Matthew Botos

One of the pleasant surprises of Aspen has been how environmentally conscious the town is. The ski shuttles are hybrid buses, the lifts run on wind-generated electricity, and our condos voluntarily limit use of the wood burning fireplaces to reduce air pollution in the valley. The town itself is quite walkable, and with the above-mentioned hybrid buses, many people get around just fine without a car. Another sign on a lift tower appealed to the snow lovers’ more base instincts to slow global warming: “Winter is short enough already”.

Conquering a clogged toilet and equally clogged bus, we made it to Aspen Highlands for another day of boarding and skiing. The crowd from the bus dispersed, not to be seen again the whole day. In fact, on the first couple of lift rides, we were still seeing barely touched corduroy below.

Those groomed blues were fast and fun; nothing to do but lean from edge to edge and smile ear to ear. The diamonds were all bumped out, so I passed on those as well as the hike-to terrain in the Highland Bowl, where some more intrepid members of the group dropped in.

Being a narrow mountain made it easier to catch up with people throughout the day, and the lift crew on Cloud 9 treated us to some good tunes each run. Apres ski was at the J Bar in the Hotel Jerome, a wonderfully appointed hotel dating to the 1880’s. Back at the condo, we had a belated wine and cheese welcome party, which turned out to feature a nice spread of food and full bar!

Coming to a ritzy ski town like Aspen, I expected the food to be on the expensive side. So it was a pleasant surprise to find pretty reasonable fare at The Cantina in town the first night. On the mountain, it didn’t take long to find pricey lunches with a fancier twist. Crepes for lunch, anyone?

The best indication, though, came at a slightly frou-frou cafe-type restaurant the second night. The waiter asked what kind of water we would like, sparkling or “Aspen regular”?

Call it the day of things taking longer than expected. Leaving Philadelphia on a frigid Saturday morning, we started off standing in the cold waiting for the parking shuttle, and then fought a 200 mile per hour headwind into Denver. Both were trumped, though, by the six hour bus ride. Between circling back to the airport for a late arrival and slow going over the mountain passes, it was a test of everyone’s patience (and hunger for those who didn’t grab a bite at the airport).

Which leads me to present the first three rules of travel:

1. Take advantage of every bathroom stop
2. Get water whenever available
3. Eat when there’s food around

Despite the long day, we did make it to Aspen, there’s snow on the ground, and in the waning evening light we could make out plenty of steep slopes to challenge us this week.