« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
September 28, 2005
Aspen Filmfest draws off-season crowds
Just when we thought off season crowds were beginning, the annual fall filmfest has begun, drawing a crowd of movie-goers. Movie actors and producers, such as Rob Reiner, Bob Rafelson, Felecity Huffman and William H. Macy will also be attending the filmfest movies and will make in person appearances at select films. The filmfest begins today, September 28, and ends on Sunday October 2. Today's films include "The Overture", "Ballets Russes", and "Capote". The filmfest continues throughout the weekend and presents an array of films from controversial to comical. Tickets range from $8 to $15 depending upon which film or special event you wish to attend. To purchase your tickets or to read more information about ticket prices go to www.aspenfilm.org.
Posted by at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2005
Warren Miller's Higher Ground Comes to Colorado
It is just about that time again, when Warren Miller's action packed ski and snowboard film kicks off the winter season and fills all of the attendees with intense anticipation. Warren Miller's 2005 ski/ snowboard film, "Higher Ground," will kick off in Boulder with a benefit, concert and film event. All proceeds from the Boulder event will be donated to the Mile-High Chapter of the American Red Cross. Following the Boulder kick-off charity event, Warren Miller will start to make its way through Colorado by heading to Steamboat, Winter Park and Aspen / Snowmass Resort. Get ready for the ski season by participating in this event. Warren Miller will be in Aspen at the Wheeler Opera House on Friday, October 28 and Saturday October 29. Click here for ticket information in Aspen. For a more detailed schedule visit www.warrenmiller.com.
Posted by at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2005
Glenwood Caverns - excitement in the fall season
This past weekend, employees of Stay Aspen Snowmass had the opportunity to ride a new gondola and experience the Glenwood Caverns. I was very impressed with the variety of activities they had available. Not the least of which involved exploring the famous Glenwood caverns. Our guide, Bob, was a retired science teacher from Rifle, Co and proved to be both entertaining and informative. The caverns have a variety of unique and fascinating geological features (more than just your average stalagtite/stalagmite cave) with a rich history to boot. There are a few options to choose from and after this preview, I know I will be back for their get down and dirty "wild tour".
Afterwards, we rode the Alpine slide - a version of a mountain roller coaster and the giant swing. The swing flies high out and over the end of a cliff - giving one a combined body as well as visual thrill of Glenwood Canyon and I-70.
Another great feature of the Caverns is the ability for small to medium size groups to congregate. We had our customer service training for our staff in the morning overlooking Glenwood Springs. It was a beautiful setting to help us unwind and feel like we were getting away from it all. Below is our trainer Julie Burch from JLH Productions.
Posted by efullerton at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2005
A Celebration of Snow Film and Culture in Aspen
This weekend, a new event, celebrating snow film and culture is coming to Aspen. "The Meeting" is an industry driven event that will bring the town of Aspen the newest ski and snowboard films. The athletes featured in the films will also do autograph signings at each showing. The weekend kicks off on Thursday with an opening party at the Sky Hotel , and continues Friday, Saturday and Sunday with an extensive list of ski and snowboarding films, a pool party, and athlete appearances. Don't miss out on this event kicking off the winter season.Click here to read a detailed schedule of events for "The Meeting."
Posted by at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2005
The Renaissance of Snowmass - New Improvements at the Village!
The Renaissance of Snowmass, CO is being done to provide fast mountain access, which means more time skiing and less time waiting in line. Snowmass will upgrade its renowned ski area by creating a new base village, which will add over 64,000 square feet of new shops, restaurants, a community aquatic center, and newer, faster lifts. For the first time, there will be a short, 2 minute ride on the Sky Cab taking you from the base village to the existing Snowmass Village Mall. The Sky Cab will also offer access to skiing and snowboarding on lower Fanny Hill for the 2005-2006 ski season. The Village Express, a new six-passenger lift taking only 9.5 minutes to get from the bottom of Fanny Hill to Sam's Knob, will replace the existing Fanny Hill chairlift. The lift will have a mid-way unloading station for those who would like to access the beginner terrain. The Village express will accommodate 2,800 people per hour, rising 2,174 in vertical feet, and it cuts your total riding time in half and eliminates waiting in two additional lift lines to access the same terrain. And it just keeps getting better. This year, Snowmass lodging properties are undergoing massive renovations with over $28 million of property upgrades. If skiing in one of the top ski resorts in the world interests you, contact the Official Central Reservations to begin planning your next unforgettable winter ski vacation. Click here to read more about the Renaissance of Snowmass
Posted by at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2005
Packing Checklist for winter vacation in Aspen / Snowmass
Preparing for a ski vacation is not exactly easy...there is so much stuff that goes along with skiing, not to mention what you have to pack when you aren't enjoying the snow on the slopes. Stay Aspen Snowmass just posted a very helpful packing checklist...that way, you will remember all of the necessities and be ready to enjoy your vacation in the mountains. Check out the new packing list at www.stayaspensnowmass.com
Posted by at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)
September 05, 2005
Will South America Powder Predict a Good Winter to come?
