Breckenridge 3/20- 3/22

[johnnash]

Have been skiing Breck the last few days, and while the surface conditions aren’t as nice as they were at A-basin Saturday, they’re really pretty good, considering the warm spell a few days ago. It seems that there wasn’t as much melting as you might expect, and the few inches of snow after that warm spell seems to have repaired at least the low angle stuff. The low angle groomers are primarily packed powder, with just a few areas of hardpack showing through after a day of skiing. The black bump runs (e.g., off 6 chair) skied OK Tuesday afternoon after a morning of sun, but today (Wednesday) afternoon with no sun were hard as bricks. Imperial Bowl surface was excellent in the sun Tuesday -- PP all the way. Wednesday afternoon, this area was very stiff in places, to say the least, but was all edgeable chalk. As you can see from the pix, the coverage to skier’s right is very sketchy, although a few hardy souls were skiing the chutes. Hard to tell from the pix, but there is a serious cornice along much of the ridge. Hoping for a good re-surfacing from the upcoming storm Wednesday night and Thursday. [Sorry, having a hard time with the Faststone re-sizing software, so can't upload pix, but take my word for it -- serious cornice and spotty coverage, other than the main Imperial Bowl, where coverage is great. Will try to post pix again later, if I have more time.]

 

[Tony Crocker]

Whale's Tail, far skier's left of Imperial, was what was best (wide open, long and fairly steep fall lines) when I was at Breck 2 years ago. Is coverage OK over there?

 

[johnnash]

The whole area to skier's left that you could see from the lift was in pretty good condition, and should improve today. Imperial isn't open, but lower elevations have gotten 5-6 inches I would guess, and it's still coming down pretty hard (as of noon lunch break). They've been shooting avi guns all morning. What I'm not 100% sure about is whether Whale's Tail is an area you can see from the lift, or whether you have to go to the other side of the ridge line, where I did not go. I'm attaching pix of the ridge to skier's right of the lift, looking back from about halfway down in the bowl under the liftline. Chutes are very sketchy coverage , although apparently skiable for somebody!

 

[NeedhamSkier]

For Whale's Tail, if I remember correctly, you go straight on from the top of the Imperial lift, sort of heading left round the corner and then follow the ridge down and keep traversing across as far as you like. It's not the area directly under the lift

 

[EMSC]

I'm attaching pix of the ridge to skier's right of the lift,

Those would be the short, but real deal steep lake Chutes. Very skiable but skied a bit less frequently since they require an annoyingly long hike relative to the short amount of vert.

Thinner coverage than normal for this time of year though. Especially the cornice on the far left of the first pic is usually even bigger and more scary looking.