Breckenridge and Keystone Openers
By Joe Carter

This one was quite the road trip. After a mellow 5:00 AM departure from the Atmosphere headquarters in Portland six of us jumped into the car for opening day at Breckenridge. Of course we made a stop for a night in Salt Lake City along the way. The next morning after finding everyone from the nights festivities it was right back into the car to make a stop for a night in Boulder for a bluebird video premier the Atmosphere clothing guys helped put on. Then we skated and partied, big surprise I know. Stephen Denmark was nice enough to let all of us pile into his apartment to crash there for the night, thanks man. In Boulder we skated at the park and made a stop at Satellite boardshop to see what those guys were up to. Make sure to keep an eye for for a new proper places with them. Mark Dangler made the trip out with Luke Mitrani so we headed to Breckenridge to all stay with Jeremy Thompson at his sick new pad. Our morning once again started early to head to Breck for free pancakes from the resort. The weather was perfect in the morning with sunny skies for the one trail that was opened. Our crew was huge with none of us slowing down pointing from the top to the bottom every run that we stayed there for. However you can only ride the same trail so many times so when I asked Sam Driver if we should go check out Keystone his response was. “It’s like bringing 2 chicks back from the bar why do one when you can go for both.” So we jumped back in the car and all went to get down at Keystone.

Keystone was way different then Breckenridge. The gondola made taking laps nice running to the top being able to stay warm as the clouds moved in bringing the cold. The run was much longer at Keystone with some really steep areas to really haul some ass. Towards the top there was a sick pre-season park opened up with tons of jibs, stalls, a few jumps and so many people all over the place. For not really getting too much snow they killed it making some fun stuff to shred with the park staff maintaining everything really well. The down rail got a hurting put on it by Jeremy Thompson, Luke Mitrani, Madison Elsworth, Jake Black, Nick Russell, and plenty of others.

Then you might think we would get tired and chill out for a minute, and you’d be wrong. We headed to Omatic’s Teddy Hoffman’s house to skate his amazing mini ramp he just put into his garage with some brews. That was a highlight of the trip with an awesome session and Teddy and Luke putting on a show. After hearing about a party at Cecelias we headed there for some premiers. The Burton movie “It’s always snowing somehere” played first followed up by the Newsroom Cinema video “Bad Ideas” showing some of the local Colorado riders. Of course we went to an afterparty to keep the night going. So again we all find each other scattered around the town and to make the trip out back to Salt Lake where this trip will end for me as the rest of the guys head back to the Atmosphere headquarters in Portland. Thanks to everyone who let us stay with them. No thanks to 65 dollar lift tickets, ski patrol yelling for going fast, cops at the midway station, and lift lines. To just jump in a car and make a road trip with friends with no plans made this trip sick. Hopefully snowrev will be making more trips to Colorado soon again.