Blizzards, Avalanches Mark the End of 2007

By Bob Berwyn, 1-02-08

	Caption: An off-the-menu sashimi cup is one of the tasty sushi-style treats available at the Bamboo Garden restaurant in Silverthorne. Photo by Leigh Wadden.

If they made a movie, it would be called Escape From Summit County. Such was the scene New Years Eve in Colorado’s ski resort hub, as every major road in the county was at a gridlocked standstill when Interstate 70 finally re-opened after being shut down by a blizzard overnight. When state troopers finally started allowing a trickle of cars back on to the highway, floods of vacationers all tried to leave at the same time, jamming every major intersection and overwhelming town streets and county roads. The holiday blizzard made headlines in the Denver Post, and even rated a mention on the BBC and CNN’s international broadcasts, as seen in South America by a traveling Summit County resident.

The threat of avalanches in some of the steep mountain canyons east of Summit County and between Copper Mountain and Vail was the primary reason for the lengthy closure. About 2,000 travelers were stranded and spent the night in emergency shelters in the Silverthorne Recreation Center and Summit Middle School in Frisco. The Summit Daily News — which couldn’t get a timely print edition on the streets because of the storm — reported stories from some of the stranded travelers on its web site.

But the storm wasn’t all bad news. The shelter system, administered by the Red Cross and local law enforcement agencies, worked well, and a steady stream of storms in December made for excellent ski conditions in the Colorado high country. Vail reported its snowiest December since 2002, and Aspen also flirted with all-time December snowfall records.

Snow, cold temps and wind have also been the main ingredients in a cycle of triggered and natural avalanche releases around Colorado’s mountains. Colorado Avalanche Information Center forecasters say that a complex sandwich of wind slabs and crystallized layers at the base of snowpack is still tender a prone to triggered releases. A few slides ran in the backcountry near Vail, in known avalanche paths below treeline. The CAIC also reported several close calls in the Loveland Pass area, where some snowboarders triggered a large slab avalanche but escaped unscathed.

Finally, if you someday get stuck in Summit County near that notorious I-70 interchange in Silverthorne, don’t despair. Make the best of it and visit the Bamboo Garden restaurant in the Summit Place shopping center (home to Office Max) for some of the best sushi you will find in Colorado. We here at the New West Snowblog have always believed that sushi is the perfect ski food, a balanced package of carbs and proteins that’s sure to keep your powder groove going all day long. And we also know there are many fine sushi establishments along the I-70 corridor, from Summit County through Vail all the way to Aspen. But we haven’t yet found a place less pretentious and with better sushi than this little gem tucked away in the far corner of a nondescript strip mall. If you sit at the sushi bar, be sure to buy Tony, the sushi chef, a shot of sake, and he may even set you up with something that’s not even on the menu, like the sashimi cup pictured with this post. Once you’ve tried this, getting stuck won’t seem like such a bad thing ever again.