John's excellent adventure

Colorado 2019-2020

For the last two years we have gone to Colorado for a month or two to ski and enjoy everything the mountains have to offer. This year, we are spending four months in Frisco Colorado. Frisco was founded in 1879 as a result of gold being discovered in the area around the Blue River. Frisco is 8 miles from Breckenridge, 12 miles from Keystone, 15 miles from Arapahoe Basin, 8 miles from Copper Canyon and 22 miles from Vail.

Frisco is over 9000 feet in elevation and it gets pretty cold and snowy. It has not been unusual to get up to single digits on the thermometer with a wind chill as low as minus 11. It has also snowed more than six feet since we’ve been here. In Frisco, they plow the snow into the middle of Main Street and then move to a lot across the street from our condo. Here is what main street looks like after a snow.

Frisco is over 9000 feet in elevation and it gets pretty cold and snowy. It has not been unusual to get up to single digits on the thermometer with a wind chill as low as minus 11. It has also snowed more than six feet since we’ve been here. In Frisco, they plow the snow into the middle of Main Street and then move to a lot across the street from our condo. Here is what main street looks like after a snow.

Here is the lot across from us.

Despite all the snow, nothing closes or even opens late. I guess they are used to it here in snow country – and they are very good at plowing.

Although everything stays open no matter how much it snows, you still have to dig out your car - which could take awhile.

Once we settled in, we decided that we needed to get involved in the local community and looked for volunteer opportunities.

We started at the animal shelter, where we took a three-hour training session to be able to walk a dog. The shelter actually does a great job, taking is dogs from all over Colorado and beyond, and making sure they are healthy and ready to be adopted before letting them go. In December alone, they sent 49 animas (dogs, cats and one guinea pig) for adoption.
I don't think the shelter uses it, but if you have an unruly dog or nervous cat, you can help them mellow out with pet canabis. Here is an actual newspaper ad for such "special products."

Here we are with some of our furry friends.

Karol has been skiing with a group called, "50 plus, ski with us" for the past three years. When they became short of guides she volunteered. Here she is in her uniform.

John also volunteers at the Summit County Community and Senior Center (SCCSC) once a week where he does a myriad of tasks – everything from stocking the copier, to helping people to sign up for activities. The SCCSC supports meals on wheels, home assist visits, care navigation, caregiver support, nutrition services and social groups/programs, , such as yoga, bridge, mah jong and needle crafts. Here’s the office where he sits.

Shortly after we arrived, the town of Breckenridge held its annual Santa Race. It was amazing to see more than 600 Santas running down the main street in Breck. Of course, we wouldn’t miss being part of this event so here we are.

Here are some of the Santas during the run.

Here are some friends we made during our after race happy hour.

Since John doesn’t ski downhill, he has been cross country skiing. Karol didn’t want him to have all the fun so she took it up as well. We ski an average two days a week at the Frisco Nordic Center, where they have miles of groomed trails. Here we are on skis.

In February, we participated in the Summit County 50 plus winter games. The games include slalom and rally downhill skiing, a ski obstacle course, skating and hockey puck shooting, cross country skiing and snow shoeing, a snowball throw, and a biathlon. Karol won a silver medal in the downhill slalom and John got a bronze in the 2.5 k cross country event. He finished dead last but was third in his age group. John also missed a bronze in the hockey puck shoot in a tie break.

Here we are competing.

Here's the start of the cross country ski race. John is number 148.

Karol is slaloming to a silver medal.

We also volunteered to take pictures of the events and submitted more than 500 images of the various events. You can see them at, https://torwick.smugmug.com/Summit-County-50-Open-Winter-G/2020-Games

We haven’t done a lot of snowshoeing but our big outing this year was to Rabbit Ears Pass. Here’s Karol walking out to shoot an aspen grove. The snow was pretty deep – even with snowshoes.

Karol had a milestone birthday this year and Peter and Laura came out to help celebrate. The celebration consisted of a trip to Jackson Hole WY, where we did a photo workshop in Grand Teton National Park, snowmobiled in Yellowstone to see Old Faithful, and skied (Karol and Peter) at Jackson Hole.

Here's the view from our condo. The only time we saw the mountains was the day we were leaving (it was cloudy/snowy the rest of the time).

Here we are in our snomobile outfits.

Here's a view of Yellowstone.

Here is Old Faithful, which was kind of a bust because it was so cold the steam almost obscured the actual geyser.

Along the way, we stopped several times to see a sight or take pictures. One time, a herd of buffalo decided to meander across the road and we had to wait until they passed before we could continue. Here are some of the shaggy beasts.