My First Exotic Locale: Columbine Lake, Colorado

A few weeks ago at Pomona, I was joking around with some friends about how only rich snobs went on multiple-day "ski trips." Then, out of the blue, my dad e-mailed the family that we had the opportunity to stay in his friend's cabin in Colorado for a few days (free of charge!). After some finagling and changing of flights, we organized our first ever family ski trip.

My sister, dad and I packed up the Kia and left Lincoln last Tuesday, with my brother and mom set to follow a few hours later. We narrowly avoided getting caught in an intense Nebraska snowstorm that was to begin that night; we hoped some of that snow would hit the Colorado slopes. After many hours of driving (and a brief stop in Denver to eat lunch with my sister's boyfriend and his family), we arrived in Columbine Lake.


Colorado is just south west of Nebraska, but it turns out Nebraska is a really big state. Like 8 hours of driving big.

We had a bit of trouble finding the cabin and dragging the car up the snowy driveway, but made it eventually. The cabin was larger than we expected but our first impressions weren't exactly rosy: the porch was covered in ice and snow and, upon arriving at the screen door, we found that it lacked a handle. My sister grudgingly pulled it open with her fingers and my dad struggled to unlock the main door. Inside, we found that none of the light switches worked (and that there was no welcome mat on which to wipe our snowy boots - the floor became an icy mess). Once we finally figured out how to plug in the lamps and turn them on, we saw a huge buffalo head hanging in the main room. My dad and I named him Herbie. My sister and I climbed the uneven steps to the loft to find that there were no doors between the "bedrooms" (really just two areas of the second floor). The "master bedroom" was nice enough, but the "kids' room" contained only two bunk beds. So much for privacy! My brother, sister and I would be reliving camp, it seemed.

Not all was as bad as it seemed, though. The lamps lit up the place fairly well; we realized the door without the handle was actually the side door, not the front door; we found an accordion-type door to cut off the bedrooms from one another; and, as we kept reminding ourselves, we were getting this place for free! My sister and I found a 500-piece Coors Light jigsaw puzzle and set to work.



The next morning we set out for Winter Park, a ski resort about 45 minutes away. Now, I've snowboarded a total of 3 or 4 times in my life, and none of these experiences was particularly pleasant. The idea of spending most of my winter vacation sitting on my bruised butt in the snow didn't appeal to me - so I decided to start from scratch and learn to ski. My mom, who hadn't skied in 25 years, and I took a lesson and, slowly but surely, I started picking up some technique.

Winter Park, as we learned, has world-class skiing but, unlike Vail and Aspen, isn't full of terrible rich people. Everyone we met was friendly and non-judgmental and didn't seem to mind that I looked like a crazy duck on skis (or that my dad was wearing skin-tight ski gear from the 70s). By the end of the day, I felt pretty confident going down the green slopes.



Coincidentally, our cabin was about 15 miles away from my sister's boyfriend's family cabin, so we planned to meet up for dinner. What I didn't realize was that for the last mile I'd be riding on the back of a small snowplow.

As "rustic" as we thought our log cabin was, Ben's cabin is truly backwoods - his family usually cross-country skis there from the nearest road. Luckily for us, they had recently bought a "snowcat," which Ben had just learned how to drive (there was no steering wheel - just two brake levers).


The snowcat looked something like this, though the cab was smaller. Imagine my dad, brother and me holding on for dear life on the back.

Ben met us at the road and we squeezed onto the snowcat - my sister and mom curled up in the cab, my dad, brother and me sitting on the back. It was already dark and the ride through the woods seemed to take forever. I couldn't find anything to grab onto except a pipe, which I soon realized was not a good idea (it was an exhaust pipe and heated up very quickly!). I grabbed onto my brother instead.

Their cabin is pretty incredible; apparently, Ben's father and grandfather built it years ago on the 40 acres of land they owned (they've since bought the surrounding acreage as well). Just in the last year, the family has added on a second floor and an expansion using wood cut down from their own land. Ben's dad stressed that they lived "completely off the grid" - meaning all electricity came from a solar-powered generator, all water from their own well, and all heat from their antique cook stove. (At Ben's insistence, though, they now have wireless Internet in the cabin, allowing me to book my plane ticket to Chicago there; our cabin lacked Internet.) We ate a lovely dinner and enjoyed some quality time with their 14-year-old collie, Lulu, before jumping back on the snowcat for another cold ride to the car. At least we weren't snowshoeing back!

The following nights were spent alternating between working on the Coors puzzle and playing Band Hero, which my brother had brought up from Texas. Not only did I improve my skiing and puzzle-making skills, I also got 100% playing Santigold's "LES Artistes" on Medium level guitar. Such a skill-building vacation!

By Saturday, my sister's shins had given out, my brother had freaked out about the tall slopes, and my mom had gotten sick of the cold - so it was just my dad and me hitting the slopes for the final day. Up on the summit, in -8 degree weather, he convinced me to try a blue square (intermediate level): the famous "Mary Jane" trail, which started at 11,060 feet. Thinking I was ready for anything, I started down - and immediately came across a steep ice patch. I slid down the first part completely on my butt. When I eventually got back on my skis, I was terrified to find a huge mogul field packed with very fast skiers zipping by. Again, my first move was to fall over. My dad convinced me to stand up and face the moguls (which I had no idea how to do). I attempted to traverse the moguls and finally reached the far left side of the trail, which was a bit clearer.


This isn't the actual slope, but it captures well the minefield of moguls on Mary Jane.

Once I got past the moguls, the rest of the way was steep but manageable. My dad and I flew down the trail at a breakneck pace until we reached the crowded bottom, at which point we had no choice but to take the lift up again and ski down to Winter Park. Shaky but excited, I felt good about my first blue.

All in all, it was a great vacation and I'm glad that I finally learned how to ski. (My worst injury was actually a result of the uneven steps in the cabin - I took a nice fall in my pajamas.) Now that my family lives in Nebraska, we're a day's drive from some of the best skiing in the country, so we'll no doubt head back sometime soon. In fact, we might return for Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. Then, in less than a month, I'll head to Cameroon, where there certainly isn't any skiing, and spend the year forgetting that winter even exists. There's always next season!