tseeb
Well-known member
I continued my tour of Vail South Tahoe resorts by showing at_nyc a lot of Heavenly on Sunday. We just missed a tram so we skied over to Gunbarrel chair and loaded before 9. We went to top of CA where we saw skiers ripping groomed Ellie's run lookers left of Sky chair. We took a warmup on Liz's, which was as good as I've ever seen it for coverage and surface, excluding powder days of course. We also took Sky Canyon which was also groomed and skied like a 100 foot wide half-pipe, but visibility was tough due to flat light in shaded gully. We then skied Ellie's twice, which was also perfectly groomed, before moving to Canyon chair. We skied Ridge, one of Heavenly's signature Lake-view runs, but clouds were moving in quickly and less than 10% of Tahoe was visible. We then took High Roller where I braved the short bump section option at bottom which was much more challenging than perfectly groomed run.
We moved to less windy NV via high entrance to Milky Way Bowl. Visibility was poor as it had starting snowing lightly and surface way more difficult than groomers. I thought it best to get at_nyc to get into Mott Canyon while still fresh and she skied it well. We did have a problem going down as I saw skis laying in the snow with nobody around and thought someone must have slid into a tree and been seriously injured. I thought I heard somebody asking if person was hurt so I picked up skis and started down to where I heard voices and called out. It turned out ski patrol had set a scene to train avalanche dogs and skis were part of it. So patroller had to hike (really he ran!) skis back up steep slope as they wanted dog and handler to gain experience reading a scene.
Later on Milky Way Bowl, I saw a black/tan German Shepherd excitedly finding and digging out a buried person. I also followed a black lab and ski patrol onto Mott chair. The dog ran between his legs down the hill which is probably to protect him from chance of getting hit by other people's edges. Much later, on my way back to CA later I followed, then passed the black lab who ran with patroller on ski runs for at least two miles. They got ahead of us and stopped and I said I thought the dog would be hungry later and the dog, who did not have any booties on his feet, barked and me and got in trouble.
Next we went up Dipper chair and both skied top of Dipper run. I went into Dipper Bowl where skier-packed snow on steep face was good, but exit was firm and not very smooth. I took two Dipper/Mott chair laps, first skiing Bill's where snow was very good on steep right side and in trees, but firm in middle that had gotten more sun and was still frozen. Next lap, I tried to get into Stateline chute, but top of Milky Way Bowl was getting some windsift and new snow and I skied it too low. After traversing, I was below Gate B so I skied to Gate C and did a little of Bob's Boulevard before cutting into the Stateline chute which was good. Once out of chute it was hard to find anything very skiable as it was mostly partially re-frozen tracks and rollers from powder day on Sat. At least the exit was covered.
After a break, we warmed up with a run on Comet, then skied Milky Way Bowl twice and had good visibility and great windsift and a little new snow. We skied to Stagecoach base on NV trail and found good snow all the way to bottom as sun/warmth had softened what we heard was firm earlier. We rode Stagecoach, then Olympic lift and skied Olympic, then North Bowl. As Tony Crocker and I found last year, North Bowl, which used to be a bump run, had been groomed and skied well after very top that was firm. It looked like only about five people had skied it before us and it could have used a few people more to break up the corduroy. North Bowl chair was not open (wind hold early, then ?) which we knew so we skied to Boulder Base. I thought shuttle to Stagecoach was every thirty minutes (on the hour and half), but we just missed a large Blue-go bus at 2:20 and thought we may be waiting 20-30 minutes. But a smaller shuttle came at 2:30 and took us over to Stagecoach.
We rode two lifts to get back to top of NV, then skied back to CA on low visibility CA trail, then Maggies Canyon where narrow skier packed route was very good. We took one lap on not skied enough, but already sporting small bumps Waterfall, before ending our day after 3:30 with Advanced Roundabout to the Tram base with 26.5K according to my watch. EpicMix had me ~10K less as it missed many lifts. No pictures from Sun, so I'll post a couple of lake taken Sat. evening after 7 pm less than 200' from Lake-view hot tub I use. I should have gotten one of heavy wooden sign at top of Comet that has been crushed by 30-50' snowbank behind it.
We moved to less windy NV via high entrance to Milky Way Bowl. Visibility was poor as it had starting snowing lightly and surface way more difficult than groomers. I thought it best to get at_nyc to get into Mott Canyon while still fresh and she skied it well. We did have a problem going down as I saw skis laying in the snow with nobody around and thought someone must have slid into a tree and been seriously injured. I thought I heard somebody asking if person was hurt so I picked up skis and started down to where I heard voices and called out. It turned out ski patrol had set a scene to train avalanche dogs and skis were part of it. So patroller had to hike (really he ran!) skis back up steep slope as they wanted dog and handler to gain experience reading a scene.
Later on Milky Way Bowl, I saw a black/tan German Shepherd excitedly finding and digging out a buried person. I also followed a black lab and ski patrol onto Mott chair. The dog ran between his legs down the hill which is probably to protect him from chance of getting hit by other people's edges. Much later, on my way back to CA later I followed, then passed the black lab who ran with patroller on ski runs for at least two miles. They got ahead of us and stopped and I said I thought the dog would be hungry later and the dog, who did not have any booties on his feet, barked and me and got in trouble.
Next we went up Dipper chair and both skied top of Dipper run. I went into Dipper Bowl where skier-packed snow on steep face was good, but exit was firm and not very smooth. I took two Dipper/Mott chair laps, first skiing Bill's where snow was very good on steep right side and in trees, but firm in middle that had gotten more sun and was still frozen. Next lap, I tried to get into Stateline chute, but top of Milky Way Bowl was getting some windsift and new snow and I skied it too low. After traversing, I was below Gate B so I skied to Gate C and did a little of Bob's Boulevard before cutting into the Stateline chute which was good. Once out of chute it was hard to find anything very skiable as it was mostly partially re-frozen tracks and rollers from powder day on Sat. At least the exit was covered.
After a break, we warmed up with a run on Comet, then skied Milky Way Bowl twice and had good visibility and great windsift and a little new snow. We skied to Stagecoach base on NV trail and found good snow all the way to bottom as sun/warmth had softened what we heard was firm earlier. We rode Stagecoach, then Olympic lift and skied Olympic, then North Bowl. As Tony Crocker and I found last year, North Bowl, which used to be a bump run, had been groomed and skied well after very top that was firm. It looked like only about five people had skied it before us and it could have used a few people more to break up the corduroy. North Bowl chair was not open (wind hold early, then ?) which we knew so we skied to Boulder Base. I thought shuttle to Stagecoach was every thirty minutes (on the hour and half), but we just missed a large Blue-go bus at 2:20 and thought we may be waiting 20-30 minutes. But a smaller shuttle came at 2:30 and took us over to Stagecoach.
We rode two lifts to get back to top of NV, then skied back to CA on low visibility CA trail, then Maggies Canyon where narrow skier packed route was very good. We took one lap on not skied enough, but already sporting small bumps Waterfall, before ending our day after 3:30 with Advanced Roundabout to the Tram base with 26.5K according to my watch. EpicMix had me ~10K less as it missed many lifts. No pictures from Sun, so I'll post a couple of lake taken Sat. evening after 7 pm less than 200' from Lake-view hot tub I use. I should have gotten one of heavy wooden sign at top of Comet that has been crushed by 30-50' snowbank behind it.
