Tis the Spring Season!

- The Continental divide above Arapahoe Lakes.
I like the crescent moon in this shot. (can you find it?)

Sunday I headed up to Arapahoe Lakes for some spring time snowboarding.
Stoermer and I bushwhacked up the Arapahoe Creek drainage early that morning to short cut the lakes. Along the way we discovered a really neat water fall about ¾ of a mile north off the Boulder creek trail on the drainage. With energy levels high we charged to the lake and were up there around noon. We had lunch and hot chocolate (with peppermint schnapps) at the lakes before hopping on the snowboards and “Schwacking” it back to the car.
Schwacking is a term we use for riding through heavy brush and trees. Sometimes this can be avoided, but in this area the forest is pretty dense and more often than not the lines down the mountain have to be found/made.
As you blast through low level branches, usually dead and brittle (you hope), the branches snap and pop. With a few riders coming down the same slope, it really sounds creepy, almost like a brush fire. The fun part is coming out of the trees, across the trail and then back into the trees. People walking the trail get freaked out and usually pissed at us for some reason....we never stick around to find out why...after all, we're schwacking it!