Last Thursday morning was one of the coldest days on record for the 2009-2010 season, but that didn’t stop myself, Greg Wright and Pat Crawford from heading up to Vail to meet Geoff Curtis and Mike Noonan of Volkl to do some demoing of prototypes for the Volkl 2010-2011 line. Suffice it to say, Volkl is stepping up and expanding the company’s freeride line. We’ll have all the details for you come ski test and buyer’s guide time.

After an apres session with the Volkl crew, we headed over to the Westin in Avon where Julie Dunn of Dunn Communications had graciously set us up with a couple of rooms to “test” as well. The Westin has what they call “Heavenly” beds, and I totally give them a ten on the stoke meter.

Volkl prototypes.

We checked out the Christmas decorations for a minute, but did some extensive testing at the Lobby Wine Bar and Avondale Restaurant Bar before hitting the Heavenly bed.

Erin Sullivan from POC, hella VIP.

We checked out the race the next day, and found Amanda Jean French, our local Lange girl posted up signing autographs. Freeskier had a presence at a World Cup race after all. Some other friends were there including Bucky from Spyder and Sully from POC. We made the rounds, said quick hellos and then bolted to go ski. One can only watch so much gate smacking at a time.

So big thanks to Volkl and the Westin for a great stay and weekday turns, something we see little of before all of our deadlines are finished. Speaking of which, we go to print with the February issue tomorrow. So look for that in your mailboxes soon!