (2) photos – each taken from a different location on the mountain that is on a list that is predetermined by Vail Resorts.
So, on the final day, we will have to be in line first, ski to the three locations we need to get to first, and upload our photos/video first. The winner is chosen based on when the actual content is UPLOADED, not when you actually have skiied – so we will have to figure out a good solution on the final day on how to access internet FROM the mountain, ideally from the final spot that we take our photo from.
For those who would like to follow along and aren’t already doing so on Facebook, you can follow our travels and ski days via the following links:
1 year ago today, we celebrated the life of my father Les Hydle. At the time, I couldn’t tell you how important it was for me to be writing and sharing my thoughts and feelings about how my dad and I spent his last waking minutes, but now… looking back over the last year – I realize there is absolutely no way I could re-write those feelings to the detail that I have already captured. I’m happy I have these memories, and I’m glad I can access them so easily just by clicking Les Hydle at the top of this page.
I know you like my videos even more than my writing… so here you go. This was the introduction to your Final Playlist at the celebration of your life last June 15th, 2012. Happy Fathers Day Dad… I love you.
[YouTubeUlar] <— 493
Happy BHTM Day - On this weekend year anniversary of my father Les being involved in a motorcycle accident that ultimately took his life… I give you the best RAW video I have ever shot.
The date was 06/07/08 and Big Head Todd was recording a live set to be released on both album and DVD. They played for 4 hours straight… 31 songs with no opening band … just all BHTM. My sister Jessica and dad managed to buy up some sweet tickets for us to enjoy the awesomeness. With a little help from Sara and Jake Manley and a side of Regier … We had access to everything :)
This was an awesome day in the history of my life… and now you can enjoy the most awesome moment from this amazing night at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
Stay classy friends – I still want to find out who the girl in the orange dress is, so if you have any ideas… do share :)
April 4th, 2013 is the day that I almost retired from bowling. After Pizza and Beer League play at Golden Bowl, Donovan Rossi and I stayed late to work on our game. I’m pretty sure Donovan had a personal best a couple games before I bowled my 278.
Tonights 10 games of Golden Bowl bowling looked like this…
238 144 181 163 191 170 195 179 236 278
…for a night average of 197.
I’ve never gone 9 deep… therefore I’ve never gone 9 deep and dorked it in the 10th :(
Until that illustrious 300 perfect game, Cheers.
-Greg Hydle
[Vimeeeeeo] <— 1848
LinkedIn recently inquired me to write about some projects from my past, so I thought I would share this little write up on the 2011 Craig Hospital Push Dinner video with Doug Smith, the most amazing pianist (sorry doug) in the world.
The 2011 installment of the “I Am Craig” PUSH Dinner Video was a fun one. Getting the opportunity to interview Doug Smith, a true musical genius, was a treat for me to figure out where his creativity comes from. Tying his story into a live show was a first for the Craig Hospital PUSH dinner videos… something they have now copied three times since this 2011 showing.
If you could have only been there to feel this transition take place… to see my work presented on such a large scale to tell the story of Doug Smith and then have him revealed and play such a powerful song live — It was such an amazing feeling.
I shot, edited and directed this piece with a small team of Jake Manley, Mary Bonner and myself. We all had a fun working road trip to Lubbock, Texas were everyone on the team learned a lot about each other, the local watering holes, and the man Doug Smith!
After the 6:40 mark in the video… I had zero control of shooting and editing. I feel as if the impact could have been a bit better matched to my original work – but you still get the impression of how impacted the audience was. [raw video]
I can’t wait to actually tell this entire story in Hydle detail sometime in the near future for all of you loyal readers and newly Doug Smith fans :) But for now – it stays in the memory bank.
Don’t hesitate to pick up the most amazing Doug Smith album of all time. It was recorded live in 2000 before his injury. The stories behind the recording of this album are incredible, but Doug Smith’s playing is even better.
Today I randomly found the last photo that I had taken with both of my parents. Here is a little message to my dad…
“Today I’m randomly going through media and SD cards that I have piled around the house… and not only did I find a card that contained my last visit to Grandma’s, but I also found this little gem … which I’m pretty sure is the last photo I have with you and mom. This was the day you guys signed your papers … and you two were getting along beautifully. Pretty sure we went to tequilas after this to celebrate… yum. Oh – and just so you know, that place burnt down too. What a shitty year :) But just like everything good in life, it will be re-built – bigger and better. Hope your having fun up there…”
Susan Hydle + Les Hydle + Greg Hydle = A Good Time (always!)
