Hoffman Art Design » Crested Butte

Fat Tire

Mike Hoffman — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:03:34 +0000

Now here's one cool mode of transportation – literally. Crested Butte, CO is primarily a ski town in the winter, but the locals seem to prefer bicycles. On powder days, I suspect other modes of transportation were in greater use, but the old bicycles covered in snow still make an interesting composition!

In album Bicycles (1 photo)

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More powder, and still more

Mike Hoffman — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:29:08 +0000

We've really struck the powder jackpot here in Crested Butte. After the first two bluebird days of skiing on slightly crusty but well-groomed snow, we had a huge snowstorm, and the snow has continued daily since then. We had 11" as of Wednesday morning, another 5" by Thursday morning, and yet another 8" last night – and more still in the forecast!

This has made for some of the most excellent skiing conditions I've ever enjoyed, as well as occasionally some of the most challenging. For example, yesterday we went up on the mountain and it was so snowy and blowy, you could hardly see where you were going. But the day before, we had a bluebird powder day. go figure.

Yesterday, I had an adventure that may have me changing my name to something perhaps a little more indicative of my Polish ancestry – "Michael Oneski." Cruising down a powder trail in the driving snow, I took a tumble and lost one of my skis. I mean, really lost it. It took me over half an hour to find it in the deep powder, and I was almost ready to accept a ride down with the ski patrol, when finally I located it, under about a foot and a half of powder.

All's well that ends well! We're headed out shortly for our final day of skiing fun, and then tomorrow we journey homeward.

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One mountain, two looks

Mike Hoffman — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:34:36 +0000

As I enjoy this week of skiing in Crested Butte, Colorado, I’ve managed to take some photos, and I will be posting an album (after the skiing is over!) But for now, here’s an interesting look at two views of the very same mountain.

This first is a photo I snapped yesterday, just before the lifts opened. The sky was clear, the sun was out, and it was warm! The mountain was highly groomed, and in great shape overall. I decided to bring my Canon DSLR along for the day, and got some excellent pictures throughout the morning. Here’s my brother-in-law getting some air at the terrain park:

Notice the GoPro Hero helmet cam? We should have some good first-person footage to integrate into our media memories of this trip!

At lunchtime, the weather clouded over, and the light was gone for the balance of the day. With tidings of great snow, we were optimistic for good powder to come. Sure enough, here’s a view from my balcony this morning, looking at the mountain – or, i should say, looking in the direction of the mountain!

The snow is supposed to continue all day today, with the forecasters predicting over a foot of snow at the base, maybe more up top, by the end of today. Powder days indeed! More to come…

Mt. Crested Butte

Mike Hoffman — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 03:12:17 +0000

Today we spent our first day skiing this beautiful mountain! Mt. Crested Butte rises 12,162 feet into the air, and even from the top of this highest lifts on the mountain, the peak still towers majestically above. We had a good day on the slopes, a bluebird day if you will, although I would have liked a bit more fresh snow. Not to worry, that seems to be in store over the next few days.

Conditions today were good but the powder was a bit crusted over, leading us to start referring to the mountain as "Crusted Butte." Still, we had a very enjoyable day!

For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you've seen that I am trying a new iPhone app called "Ski Tracks." So far, I have to give this app two thumbs up! It's a GPS driven app that records my wanderings all over the mountain, and reports with statistics, graphs and maps – and one-click Facebook publishing. Really nice, and I'll be posting more about it later.

That's all for now, it's time for rest! More to come…

In album Travel (1 photo)

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