EMSC
Well-known member
Summary: Nothing too extreme, but still a good looking bowl that will make the Basin 'ski differently'; but I'll be waiting for a lot more snow before going back again.
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Had to do the real job for half a day so hit the Basin about 1:30pm with my wife (on my way to work a race in Breck on Sunday).
It's a good looking bowl, nothing too extreme, but some solid pitch for much of it (skiers right anyway). You have to hike (short) to do full vert on the best parts/chutes of the skiers right side and only the first couple sections/chutes/'trails' were open.
I can see the possibilities, and it will definitely make A-Basin ski differently, but mostly I was disappointed in the rockiness of things. I had one core shot a several other significant dings (thank goodness I was on my rock skis). There seemed to be a LOT of just barely hidden land mines. If you stuck to the easier parts of the bowl you could easily have not hit anything (my wife didn't), but then what's the point?
I'd say that for average skiers, go ahead on the easier parts of the bowl, but for anyone wanting to hit the better stuff, only go during late season, or very big snow years.
One of the other funky things was that the blue trail on the map that collects all the skiers on the skiers right of the bowl was groomed
(all of 2 groomer widths); but had a 10-15 foot vertical uphill in the middle of it, on the way down to the chair. I would think a lot of tourists will not like that aspect much, though no big deal for users of these boards.
The snow that was there, was cut up powder of anywhere from 6-18" deep and skied rather nicely in many spots. Weather was kind of overcast/partly sunny. At least one run was essentially skiing by braille though.
Edit: wanted to note East Wall is still closed...
**************************************
Had to do the real job for half a day so hit the Basin about 1:30pm with my wife (on my way to work a race in Breck on Sunday).
It's a good looking bowl, nothing too extreme, but some solid pitch for much of it (skiers right anyway). You have to hike (short) to do full vert on the best parts/chutes of the skiers right side and only the first couple sections/chutes/'trails' were open.
I can see the possibilities, and it will definitely make A-Basin ski differently, but mostly I was disappointed in the rockiness of things. I had one core shot a several other significant dings (thank goodness I was on my rock skis). There seemed to be a LOT of just barely hidden land mines. If you stuck to the easier parts of the bowl you could easily have not hit anything (my wife didn't), but then what's the point?
I'd say that for average skiers, go ahead on the easier parts of the bowl, but for anyone wanting to hit the better stuff, only go during late season, or very big snow years.
One of the other funky things was that the blue trail on the map that collects all the skiers on the skiers right of the bowl was groomed
(all of 2 groomer widths); but had a 10-15 foot vertical uphill in the middle of it, on the way down to the chair. I would think a lot of tourists will not like that aspect much, though no big deal for users of these boards.
The snow that was there, was cut up powder of anywhere from 6-18" deep and skied rather nicely in many spots. Weather was kind of overcast/partly sunny. At least one run was essentially skiing by braille though.
Edit: wanted to note East Wall is still closed...
