HellerCopter: With January comes the big comps

January is really the pure winter month. Unadulterated by the huge traditional holidays of December, January allows winter aficionados to focus on what’s really important.
JANUARY IS REALLY the pure winter month. Unadulterated by the huge traditional holidays of December, January allows winter aficionados to focus on what’s really important.
    There is calm in getting in the car before dawn, in anticipation of the brightness of the Colorado day. The red taillights of the cars slowly twisting along the two-lane road in the morning predawn snowstorm. It’s all pure winter, reassuring in its smug frigidity.
    After a recent 16-inch powder day (part of an extraordinary three weeks at Eldora), we retreated to the bar and came out in the dark with the snow still coming down hard. That is church for me.
    It’s a good thing, cold and getting rarer all the time. The snowpack in Colorado in many areas is well below normal, suffering partly from a freak warm-up last week (it was in the mid-40s in Vail for a few days in a row).
    But now winter has reclaimed its hold on us, giving a week of sub-zero nights and daytime highs only in the single digits, freezing the nose hairs on the groomers and the catwalks.
    That and football playoff chases off the posers, while the winter people know that there is only a month left of real winter, before the sun crust begins its inevitable creep out of the southern aspects into the easterlies, westerlies and eventually our last refuge of the northern slopes.

    By now the bugs should be getting worked out of your ski routine.
    For me that is essential as I now hit the road nearly every week for the next three months, documenting freeskiing color and history for you as it unfolds in front of our eyes all over the West.
    I’m indebted to the Vail Surefoot boot fitters for helping me dial in my shoes, building some condos in my Kryptons for my anklebones! www.surefoot.com
    A good boot fitter is worth traveling to get to. Thankfully, they are usually located at the base of the mountains where I want to be, so traveling there is half the fun.
    Dalbello sent me the Intuition” heat-moldable EVA innerboots for the Krypton — in 30 years of skiing, I’ve never had one piece of equipment change the feel of my setup so dramatically! I skied on this boot last year, but it feels completely different with the new liner — snappier, more responsive, like my skis are an extension of my feet in a new way! Amazing! www.dalbellosports.com

    The U.S. Open kicks off the freeskiing comp season on Jan. 17. Last year, we saw TJ Schiller make history with a switch 1440, Charles Gagnier and a number of other Quebecois throwing 810s and 630s to the rails, and the excitement level is always at its peak with anticipation of the X Games and all the pros literally in the air.
    With the Open’s move to Copper Mountain Resort (Colorado), there will surely be some new craziness to document. I think the parties are really going to be stepped up, as everyone will be staying in one base village with no driving necessary.
    Sometimes fortune smiles down all around; my favorite band is playing live at the U.S. Open big air event! Rose Hill Drive is the name and hard-blues psychedelic rock is the game. These guys have a young and an old following, and though only in their early 20s, they channel the drive and spirit of Cream, Free, Hendrix, etc. into a new millennium. www.rosehilldrive.com
    Lots of their fans are old enough to be into the original material that inspires their music, and it’s a breath of fresh air for hard-rock fans that prefer to avoid the fashionably tragic tone of grunge and the majority of nu metal.

    The next Thursday will see the opening of the 11th annual Winter X Games in Aspen, from Jan. 25-28. This is one of the best places to celebrate winter and with Aspen getting more than 20 inches last week, the slopes should be going off.
    Of course there are numerous concerts, magazine parties and awards for ski films and athletes of the year. The only hard part is working, skiing and making it to all the parties!
    And if you suffer from post-X depression, cheer up ’cause The Honda Ski Tour is in Breckenridge the next weekend, which will also be heavy on the music side with Blackalicious, Spearhead, Swollen Members and a fistful of reggae acts.

    There’s no rest for the wicked as to-hell-we-ride for the second annual Telluride Freeskiing Open. From Feb. 8-11, the country’s best big-mountain athletes will open the 2007 season.
    This funky and beautiful resort and contest were favorites with athletes and organizers alike last year. This year the action should be even hotter, as the southern Colorado mountains have had an excellent start on snow this season.

    Got winter?