Mountain #11 of #EpicRace -- Afton Alps

Yesterday we packed up all of our gear (again) and headed off to the airport for our flight to Minnesota. It was a really easy set of flights that allowed us to catch up on some much needed sleep.  When we arrived in Minneapolis at 6:30pm, it was a brisk zero degrees outside. We realized that Afton Alps was open for night skiing until 10pm, so we said, "why wait till tomorrow when we can go skiing tonight?!" And off we went to the resort...

Bye Tahoe!

Afton Alps is only about 30 mins outside of the city and we drove through quite a bit of farm land. I was quite impressed with the snow making operation they have out there and you could see the lights and cloud of snow from a few miles away.  When we arrived, it had dropped to -2! We bundled up and headed out for my first adventure night skiing!

Definitely not crowded!

Unfortunately I didn't have the right goggles for night skiing so my super dark ones were not the best, but added to the fun :)

Jess: "Dave, look at the moon! It's bright orange!!!"

Dave: "Those are your goggles dear..."

To add even more excitement, I brought out some glow sticks, but I underestimated how much light there really is when night skiing haha.  They were still fun nonetheless.  We managed to rack up 1,700 vertical feet on an approx. 250' hill! That equaled out to about 7 chair lift rides and covering all of their open terrain, before succumbing to the cold and heading in to the lodge to warm up.  It was a happening place for a Friday night with only one other pair that came in which happened to be some more Epic Racers! It is a father-daughter pair from Austin, TX and the little girl is only 9! How cool to get to miss school to do this race! We had fun comparing notes and travel plans with them about the race.

For the photo/video requirements at Afton Alps, we checked off the following items:

1) Bottom or Top of Chair 5

2) Bottom or Top of Nancy's Nursery (Chair 4, "Where Epic truly begins" beginner hill)

3) Paul's (Restaurant and Bar in Alps Chalet, named after co-founder, Paul Augustine)



Definitely a fun night of skiing! It's a lovely -9 this morning so I'm really glad we went last night when it was a bit warmer! Headed to the Mall of America to check it out before our flight to Detroit later today.  Possibly night skiing round 2 at Mt. Brighton... stay tuned!