During our third day in Queenstown, I decided to spend the day at The Remarkables, a well known ski mountain about 45 minutes away from where we were staying. I woke up early, headed into town for a coffee and a jam donut, picked up my rentals and then was off to the mountain. I had no idea what to expect, especially as one who has been skiing and snowboarding from a young age. I have always heard that Colorado is the best place in the world to ski, but when I actually saw where I was to be skiing, I found it hard to believe that this could be bad even in the worst conditions.
The drive up to the lodge itself was incredible. The sun was just rising as we were slowly moving up the serpentine road to the ski area. The road was frosted and there were no guard rails to prevent us from tumbling down with an avalanche from the steep slopes above us. We were getting some great views of the valley below us and by the time we reached the actual lodge, we had already taken a days worth of pictures. We pulled into the drop off zone, I strapped into my boots, and hauled my gear into the lodge. There were only about 25 people there when I walked in at 9 am, which was when the mountain opened. I was expecting a huge crowd and long lines for the lifts simply because I have only really skied one mountain my entire life and it was always really crowded. Within about 10 minutes I got out of the car, put my gear on, went to the bathroom, and got on the first lift.
From my first glance, the mountain looked small, with very few open trails and about 4 working lifts. When I compared the mountain in front of me to the map on my lap, I was surprised they were labeling some of the terrain as actual trails as some were covered in rocks and large bushes. Nonetheless, I kept my hopes up. Upon unloading the lift, I skied around to the beginning of the first trail and looked up; there was a great view of the mountain range opposite me and I hadn't even noticed. The lift took me to the top of the trails, but also to a lookout point where I could see the frozen lake between the two ski areas, the ski lodge, the whole valley below, and the other pointy mountains miles away. Not a bad view for a first run. However, the skiing was quite relaxed, so I went over to the lift that was supposed to take me to the more challenging slopes. The best part of the mountain so far wasn't the view though; I didn't wait more than 10 seconds in lines to get on the lifts. There were so few people on the mountain that I could come down from a run and ski right onto the next chair lift without even stopping.
I could see that the lift went over to a different part of the mountain, but it climbed over a ridge and I couldn't see a single slope that it went to. I was taking a bit of a gamble because the lift went only to advanced slopes, and I didn't even know what "advanced" meant relative to the advanced slopes I was used to back home. Nevertheless, I loaded up and hoped to god that I wasn't making a big mistake. When I came over the ridge line, I saw the slopes that were labeled on the map, sort of. There was one trail called "Highway" that was simply a thin path over an upper ridge-line that took you over about 5 "trails" that dropped down the sides of the mountain. Some of the so labeled "trails" were straight drops off of 5 foot or 10 foot boulders. There were ski tracks in the snow that started going off a cliff side and continued at the bottom. I was fairly confident I would be walking down my second run. So, I skied over to where the easiest looking one started and looked down.
It was steep, and there were plenty of moguls, but it seemed that if I got through the first 30 feet, I would be home free to continue down the mountain and back to the main part. I said "What the hell", and dropped in to unexpectedly soft snow. I had much more control than I thought I did, and I ended up cruising down with just a tad of sweat.
I ended up doing that same run and a few others like it for the rest of my day, but what really caught my eye was the trail of footprints that started just after unloading at the top of the mountain. The trail started at the end of the lift, and it headed all the way up to the very top of the actual mountain, where there were was a big, pointy rock shooting up into the sky. Just before lunchtime, I decided I might as well go see what was up there.
I unloaded from the lift yet again, and then took off my skis, through them over my shoulder and started walking up. It took about 20 minutes to climb up to the top, and I was sweating bullets by the time I got up there because although it was cold, there wasn't a single cloud in the sky and the sun was beaming down on me. I finally cleared the summit and took in the most incredible view of my lifetime. It may be because I was just absolutely not expecting it, but the view was so incredible I began to laugh. Bottom line was that I could see just about everything all the way to the horizon in every direction. And like I said, there was not a single cloud in sight. The cold gusts of wind cooled me down and I must have stood up there for about 30 minutes before finally getting cold enough to be dragged back down from unearthly state I was in.
I strapped back into my skis and dropped into a pretty sketchy looking path, with only a few ski marks already in the snow. I swerved rocks and jumped off of bumps in the snow to get back down to the lift, where I skied down the rest of the mountain. I immediately came into the lodge at the bottom and figured it would be a good time to grab some lunch and call my parents. Although there was snow on the ground, the sun made it warm enough for me to enjoy a pie and some sushi outside in just a long sleeve shirt. I also had some of the best coffee I've had while here (I know I keep saying that, but The Remarkables actually made the best coffee I've had so far). I spoke to my parents and took in some rays before heading back out for the rest of the day. I got into the pattern of riding up to the top, skiing to the start of the trail, taking pictures, and then skiing down. And this is what I would do consecutively for about 9 or 10 more runs. By the time the mountain was closing, my phone was approaching 1 percent battery, and I met back up with Davis at the bottom. We headed back into town, grabbed some dinner, and I crashed into bed early and got a great nights sleep. Although, the bungy jumping was the coolest thing, this was the best overall day I've had.
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