Vail with Alec

vail's a massive mountain kids. this ski season has been particularly kind to the mountains of colorado. alec has a buddy pass that entitles him to purchase lift tickets at vail for a homey for $45. normally the adult price for one day's $92. $92! that's nutty, so we figured on friday we should have an outing to vail. my friend jay was supposed to go but his friend's friends were lame-oes! oh well.
what can i say but blue sky ski area in vail for at least 2 hours and a whole host of bowls that i can't even remember their names. here's the big drop of a cornice at blue sky. the tiny figure in blue/white's alec, reconnoitering a landing site right before he drops in. this picture's real but the visual context of it's phantasmagorical (how'd you like that word?). i drop in after him and the snow's deceivingly crunchy with a slight layer of fluff hiding the crunchiness underneath. it was still awesome. also on that side, we skied a little glade and it was like a daydream. trees randomly placed on the trail all going to the same place and here we were just juking in and out of these trees and ending up at the bottom. the terrain was nutty and the trees made it even more dream-like. nothing but cold and speed. it was almost giddy-like. needless to say my legs are hammered. alec on the other hand is getting his 20+ days of skiing and he has crazy ski fitness on top of his skill. here's the picture that sums what i have to get myself doing when i go skiing with this madman.no other really noteworthy thing to say other than another sublime outing with my boy alec-coupled with the no-traffic, no waiting in lines, and a fierce workout! my only complaint was the crappy flat lighting conditions dropping into blue sky basin. i'm tired but it's a dry kind of tired...
noteworthy mental shot of the day: on our return trip to alec's suv parked in an exorbitantly priced covered garage, we skied onto the tail end of vail's (junior) developmental program, which were a bunch of 2nd and 3rd graders skiing with their instructor. it was too cute, they were dressed accordingly as children from a wannabee euro-dork destination, fur coat wearing, high socio-economics tax group. they were skate skiing and talking. they also had helmets and nice skis. very nice to see the next generation of potential world cup winners. alec and i both agreed, that, while vail and aspen are a hoot to ski (and mountain bike), the towns themselves have a pretentious, highly artificial vibe that's not conducive to our level of homey-osity. which runs completely counter to other colorado ski towns like crested butte, telluride, breckenridge, steamboat springs, and durango (pretty much in that order). that's what we decree, so it must be true! i'll stop being so judgemental next time kids.