If you are interested in some of the places mentioned in the text below and wonder where it is on the mountain check out the Steamboat Trail Map.
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Here's a picture of Penny and me in the condo at Steamboat. Taken with the
arm's length method of photography.
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We staid at The Lodge
at Steamboat condos. These two bedroom, two bath units are just a couple
of blocks away from the gondola lift at the Steamboat base. The short walk
was a good warm up and wind down before and after a day of skiing. Our condo
was located on the third floor. There were several hot tubs around the complex,
though we only got around to using it once. Penny and I shared the condo with
two other Austin Skiers members, Larry and Gary. Note the old gondola car at
the front of the Lodge entrance. Several of the area condos had similar cars
that were probably replaced with the current models.
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Here are a couple of photos that I took of the area around the condo. There is still a lot of construction in the area. So Steamboat is bound to get
bigger in the future.
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Since the C-3030 camera was new to me I wanted to try out a few things
around the condo. So I went for a short walk and shot some of the condo photos
you've already seen and these closeups. The textured snow shot shows off the
camera's black and white mode. |
The resort of Steamboat is right next to the town of
Steamboat Springs.
However, we had more than enough to do at the resort itself and in the
outlying areas that we never got a chance to visit the center of town. "Town"
for us was usually Gondola Square, which you can see here.
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Here are some photos of the base of the mountain at Steamboat. The fenced
off area is a race course that was to be used for the Cowboy Downhill later in
the week (see below). Note the gondola cars, which is the main method of
getting up to the first peak on the mountain. Steamboat had at least 7 peaks,
which complicates getting from place to place.
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Here's Penny at the moutain base, right next to the gondola building. The
statue is of Billy Kidd, the
Olympic skier from 1980 who is in charge of skiing operations at Steamboat.
This was taken the day of the Cowboy Downhill and I missed an opportunity of
getting a picture of Penny with one of the cowboys who stepped in an hammed
it up for the camera, but moved on before I could get the shot. |
One of the events held by the Texas Ski Council during the week was a
Western theme party. One of the competitions held between the clubs was a
"stampede" bean eating contest where a blindfolded female club member had to
shovel beans into the mouth of a male club member. These photos center on
the Austin Skiers representatives Cynthia and Chuck. There were three events
in total and although the competition was held in a somewhat loosely controlled
fashion I think Austin Skiers easily won out overall. |
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Steamboat hosts a yearly competition where many of the biggest professional rodeo cowboys ski competitively for a day. The Cowboy Downhill just happened to be held when we were there. Some of the cowboys could ski pretty well and some not well at all. Most were drinking beer and are used to falling off of horses or bulls so I don't think anyone was seriously hurt. The first competition involved skiing down the race slope, stopping to rope a lady and then saddle a horse before crossing the finish line. The last competition was the "stampede" where all cowboys (about 100) went down the same slope, at the same time, with the first to cross the line the winner. 
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One of the highest points at Steamboat is Storm Peak. There's even a weather station here to monitor the conditions. These photos show that the weather didn't exactly live up to its name on that particular day. 
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More cheerfully named is Sunshine Peak. This is at the top of the area also
known as Wally World, which contains many of the blue runs that I liked most
in Steamboat. So we spent a lot of time there, particularly on the last day
of skiing.
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One of the easier runs is Broadway, but it includes a scenic overlook at the
valley below as you can see here. I took a few shots, including one with
Penny. But we also ran into a surprise at this spot as you'll see below...
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What we ran into was a little creature going about his business trying to
find some food in the snow. It took me a second or two to realize that this
field mouse had no fear of humans at all. As you can see from these shots he
let me get the camera right up next to him as he dug in the snow looking for
something to eat. This picnic area probably brings many skiers who had
given him some extra food in the past. |
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Penny was even able to just about pet him. He wasn't too happy with that, but about all he did was shrug it off. When she put her hand down (gloved, just to be sure) he checked it out to see if some food was forthcoming. But we had no idea we'd run into him so we didn't have anything left over from lunch. 
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Penny has two dogs and a cat. So she may have been going through withdrawl
symptoms that were somewhat alleviated by her new friend who she picked up
on the trip. On the more quiet evenings we passed the time working on some of
the puzzles that were available in the condo. This particular puzzle was
missing two pieces.
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We didn't ski all of the six days that we were there. On two days we took
trips on a horse drawn sleigh ride, a visit to the local hot springs and a
snowmobile tour. Here are a couple of the photos that came out at the sleigh
ride. The Sun was going down at the time so a lot of the photos came out too
dark and/or blurry. It was very cold that day too, so my hands might have
been shaking when I had to take my gloves off to take pictures. Here's one
of their
publicity photos that shows the cabin in which we were served a very
fine
steak dinner afterwards with some live music. We went to the hot springs
later that evening, so no photos were possible, but you can see a photo
here. The conditions at the hot springs were primitive. There were NO
lights at all there, other than the flashlight of the tour guide. Of course
that just meant you could see tons of stars in the sky as you sat in the
98-102 degree heated water.
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The snowmobile ride went through some beautiful terrain. Unfortunately I did not have time to take photos of the narrow paths framed with trees since we had to keep up with the group. The route we took passed by the town of Columbine (not to be confused with the school that made the news not too long ago), which sports a year-round population of 10. 
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Although cold, the snowmobiles even had
hand warmers. Penny found out that the high setting on the warmers actually
makes them hot, not just warm.
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Here is a of photo of Buddy's Run. This is one of the larger blue
runs that start at Storm Peak. The run is named after Buddy Werner, a native
of Steamboat who skiied in the Olympics and died in an avalanche in Switzerland.
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Rainbow run was one of my favorite runs at Steamboat. A great view, not too
steep, not boring with some rolling terrain.
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Steamboat is made up of several peaks in the skiing area. It complicates
moving around sometimes, but it also makes things interesting. Here's a
shot of Penny at the Four Points peak. When the Steamboat area was being
surveyed someone spotted a four point elk near here (8 point elk equivalent in
the east), thus the name. We didn't see any elk.
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Here are a couple of other shots on the moutain. I've lost track of exactly
where these were taken. There were plenty of runs to try out at Steamboat.
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That's it for now. I also have some Quicktime video of Penny and me skiing. However, there's some waste footage before or after the shots that I'd like to cut out before uploading these. The files are fairly big so it would really help to cut out the non-essential portions. Check back here for updates later.
