Cook it up, Stovetop!: Telluride Day 1

This is what we were treated to at the top of the mountain today. Revelation lift, around 12,200 feet. Bluebird day, 30+ degrees. The skiing was a bit sketchy due to frozen snow melt from the day before, but no problem if you stuck to the off-piste terrain. And there is plenty of gnarly, bumped, rocky, steep terrain to stick to.

Most of our day was spent learning the layout of the mountain. Greg, Andrew, our two roommates Jeremy and Evan, and myself all took off to explore at about 9:00. We opened the lifts, and were blessed with a warm enough day to enjoy the high mountain. When we weren't skiing, we gathered lots of quality pictures.

The word about Telluride is that it has some of the most breath-taking scenery in ski-country. I think Andrew agrees:

We skied every type of run today - Which is saying something, because Telluride ranks it's runs in the following manner:
Green Circle - Beginner

Double Green Circle - Advanced Beginner

Blue Square - Intermediate

Double Blue Square - Advanced Intermediate

Black Diamond - Advanced

Double Black Diamond - Expert Only

We hit 'em all! Green through double-diamond.

Jeremy and I took a narrow, zipper-line, double-diamond run as our final challenge of the day. It was beneath the #10 lift, and we had people cheering for us as we hop-turned our way to the bottom. High-fives went all around when we got to the bottom - Thanks in no small part to Jeremy's spotting of a rocky outcropping.

Greg found a similar run off of the Apex chair, and was all smiles when he returned to the condo. Hopefully he'll show me the way to it over the next few days.

Beyond the skiing, we had a couple experiences with the local wildlife. During lunch, we were discovered by some hungry local birds who had no problem with pecking food straight from our hands. Andrew caught a couple of images of the action, and the ensuing joy that it apparently brought me.

While meandering down a run off of the Prospect lift, we came across a local Telluride legend - Stickers the Porcupine. He was pretty friendly, and as we found out later, he's been here since 2004. I guess he likes the attention.