Finally Some Airtime!

After a morning of skiing newly opened terrain at Loveland Ski Area, Matt and I headed out the gate to Loveland Pass to build a pow booter. We had a spot in mind that is high up on the pass and gets little traffic, but strong winds over the last few days had turned that area into punchy windslab. So, we headed farther down, settling on probably the most popular jump spot in the front range. Its a perfect roll with a long approach and a mellow runout. Amazingly, no one had built a jump here yet this year. Thanks to Matt Teuling for the great pictures!

The snowpack is still quite thin in the northern mountains, with 18 inches of storm snow sitting on top of 12-18 inches of facets. So you have to do a lot of digging...

 

to make a pretty small jump

 

Matt set the tone by throwing his first ever backflip on snow on his first hit on the jump:

 

another backie:

 

Matt throws a big 3:

 

Another 3:

 

which I may have over-rotated a bit...

 

Matt going very large on a front flip:

 

 Flat 3:

 

What a fun day! The snowpack is finally starting to get a little deeper out there; building a jump allowed us to get out into the BC while avoiding the treacherous avy conditions that are prevalent on all steep terrain.