Pajarito-Bred
New member
Drove up from the desert on Thurs. nite, snow started pounding as we started over Vail Pass (and didn't stop until the same point on the way home Sat. am).
It's a ways beyond a lot of good skiing from home to the Basin most of the year, so I don't get there every year. With the day's weather provided by a front range up-slope epic spring storm, high elev. on the divide seemed to be the place to be.
Report was 15" new, and snow kept pounding down all day, wind mostly from the north, scouring up along the Pali chair. We took a couple of Pali runs with wind-buff punctuated by old icy scraped areas near the top, we found our way over to the backside, Montezuma bowl. My first time back there, friend Steve's too- except he's skied it plenty prior to the new lift. The powder pitches in the center of the bowl had plenty of soft pow, a bit firmer than mid-winter. We hiked up and over to the west ridge, into a very stiff ridge-top gale that made it hard to see where the ridge ended and the cornice began. After the initial 100-yd hike the ridge extends about 1/2 mile with drop-ins anywhere between the numerous rock-ridges. The chutes are plenty wide, with moderate pitch after the first couple of turns, plenty of drifted snow settled in. Dropping back to the front side back to the base was miserable, though, very windy, no frame of reference to tell the snow from the sky. Time for a few more late-day runs on Pallavacini, the snow was coming down as hard as I've ever seen it-- filling in between the moguls nicely.
Apres-ski "beach" action consisted primarily of shoveling, but there were a few hearty souls attmpting to keep their grills from flaming out under the onslaught of snowfall.
It's a ways beyond a lot of good skiing from home to the Basin most of the year, so I don't get there every year. With the day's weather provided by a front range up-slope epic spring storm, high elev. on the divide seemed to be the place to be.
Report was 15" new, and snow kept pounding down all day, wind mostly from the north, scouring up along the Pali chair. We took a couple of Pali runs with wind-buff punctuated by old icy scraped areas near the top, we found our way over to the backside, Montezuma bowl. My first time back there, friend Steve's too- except he's skied it plenty prior to the new lift. The powder pitches in the center of the bowl had plenty of soft pow, a bit firmer than mid-winter. We hiked up and over to the west ridge, into a very stiff ridge-top gale that made it hard to see where the ridge ended and the cornice began. After the initial 100-yd hike the ridge extends about 1/2 mile with drop-ins anywhere between the numerous rock-ridges. The chutes are plenty wide, with moderate pitch after the first couple of turns, plenty of drifted snow settled in. Dropping back to the front side back to the base was miserable, though, very windy, no frame of reference to tell the snow from the sky. Time for a few more late-day runs on Pallavacini, the snow was coming down as hard as I've ever seen it-- filling in between the moguls nicely.
Apres-ski "beach" action consisted primarily of shoveling, but there were a few hearty souls attmpting to keep their grills from flaming out under the onslaught of snowfall.