Do you know what it is like to ski in over 23 feet of powder? Well, friends who are enjoying the winter season in South America could probably tell you. They just sent over some pictures of their powder day in Chile, over 23 feet of snow in one night. So much snow that the lifts were buried. Could you imagine? They did say that the season they have tends to reflect the season we receive in North America…Lets cross our fingers for the next 80 days (until the mountain opens) that we can enjoy a powder day that amazing. Enjoying the new Deep Temerity lift on a snow day like this - a new triple chair, which rises 1,700 vertical feet in 7.3 minutes and gives access to 180 acres of new advanced, expert and extreme terrain – would be amazing. Skiing Highlands bowl in Aspen, with that much snow would definitely constitute an epic flag day.
Posted by at 06:25 AM | Comments (0)
September 02, 2005
World Amateur Championship of Golf -Final Day
Yesterday's final round didn't turn out to be any less challenging than the first three. With the world's largest golf tournament being contested across 75 courses in the Myrtle Beach area, each flight has an opportunity to play some of the better courses in the area, along with one or two of the less desirable. Sea Gull golf club was definately one of the less desirable, described by a local as "an 18 hole cow pasture surrounded by out-of-bounds on both sides of every hole." I must say I agree with that description. As the head pro welcomed us and announced all the local rules, he also pointed out the fact that we would be the last group of golfers to ever experience this old course, as the following day the bull-dozers were coming in to conduct a $7 Million renovation that will transform this land into the new Pawleys Island Golf Club scheduled to reopen in late 2006.
Yesterday's final round saw a rough start for all four of us. Bob (one of our flight leaders until that point) and Ned from Philadelphia both posted 9's & 10's on the opening par 4, while Byron from Minneapolis dropped a birdie putt and I quietly walked away with a happy bogey. I three-putted the next green for a dissappointing double. Then I finally got snagged on the third hole... my decent tee shot took a bad bounce into a water hazard. Then my third shot took an unlucky bounce to a point less than two feet beyond the left O/B line... back to the point of my prior shot dropping four / hitting five. Found myself short-sided off-the-back two shots later, then two-putted for a quintuple-bogie 9... 8 over after the first three holes! Then on the next hole, Byron, who had a pretty good start, set the new high score for our group with an 11 on an easy par 5! I quickly learned that the strategy on this course is simple - SHORT & STRAIGHT! My driver never came out of the bag the rest of the day, and I managed to plog along with pars and bogies the rest of the round to salvage a respectable 93. Never was I so happy to watch the final putt drop on the 72nd hole... what a grind! I have a newfound respect for players on tour who do this for a living. They definately earn their keep!
Final results for 72 holes... 372 strokes (94/96/89/93), placing me alone in 49th place (gross) out of 89 in my flight. Our young friend Jeremy from Massachusetts did manage to win our flight with a 72-hole total of 336 (85/82/86/83), and will be competing in the championship round today with the 44 other flight winners to determine an overall world champion. Meanwhile, we crunched some fun numbers this morning to see where our net scores stacked up overall. While it's not apples-to-apples because all the flights were contested across different course, we calculated that my net 316 placed me in a 68-way tie for 1,934th place out of 3,061 men whose final results were available so far (two flights have yet to report because of rules discrepencies). Al's 344 net placed him in a 22-way tie for 2,636th.
All in all, a very well run tournament with lots of great people. I can honostly say I never came across a single sandbagger or rules violater the entire week, and met a lot of great folks I will certain to come across again in the future. Now the three of us are headed over to Barefoot for a non-competitive round on the Fazio course there. Then I'm off on a flight up to northern Virginia this evening to spend the Labor Day weekend with friends and family in that area before returning to Colorado on Monday.
However, the competitive golf is not quite over for the weekend. I had already registered for a one-day Michelob Ultra Tour event (the tour I have been competing in since last spring) at the Stonewall Golf Club on Lake Manassas tomorrow. I learned via e-mail this week that Colorado will indeed be fielding a team for the Ryder Cup style Sir Alfred Cup at the national championships in Orlando in October (I had already qualified for and plan to attend the national stroke-play event), and I have received an invitation to be one of two players representing Colorado's Sarazan flight on their 12-member team. As it turns out, tomorrow's event at Stonewall is the final qualifier to determine who will be representing the northern Virginia team on the Sir Alfred Cup. So in all likelihood, the folks I will be playing against tomorrow will be some of the same folks I will be facing at the nationals!
That's it from Myrtle Beach. I am certain to be back next year, and from the sounds of some of the replies from e-mails I have received this week, I expect that we will end up with a much larger group, hopefully including some more international competitors, for next year as well.
- Bill
Posted by efullerton at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2005
Day 3: World Amateur Golf Championship
Deep in the Woods
Finally started playing some decent golf yesterday, as I was one of only 20 competitors in my flight to break 90 at the Tradition. As the name implies, the Tradition is a basic, traditional, tree-lined golf course. While pretty generous off the tee, there are a number of very intimidating and extremely difficult holes that set the stage for a number of adventures. Fortunately, my most amuzing adventures resulted in no higher than a 7 on the scorecard. My playing partners today - Randy from Atlanta, Doug from Cleveland, and Juan from Guatemala, all had adventures that added up to 9's, 10's and even one 12!
