Canaan Valley, WVA

To our surprise, we arrived to "11" out of 39 slopes open, when in all reality it was more like 2. It wouldn't have been so bad if there was a park (not even a jump was built) and after the 6-8 inch snowfall we got on the first night there, still only those 2 runs were worth riding.. or open. Britt and I even got our tickets marked for riding on a closed trail. "What kind of bullshit is this?" I kept thinking to myself. "This is NOT what I'm used to anymore!" So I drew mountains over the big X and you couldn't see that it was ever there. :-)
So to "prepare" for my trip out west, I run 2 slopes over and over again, trying to find any kind of lip to jump, obeying every freakin' sign as to not let the money I had already spent on these lift tickets to go waste.. and no bore myself to death, (btw, there is only 1 lift open out of 3.. besides the bunny slope).

Thankfully that's where the 8 other friends come in. Luckily for them, coming here last year wasn't like this, but we made the best of out of it. We had a great time despite the lack of slopes open under amazing conditions; it was night that held all the fun! We played in the snow and lived it up every night we were there. Overall it was great and although we were only able to hit 2 slopes for the first couple of days on a mountain with "39".. it's the people you're with that make up for it.
It sure isn't the Alps though.


On a side note.. due to all the tie we had with our 15 minute ride up the lift and our 1 minute and 29 second ride down.. timed on both slopes (they're pretty much the same), Steven, Brittany and I agreed that if any one of us were to win the lottery, (at first we were going to take everyone on an amazing boarding trip), but then we decided we'd just BUY A MOUNTAIN! We would run it, and by run it, we mean - hire other people at $8.00 an hour to run it for us, as we sit on our lazy asses and snowboard all day. We also agreed that we were too cheap to buy one of those high tech groomers, so we're going to make a 75 man "human grooming machine!"- which will probably cost more than just buying the high-end thing, but as Britt says, "she'd rather watch people do it instead." Steph: "And they better not sit down on the job!" Murph: "I don't care how long the run is.. they're not stopping!"
And of course the mountain will be either out west or in Alaska. The name: BULL MOUNTAIN- dead on.
Now would you look at that! We've got ourselves a business merger. Not only will we have our own mountain, we're also going to produce our own clothing line for snowboarding (for course). There will be the Andy Brand, The Kristi Co., Brittany's Line, and then.. wait for it... keep waiting... waiting.... "The Murphs" (with a separate children's section to be named, 'the Smurfs').

As for everyone else, they can come up with their own logo/brand name/ design thing, since they weren't there on this merger deal.. probably because they were being recruited for hire by our non-existent staff.
Unfortunately, we have to be careful not to be mauled by a bear and dragged by to its den/cave for a late night snack before we win the lottery.
Otherwise, I think we have a good chance of making this dream come true!
What...? Ohhh right, maybe we should start playing the lottery first.



As the week went on.. more surprise came about. Finally the majority of the trails were opened and brought quite a good ride! Wooded trails are particularly my favorite (until I run into trees-- HA, oh the video to be shown from Vail).

Overall, it turned out to be an amazing week, with new friends, snowboarding, so much laughter, music, druinking, fun and snow! A++

And so onto VAIL!