NeedhamSkier
New member
Back from a 3-day trip to CO with four friends. Stayed at Breck and skied two days there and one at Vail on Saturday. Overall, conditions were better than expected, and for a group of East Coast & Midwest residents, pretty satisfactory. Bright sunshine, no wind and 30-40 degree days are none too shabby if you can’t have fresh powder. It was only the slopes that got more sun which were heavy by the middle of the afternoon, and with early starts each morning we got the best of both empty trails and snow conditions.
Our group had a couple guys who were happier on blues and easy blacks, so we spent a good deal of the time hanging with them. The Peak 7 trails (Wirepatch especially) were a blast when they were empty, with plenty of variety. We also hit the blacks on Peak 10, again enjoying the drops and some big open turns.
For some adventure we rode the T-Bar, and hit White Crown several times on both days we skied at Breck. I really like this area and with the opening of Imperial it seems that these runs get even less traffic than previously. This means the snow had stayed in good condition with soft, chalky turns, minimal bumps and plenty of terrain features to play on. These runs were much more fun than the Chair 6 area, which was entirely bumped up and had more bare patches. Our blue-skiing friends found Chair 6 too much, but really liked the T-Bar runs, going back for seconds and talking about how they “dropped in” on White Crown. It was fun to encourage them into trying something more adventurous and seeing the kick they got out of it.
A couple of us also broke off to go ski Whale’s Tail, which was great. Soft snow, with no sign of any melting/refreeze, and a gradient which was plenty interesting but not too intimidating. The choke point was bumped up, but we traversed a little and found our way through without too much alarm. We only had time for a couple runs but could have spent much more time up there exploring all the variations.
On our day at Vail (Saturday), we managed to stay ahead of the crowds by starting at Ramshead, doing a few fast & empty laps on Simba, then hitting Game Creek Bowl. Then we moved to China Bowl where the sun and the crowds caught up with us. Poppyfields was like Killington on Presidents Weekend – heavy snow and too many inconsiderate, too-fast skiers. Shangri La was a different story – picking a line through the trees on much nicer snow.
After that, Blue Sky was a tale of two aspects – Champagne Glades were bumped up and hard, but Iron Mask was pure fun with light sugary snow and great terrain once you got down in the valley.
Traveling with a group of IT and marketing guys, so there was lots of interest in the EpicMix cards – mainly around the business model. Why the investment? Do they just think that it will drive more visits? Or is the traffic data valuable? Or perhaps with the limited demographic data they collect when you sign up, are they matching that up with the lift data to develop marketing messages? Either way, certain members of our group were obsessing over their totals, so maybe its as a simple as appealing to the high nerd:skier ratio…
Overall, a very good experience at both mountains. Despite the start of Texas Spring Break (complete carnage on the trails) the crowds were easily manageable, perhaps because many locals were discouraged by the “poor” conditions. And the service was consistently strong – almost all the resort workers seemed genuinely happy to see us out there, with no obvious attitude that we could detect.
Our group had a couple guys who were happier on blues and easy blacks, so we spent a good deal of the time hanging with them. The Peak 7 trails (Wirepatch especially) were a blast when they were empty, with plenty of variety. We also hit the blacks on Peak 10, again enjoying the drops and some big open turns.
For some adventure we rode the T-Bar, and hit White Crown several times on both days we skied at Breck. I really like this area and with the opening of Imperial it seems that these runs get even less traffic than previously. This means the snow had stayed in good condition with soft, chalky turns, minimal bumps and plenty of terrain features to play on. These runs were much more fun than the Chair 6 area, which was entirely bumped up and had more bare patches. Our blue-skiing friends found Chair 6 too much, but really liked the T-Bar runs, going back for seconds and talking about how they “dropped in” on White Crown. It was fun to encourage them into trying something more adventurous and seeing the kick they got out of it.
A couple of us also broke off to go ski Whale’s Tail, which was great. Soft snow, with no sign of any melting/refreeze, and a gradient which was plenty interesting but not too intimidating. The choke point was bumped up, but we traversed a little and found our way through without too much alarm. We only had time for a couple runs but could have spent much more time up there exploring all the variations.
On our day at Vail (Saturday), we managed to stay ahead of the crowds by starting at Ramshead, doing a few fast & empty laps on Simba, then hitting Game Creek Bowl. Then we moved to China Bowl where the sun and the crowds caught up with us. Poppyfields was like Killington on Presidents Weekend – heavy snow and too many inconsiderate, too-fast skiers. Shangri La was a different story – picking a line through the trees on much nicer snow.
After that, Blue Sky was a tale of two aspects – Champagne Glades were bumped up and hard, but Iron Mask was pure fun with light sugary snow and great terrain once you got down in the valley.
Traveling with a group of IT and marketing guys, so there was lots of interest in the EpicMix cards – mainly around the business model. Why the investment? Do they just think that it will drive more visits? Or is the traffic data valuable? Or perhaps with the limited demographic data they collect when you sign up, are they matching that up with the lift data to develop marketing messages? Either way, certain members of our group were obsessing over their totals, so maybe its as a simple as appealing to the high nerd:skier ratio…
Overall, a very good experience at both mountains. Despite the start of Texas Spring Break (complete carnage on the trails) the crowds were easily manageable, perhaps because many locals were discouraged by the “poor” conditions. And the service was consistently strong – almost all the resort workers seemed genuinely happy to see us out there, with no obvious attitude that we could detect.
