“When you’re high you never want to come down…” – Axle Rose, 1987

Aspen is great. Not only do we get to visit with great friends who always treat us better than we deserve, we get to enjoy a part of the country that is filthy rich in history both old and new. It’s too bad that the national memory of Aspen is so short and hung up on the rather unfortunate charge it’s lead from the late 1980′s until just a few short years ago to fill every square inch of it’s rolling and fierce landscapes with what the all too late Dr. Thompson called “Greedheads”. The fact is, like so many other wonderful things in this world – Dr. Thompson included – the Greedheads found a juicy-fat piece of cultural meat in Aspen, CO and, almost out of spite, bought it all up and gang fucked it into parcels like a bunch of Blackwater employees breaking in a new female employee. What we can’t have we kill, I guess.

But in this era of Great Recessions, Aspen, like so much else of the Great American Daydream, is riding that slow balloon fizzle-whistle back to a more age appropriate size. Condo complexes are left half built, chalets abandoned, and the gray, laid foundation is all that remains of what is now called the “Hole” Foods just outside of El Jebel. Like so many earthquakes around our shivering globe, maybe these convulsions of currency the ghosts of capitalism are currently invoking upon our tiny little world are little more than a reminder from the demons who run this ship that our petty little plans have gotten boring to them and it’s time to run clear again on that great etch-a-sketch in the sky.

But, before we get too excited and philosophical about our cluster fuck du jour let’s not forget that history has never belonged to the karmically adept. Never. Not in this country or any other. No sir, humanity is a game best prepared for in savagery.

For proof of this you can travel about 30 minutes west of Aspen to Redstone, CO where John Osgood tried his hand at capital gain by way of coal, trading on the sweat equity of immigrant miners, their wives and their children. As one of the originators of corporate double speak, Osgood attempted to build a community for his workers where he would theoretically maintain enough of his workers superficial needs that they would never be driven to organize and never to revolt. But, where his template was admittedly inspired, albeit from a rather draconian perspective, Osgood’s company, Colorado Fuel & Iron, never took their inspiration to full application, preferring to replace the velvet glove of prosperity with the rather barbed mallet of armed militants, employee supplication, and extortion by way of company scripts and over-priced company housing.

But, irony of delicious ironies, Osgood’s exploitation of his employee’s never fruited into the prosperity he apparently spilled so much blood for. The coking mines at Redstone where shut down after only a few short years and Osgood’s only legacy, the Castle at Redstone, was occupied by him ultimately for a few short months. When he finally returned home from Europe in the early 1920′s, to the stately manor built from the blood-red stone of the Rocky Mountains where it resides, he did so only to die shortly after, and appropriately enough, from lung cancer.

The Castle at Redstone still stands today, in the hands of perhaps it’s 6th or 7th owner since the passing of Mr. Osgood. Like a gorgeous curse, it continues to drain each successive owner’s pocketbooks with it’s enduring and ultimately ghostly promise of, well, Promise.

While there is a strong tradition of thieves who continually attempt the heist of central Colorado’s richest resources, there is an equal and equally alluring tradition of feisty sons-of-bitches who refuse to hand over her treasures. Like a lurid army of Colorado’s fiercest spirit, this strange posse is slurried from artists, outlaws, musicians, and hedonists, all sharing the common cause of insuring their beloved state is never battered beyond repair.

In the late ’60′s George Stranahan, who later became the founder of Flying Dog Brewery and Stranahan’s Colorado Whisky, was working to cultivate the Woody Creek area of the Roaring Fork Valley into a refuge for artists, thinkers and weirdos in his attempt to keep Aspen strange. When Hunter Thompson rolled into town on the heels of publishing his best-seller, “Hell’s Angels”, and expressed an interest in taking up residence in Woody Creek, George saw in Thompson just the kind of individual he wanted for Woody Creek. He proceeded to work out a land deal with Thompson to which Stranahan may still be losing money on to this day. But with Thompson came an undeniable cultural footprint and brand around which much of Aspen’s politics would bend and croon for many years to come. If it was individuals and iconoclasts Stranahan was looking for, you’d be hard pressed to find someone more suited to that bill then Hunter S. Thompson.

While visiting Aspen this weekend I had the opportunity to see the first 10 minutes or so of what will be Wayne Ewing’s follow up to his 2003 effort “Breakfast with Hunter” (Wayne writes a semi-regular blog of hilarious stories from the 20+ years of taking care of Thompson on the road. He wrote a guest piece for us back in January).

“Breakfast with Hunter” remains the best portrait of a largely uncapturable beast, the only film to actually pierce – and honestly attempt to pierce – Thompson’s well-manicured veil. Where other documentaries lean on long winded and often self-serving interviews with associates of varying influence and witness, Ewing comes from the verite tradition, allowing the subject, in this case Hunter S. Thompson, to reveal far more uncomfortable truths through action than a whole planet of words could ever faire in interview. And, while I won’t reveal any spoilers, “Breakfast with Hunter Volume 2″ relies on a clever conceit that offers a deeper entree into the machinations of late-era Thompson than anything else put on film or tape about the old goat to date.

After watching the screening in Ewing’s unfortified editing room, I turned to him in genuine surprise, and surprise at my surprise after all these years. “That guy was a fucking maniac!”

Wayne laughed knowingly, like a mother whose come to finally accept her murderer-child. “Oh, you have no idea.”

Thompson was a titan and a whip smart marketer. What other author survived the sixties with a cult of followers, a decent paycheck, a logo, and a marketable look?

