Dark As Night

Wolfman Creek

Living in Colorado as an avid snowboarder, you would probably think everything is nice for me being around some of the best resorts on the planet. My main problem: I hate those places. They're overcrowded, overpriced, and frankly, not very fun.

I've always preferred the mid-sized ski areas that are a bit more off the average person's radar. These places, with better value, crowds, and (in my opinion) terrain, can be a hidden gem amongst the competition. Other times, there's more to the story about why these places are left more undisturbed.

It was 2011. The snowfall we had that season was quite mediocre. None of the ski areas anywhere seemed to be getting snow. The base depth at all of them was less than two feet, and it was already December! Browsing through some snow reports one day, I found an interesting little ski area that had nearly twice the snow versus everywhere else. A little place called Wolf Creek.

It was astounding. Everyone else had less than two feet, and here was this ski area with over four feet of snow! I naturally got a bit excited, and decided to look a bit more into the ski area. The trail maps I found on the website looked promising; it was small, but it seemed to have a lot of different terrain. The area seemed to be split down the middle in terms of what it offered; the northern half had all the basic runs, and the southern half was almost more of a backcountry style area, with just one chair and a majority of the runs requiring a decent hike.

Overall, it looked quite promising, and would be a fun place to visit. I asked my roommate Dalton if he wanted to come with me over the weekend.

"No way, man. Not going there."

"Why not?" I asked.

"You want to have fun with the Wolfman, go ahead."

"Quit trying to scare me and tell my why you don't like it."

"My friend went there a few years back and swore he saw this massive black creature lumbering through the trees off one of the runs."

"You know, I think I've seen them too; they're called bears", I laughed back.

"No, he said it was definitely not a bear. He claimed it almost looked like some sort of...it's hard to explain."

"What, a werewolf?" I joked.

"It's not really that, he just called it the Wolfman because of where he was. I won't go, and that's final."

Not wanting to go to Wolf Creek by myself (I'm not scared, it's just more entertaining with a group), I decided to call up my friends, Spencer and Christian. They emphatically said "yes" before I even finished asking.

That Friday, I loaded my gear into my truck, picked up Spencer and Christian, and drove down south to Wolf Creek. It's a bit out of the way; four hours away from where I lived, not near any really major towns, off a highway in a bit of a desolate area. Slightly unnerving, but nothing major; most of these moderate places are a bit away from civilization.

We got our lift tickets and began messing around the northern half; the other parts could wait a bit. We breezed through a lot of the runs in about two hours thanks to the low crowds. I split off from Christian and Spencer for a bit to play around on one of the shorter runs. Just a little blue run called Kaa that met up with the original trail further down. It was an undulating run with a lot of dips; executed correctly, most of these bumps could yield a little air. Naturally, I was enjoying these jumps, and almost didn't see the mess in the trees near the end of the run.

I only noticed because some of the snow where I landed was a pinkish tone that got darker as it moved into the trees. A rabbit's remains were messily strewn about several feet off the run. It was quite freaky, but I brushed it off. There are quite a few predators out here, so I assumed it was just a fox. That was until I looked a bit closer. All the meat from the rabbit was still present; the rabbit had not been hunted for food, something just eviscerated it for the sake of killing it. Maybe the fox had rabies and was starting to go insane? Or maybe it was...no, I won't go there!