The Great Annular Eclipse of 2023

I am still remembering the Great American Eclipse of 2017 with fondness and surprise. Even to a trained physicist like me, the sudden disappearance of the sun for a few minutes in the middle of the day was surprising, even startling. It’s probably my fondest memory of a natural event, together with the sight of lava falls on Hawai’i, the Big Island of the state.

But there was a much more convenient eclipse happening in 2023. It happened in October, in the middle of Colorado’s Mud Season, and on a Saturday. The weather was forecast to be absolutely perfect, warmish and sunny and with no clouds in sight. Still, was it not going to be a letdown after the Great Total Eclipse? I mean, we all had heard the song, Total Eclipse of My Heart. Had anyone written anything about the Annular Eclipse of the Heart?

Snowboarding Trips

The Great Canada Snowboarding Adventure

• The Great Canada Snowboarding Adventure
• GCSA Schweitzer
• GCSA RED Mountain
• GCSA Kicking Horse
• GCSA Lake Louise
• GCSA Revelstoke
• GCSA Sunshine Village
• GCSA The Long Drive Home
• GCSA Summary

The Grand Tour of the North

• The Grand Tour of the North: Seeking Fresh Powder Edition
• GTotN: Planning
• GTotN Day 1: San Diego to Sun Valley
• GTotN Day 2: Best Western Tyrolean Lodge and Ketchum, ID
• GTotN Day 2: Sun Valley Resort
• GTotN Day 3: Sun Valley to Jackson Hole
• GTotN Day 4: Lexington Inn and Jackson, WY
• GTotN Day 4/5: Jackson Hole
• GTotN Day 5: Jackson to Big Sky
• GTotN Day 6: River Rock Lodge and Big Sky, MT
• GTotN Day 6: Big Sky Resort
• GTotN Day 7: The long way home
• GTotN Day 6/7: Holiday Inn Boise Airport and flight home
• GTotN: Conclusion

2023

2023-10-14 Eclipse In Santa Fe Nm

Colorado 14ers: Mount Missouri

GCSA Summary

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For a long while, ever since I started buying the Mountain Collective Pass, I had been doing these trips. I’d pick a set of resorts based on physical proximity and travel from one to the other. The Mountain Collective Pass was limited to two days at each resort (50% off for additional days), so that was a lot of traveling.

I did three such trips. The first one was along the Pacific Coast, hitting Mammoth, Lake Tahoe, and Whistler. The second included Jackson Hole, Park City, Little Cottonwood Canyon, and Aspen/Snowmass. The third one was Sun Valley, Jackson Hole, and Big Sky.

GCSA The Long Drive Home

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Really, I should have titled this article based on the mountain/resort we visited, but it wasn’t worth it.

Lake Louise and Sunshine Village always show up in concert with a third resort, Mount Norquay. They form Alberta’s Big 3 on all marketing material, to the point that IKON passes are valid for 5 days total at any of their resorts, except for these three that count as one.

After Lake Louise and Sunshine Village, I was expecting another world class resort. True, people that had been in Alberta all told me Norquay was “not worth it,” but how bad could it be?

GCSA Sunshine Village

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Our time in Canada was coming to an end. It was Friday morning and the AirBnB was booked to Sunday. But between the insane cold and the realization that it was near impossible to make it in one go from Field to Lakewood after a day of snowboarding, we decided to leave a day early. Friday would be our last full day of snowboarding, then we’d do the first half of the drive on Saturday, sleep somewhere on the way, then continue to Colorado on Sunday.

GCSA Revelstoke

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It turns out that the extreme cold was only in the Bow River valley, and that temperatures to our West were much, much milder. We were familiar with the phenomenon from Denver, where under certain circumstances the East is bitter cold with Canadian temperatures, while the mountains of Summit County are relatively balmy, despite being a full mile higher up in the air.

We had skipped Revelstoke on our first attempt, but it was going to see a high of 32 instead of -10. Was it worth the two hour drive in potentially frosty conditions on potentially slick roads? You betcha!

GCSA Lake Louise

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We got up “late,” around 8. The storm had dumped about a foot of snow and the host (actually, the neighbor) came out to clear it. Then we got to the car, which was covered thick, to nobody’s surprise. At least, it started just fine and we could drive away with no issue.

The drive was what you’d expect after a major snow storm. While it’s just 28 km, less than 20 miles, it requires going up to Kicking Horse Pass and then down into the valley of the Bow river. Just to tell you how steep it is, the railway connection from Golden to Calgary had to be built over the pass, and necessitated two corkscrew, Spiral Tunnels cut into the mountainside, one to the North and one to the South of the valley. The trains would enter the tunnel, do a fully loop, and find themselves at the exit slightly higher (or lower) the where they got in.