yak
New member
I finally managed to start the season - Yippee. I arrived via the typical nasty drive up I-70 on Monday night. Tuesday morning Breck was boasting a 1" snowfall. I hit the rental shop early and was set up on a pair of Salomon X-Wing Tornado's. I spent the morning on the cruisers with my boss, and with the wind scouring on many of the exposed ridges, I wasn't too pleased with all the chattering under my feet. They did perform admirably in the softer snow but there wasn't a hell of a lot of it to be found.
Here's a view from under the Falcon Superchair
At lunch, I hit the shop again and returned for the afternoon on a pair of K2 Apache Recon's, with a bit more length than the Tornado's. The afternoon skiing was much faster and smoother. I eventually left my boss and set out on my own up Imperial bowl, descending in a near-whiteout for the first half of the ride. I continued down into the chair 6 area, which had about 4 inches of tracked up pow over a very scarce base. Most of my stone-grinding affairs sounded worse than they were, but I was glad I paid the $5 a day for insurance. I hit a few of the runs under Chair E, alternating between scraped off firm, rocks, and wind-blown pow. It was my first visit to Breck so I'm not really sure where I was half the time. I fished the day off on Devil's Crotch, in the trees skiers left. Same deal - firm, pow, rocks. The day ended with a good-looking snowfall, but it tapered off in the village at night.
Wednesday dawned to the same, light snow that didn't seem to be accumulating anywhere. The report said they had received 3", but the upper mountain easily had 6, and with the wind-loading there was lots of boot and knee-deep caches, with the occasional 2 or 3 thigh-deep turns. We headed over to Chair 8 and found some nice untracked around High Anxiety. Chair 6 also delivered the goods in the little bowl above the Vista Haus, and over in Way Out. At lunch I switched back to the Tornado's and enjoyed the hell out of them in the deep pow and trees. I had forgotten the camera which was probably a good thing as there was less reason to stop.Imperial was in a whiteout most of the day, and the T-bar was not running, so we carved up 8 and 6 for most of the day. On our last ride up 6, we looked up and Imperial Bowl was crystal clear, but the chair was closed. Just as well, it looked bumped up from all the skiers willing to ski blind.
Drove to Denver this morning under clouds and light flakes. The Eisenhower was relatively clear as well:
Flight back was uneventful, and I'm capping the day off with a nice home-brewed hefe.
Take off, eh?
Here's a view from under the Falcon Superchair
At lunch, I hit the shop again and returned for the afternoon on a pair of K2 Apache Recon's, with a bit more length than the Tornado's. The afternoon skiing was much faster and smoother. I eventually left my boss and set out on my own up Imperial bowl, descending in a near-whiteout for the first half of the ride. I continued down into the chair 6 area, which had about 4 inches of tracked up pow over a very scarce base. Most of my stone-grinding affairs sounded worse than they were, but I was glad I paid the $5 a day for insurance. I hit a few of the runs under Chair E, alternating between scraped off firm, rocks, and wind-blown pow. It was my first visit to Breck so I'm not really sure where I was half the time. I fished the day off on Devil's Crotch, in the trees skiers left. Same deal - firm, pow, rocks. The day ended with a good-looking snowfall, but it tapered off in the village at night.
Wednesday dawned to the same, light snow that didn't seem to be accumulating anywhere. The report said they had received 3", but the upper mountain easily had 6, and with the wind-loading there was lots of boot and knee-deep caches, with the occasional 2 or 3 thigh-deep turns. We headed over to Chair 8 and found some nice untracked around High Anxiety. Chair 6 also delivered the goods in the little bowl above the Vista Haus, and over in Way Out. At lunch I switched back to the Tornado's and enjoyed the hell out of them in the deep pow and trees. I had forgotten the camera which was probably a good thing as there was less reason to stop.Imperial was in a whiteout most of the day, and the T-bar was not running, so we carved up 8 and 6 for most of the day. On our last ride up 6, we looked up and Imperial Bowl was crystal clear, but the chair was closed. Just as well, it looked bumped up from all the skiers willing to ski blind.
Drove to Denver this morning under clouds and light flakes. The Eisenhower was relatively clear as well:
Flight back was uneventful, and I'm capping the day off with a nice home-brewed hefe.
Take off, eh?