My big adventure today came on the 14th hole - a strong par 4 playing straight into the wind. My weak tee shot found the middle of the fairway but with over 210 yards left to the green. I jumped all over my 4-wood, and as usually happens when I overswing, pulled my approach hard-left. In this case, hard-left meant deep into the woods. My provisional was hit perfectly just short of the green. As we approached the point where my original ball was thought to be, Randy had already commenced the search and spotted my ball before I had a chance to tell him please not to bother, and verified the find by a shout from deep in the woods: "You playing a Callaway 2 marked with a purple circle, aren't you? Here it is!" I really wish he hadn't found it. Whenever the original ball is found, your provisional is no longer in play. Your only options are to play the ball as it lies, or take an unplayable lie with a one-stroke penalty and a very limited number of options.
My ball was about 30 feet into woods so thick and dark I almost needed a flashlight to identify it, it was lying in a deep pile of leaves and twigs, my backswing was restricted by a tree, and I could barely see the light of day 30 feet ahead. Worse yet was this little thing that interfered with my follow-through less than five feet in front of my face ... the biggest, most beautiful spider-web I have ever seen! In the middle of this spider-web was the biggest, ugliest spider I have ever seen just sitting there waiting for its prey! I'm talking about a colorful spider almost as big as my hand! A full follow-through would not only destroy this work of art, but would likely wrap this entire web (along with a potentially venomous spider) around me. So I opted to attempt a low punch shot with an abbreviated follow-through... very carefully. To make matters worse, as I was taking my stance, one of the sticks I was stepping on moved! At first I thought it was a small snake, but as it scurried away, I saw it had legs! Then whatever kind of reptile this was turned around and started staring at me - like he wanted to watch me try to pull off this shot! Between this reptile and the spider, I had quite an audience at very close range! So without wasting any more time thinking about it, I went for it... the ball was successfully advanced beneath the bottom of this spider web, trashed through all kinds of thick vegetation, and found the edge of the golf course in about 4 inches of Bermuda! Never was I so happy to find deep Bermuda rough! Now all I had to do was deal with the fact that I was short-sided behind a bunker in rough so deep I couldn't even see my ball, along with over-hanging tree limbs to a green that sloped downhill toward a pond on the opposite side. When I managed to finally drain a six-footer for a 7, I felt like it was the greatest triple-bogie I had ever made!
Like the first two days, I was paired up with three great guys today who shared a lot of laughs throughout the round while also taking the tournament seriously. Even though today's score of 89 was among the top twenty in my flight (the other guys in my group today posted scores of 96, 98 and 111), it only pulled me up from 60th to 49th place out of 89 in our flight. Today is the fourth and final round, to be played at another course down in Pauley's Island called Sea Gull. The heat and humidity has been stiffling - it hit 94 degrees here today with very high humidity (heat index of 105), but I have been learning to cope with it, and there has been just enough of a breeze to keep it tolerable.
- Bill
Posted by efullerton at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)
Day 2: World Golf Amateur Championship Tournament
Here is Bill's second day entry:
Monday now seems like a piece of cake compared to yesterday, as we got brushed by some of the outer ring bands of Katrina with strong 25-knot winds all day along with a couple of stray tropical squalls that turned our umbrellas inside out and soaked our grips by the fifth hole. About the only damage Katrina did around here was to the scorecards of the World Am competitors, especially those of us playing the exposed links-style Hummingbird course at Wild Wing Plantation. Trouble in the form of hidden wetlands lurked everwhere! Nearly one-third of the field of 12 & 13 handicappers failed to break 100. By comparison, my 96 yesterday felt like a quite an achievement, especially when everyone in our group took either a 7 or an 8 on a dinky little 316-yard par four with only three holes left to play!
I'm still scratching my head at how I dropped down to 60th on the leaderboard after day two, but the numbers are what they are. A young fellow named Jeremy Daly from Massachusetts whose score I was keeping played really well yesterday, posting an 82 (with a 7 on the card) following an 85 on day one. A really nice kid who works in computer sales, he now has a two shot lead over the entire field in our flight, and is a sure favorite to win our flight and advance to Friday's championship round if he keeps playing the way he did yesterday.
Today I'm off to the Tradition Golf Club down on Pawley's Island. Southwesterly winds of 10-15 knots are supposed to continue today, which I welcome because it provides some relief from the heat which would otherwise by pretty oppressive with temps in the low 90's + 90% humidity. Being 23 strokes back at the midway point of the tournament, the top of the leaderboard is now longer realistically within my grasp, but I will continue to do my best to climb as high as I can as this tournament turns into a war of attrition... Paul had to withdraw yesterday as he could no longer cope with the heat while battling a cold, while Al was nearly DQ'd as he mistakenly showed up to play at River's Edge instead of the River Club nearly an hour away... Whoops! Fortunately, they are allowing him to continue on by competing in a lower flight.
- Bill
Posted by efullerton at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)