As Thompson’s interest in writing waned, his involvement in local politics increased. Whether his interest was cultivated by intrinsic disdain for the direction Pitkin County was headed or from a strongly telegraphed outlaw’s need to survive a hostile environment remains unclear, but his thumbprint can be seen all over Aspen from the J-Bar, to the Woody Creek Tavern and all the way up to 10,000′ at the bar in Gwynn’s High Alpine restaurant, just off the Alpine Springs lift on Snowmass Mountain.

Snowmass is where we spent our three days of riding this trip. In the past, we’ve split our days between Snowmass and Aspen Mountain, but the base was markedly better at Snowmass this time; plus it’s really hard to turn down the wide and rolling terrains that Snowmass offers to snowboarders.

Of the many mountains I’ve visited Snowmass remains my favorite for variety, size, snow and accessibility. The price is high at $87, but if you come in at noon and park at the Two Creeks lot you get free parking about 20′ from the lift and save almost $20 on your lift ticket. The main lifts run up until 4pm so, unless it’s a powder day, there’s really no reason to get there before the sun has time to cook down the icy snow from the night before. If you’re an early riser and need to kill some time before noon, why not go downtown Aspen and get some of the delicious oatmeal pancakes at PoppyCock’s?

Conditions were definitely what would be called “spring skiing” this time. There were spots of brown at various points of the mountain, but if you stayed on either side of the runs there was plenty of thick, soft, white fluffiness to enjoy from a fresh snow a few days earlier. The final 1/4 mile or so of the run back to the car was so slushy that it was like riding on duct tape with my board constantly grabbing, threatening to throw me off, but that was a small price to pay to be able to snowboard in high-30′s bluebird conditions.

I tried a few new products on this trip. I wanted to try a wax that wouldn’t make the mountain filthy with PFOA’s, but would still serve me well. So to wax my wife’s Never Summer board I tried K2′s Eco Wax. K2′s Eco Wax boasts that it’s “made from naturally occurring vegetable-based waxes that form in hydrocarbon chains, and is therefore very durable” and I believe them. This stuff was the hardest wax I’ve ever seen and a total fucking chore to scrape off. A chore, like it took 2 grown men sweating profusely in 40* temperatures about 30 minutes to get it smooth. Compare that to the relative easy 10 minute manicuring of my typical Swix wax and I’m suddenly beginning to rethink my concerns about this or any other planet. Convenience trumps all, my friends. Fortunately, there are other brands to choose from like Green Wax for instance.

I also tried One Ball Jay’s Biogreen Rub On Wax. This was easier to deal with then the K2 wax, but it still suffered from being really hard, much harder than other competitors decidedly non-green alternatives like the Dakine rub on wax I used last time out. Simpler is always better and softer is better in regards to wax. I’m wondering if these natural alternatives will all be harder and less user friendly than other choices or, since they are new, we’ll see some improvements over the next few years. Hopefully they’ll get these green waxes right before the earth stops snowing.

So another snowboarding season comes to a close and, despite the efforts of el nino, I still had probably my best season yet. I saw more friends and more mountains in 2010 than I’d seen in any year past. What more could a fat, aging man want from a world?

I can’t wait until December.

Here’s a bit of fun I had with some video Wayne shot of us on Snowmass:

I’ve been going out to Salt Lake City pretty consistently for the past 5 years, at least once a season, to indulge in what could arguably be the best snow in the world. Over that time I’ve learned a couple things that are worth sharing.

1. It’s cheap to fly there.  Real cheap.  Typically it’s about $200 round trip from Chicago to SLC depending on who you fly with.  Add in taxes and the cost of shipping your board both ways and it will realistically cost you around $250.  Compare that to $450 to Reno or $600 to Aspen or Vail and there’s just no question.  Check expedia.com and try not to travel on heavy days like Fridays and Mondays and you should find some great deals.
2. They have the largest variety of resorts within less than 1 hour of the airport.  Sure Reno has Mt. Rose and Aspen has the Highlands, Snowmass and Buttermilk, but SLC has an incredible variety of resorts like The Canyons, Park City, Brighton, Solitude, Alta, Snowbird and more all within 30-45 minutes of the airport.
3. Buy discount tickets.  Utah Ski & Golf has a great selection of discounted tickets for sale right downtown SLC.  You can ride most resorts all day, any day for just over $50.  In some cases that can save you up to $40 in a single day.
4. The Park City area is nice because it has plenty of infrastructure to house and distract you while not on the mountain, but Park City gets the least amount of snow of all the resorts.  Check SkiUtah.com for an honest daily listing of snow reports.  Just this past Sunday the Canyons got 1″ of new snow, whileThe Wasatch Mountains get crazy dumped on consistently that last week of March every year.  Last year I was out there for 7 days and they got at least 1 foot of snow 5 of those 7 days and that storm kept up the week after I left.  Now, granted, this is an el nino year and snow has been pretty scarce everywhere, but if I were a gambling man I would still put all in that the last week of March is the perfect time to hit your favorite resort or two in the Wasatch Mountains.
5. For the past few years the Canyons has been running a great deal during that last week of March and first week of April.  $200 gets you lodging, 2 lift tickets and 2 breakfasts every day.  So far I have not seen them advertising this deal for this year though, the closest being the Ski Free & Breakfast, but you only get that deal if you rent one of their suites that start at $350.  Not as good of a deal.  I’m going to keep my eyes open and I’ll shout if I see that deal come up.  It’s kind of a bummer because then you’re stuck riding the Canyons the whole time you are there, but the price and convenience is just real hard to beat.  Plus, if you’re staying at the base of the mountain, no storm, even the one as epic as last season’s that shut down 80 up to Kimball Junction, can keep you off the mountain.