We got the chance to stay in Salida, CO and ski Monarch Mountain today and tomorrow. Yesterday as we were driving from Gunnison to Salida it was nice and sunny out. And because it was Daylight Savings time we got kinda a late start this morning. When we walked out the door it was snowing. By the time we got up to the mountain (around 11am) it was snowing hard and the wind was blowing big time.
It took us a while to get dressed because the wind was blowing the snow from every direction possible. We got our complimentary passes and contemplated getting season passes to Monarch as they offer free passes to many different places and costs 75 dollars cheaper than Powderhorn season passes. We hoped on the Advanced lift and headed up to the top of the mountain. I fell getting off the lift, it was a crazy exit, we headed down a blue called Little Mo' and could hardly see a thing. Then we headed up Pioneer lift and the wind started blowing so hard it was swinging the chair, little bit of some nail biting. We headed down the KC cutoff to Sleepy Hollow to the Panorama lift. We headed up Panorama lift to the top of the Continental Divide. We started down the Great Divide (blue run) and it started snowing and blowing so hard that I became disoriented and fell a couple times I thought I was headed down the run and apparently I was parallel to the run stopped. Talk about being blind. There were four of us trying to make our way down the run. Literally couldn't see inches in front of us at times. I lost sight of Renae a couple of times and she was only 5 feet in front of me. Needless to say I was glad to have experienced it but thought I was going to die. Totally a Donner Party snow storm. We eventually made it down and decided to head down to Salida. Thankfully we did so in time before they closed Monarch Pass.
We came down and did a little bit of shopping at some of the T-Shirt/ski rental places. Buying time to become hungry so we can eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant. The first thing we order were drinks but then fried jalapenos (ummm yummy burn your face off hot). Their salsa is pretty good and their food in general is pretty good. They only have one server (generally) so they are slow but the food is definitely worth it. It's called Los Girasoles on 50 HWY in Poncha Springs. Here are some pictures (apparently blogger wanted to put them at the top of the post)of me eating the Jalapeno's. Renae had the wherewith all to have her camera and take pictures.
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