EMSC
Well-known member
A rather different 2 days on the hill.
DAY 1, Vail: The objective of the day originally was to see the World Cup in Beaver Creek. As we arrived in Avon, there was a small electronic sign telling us the race was postponed until Monday. There had been some snow overnight, but only about 2-3 inches at my friends place in Breckenridge. So we figured that most of Beaver Creek's snowmaking had been blown on the race hill so far (they reported 2 trails open to the public the day prior). We turned around and headed back to Vail which had a least a few more trails open the day prior.
We parked by the Lionshead gondola base, and the very bottom of Vail has about 3 inches of total snow on the ground - meeting our expectations. However by the time we hit the top there was a whole lot more snow and looking at the message board a long list of lifts were open. In fact we could see a skiers over in Game Creek bowl and decided to make that our immediate destination. Turns out that Vail opened much of the upper part of the front side of the mountain on Saturday. We skied anywhere from 4-14 inches of new snow (4-6" overnight, 14" as a lot of terrain opened with no tracks from the previous storm earlier in the week and it snowed several inches during the day). We ski pole measured the snow pack in Game creek bowl - about 18-20" base or so. The skiing was excellent (quite a bit of 'little tree' skiing still) and while a lot of people where on the hill in absolute numbers, we only waited a couple of times for about 2 minutes. Around 12:30pm it began to snow really hard and winds started up, taking the temps from 34F eventually down to 20F (and both of those are at/from the TOP of Vail).
What was open? 1/2 of game creek bowl (the north facing half, the west/south facing part had much less snow as did the back bowls we could see). The whole mid-Vail area was open, Avanti chair areas was all open, they were prepping Northwoods for Sunday opening. Though a small number of rocks could be seen, they were easily avoided and neither of us hit any. However, the lower mountain has only 2 trails of man made to get you to the village and quite scrapey.
Overall it way beat our expectations and I'll throw it in as my first powder day of the season. The nightmare of the day was spending 3 hours getting back over Vail pass (to Breckenridge). The storm started really warm and so the snow was very wet to start which of course turned into an icy mess on the pass by the end of the day when temps dropped.
DAY 2 - ABasin: A reported 7" of new and surfaces were much, much better than last weekend. Highly disappointing though that only one new trail was open since last weekend. Much/most of the blue under Lenawee lift looked just as skiable and as deep as what Vail had open, but it was all closed. See the comparison pics from last week vs this week at Abasin. I snowboarded till 1pm to take the early route home - my legs being pretty tired from Vail and not quite into mid-season shape just yet.
I can also report that Breckenridge opened several trails on Peak 9 on Sunday with just natural snow (you could see skiers on them as I drove past on the way to Abasin).
Long post. Here are some pics...
DAY 1, Vail: The objective of the day originally was to see the World Cup in Beaver Creek. As we arrived in Avon, there was a small electronic sign telling us the race was postponed until Monday. There had been some snow overnight, but only about 2-3 inches at my friends place in Breckenridge. So we figured that most of Beaver Creek's snowmaking had been blown on the race hill so far (they reported 2 trails open to the public the day prior). We turned around and headed back to Vail which had a least a few more trails open the day prior.
We parked by the Lionshead gondola base, and the very bottom of Vail has about 3 inches of total snow on the ground - meeting our expectations. However by the time we hit the top there was a whole lot more snow and looking at the message board a long list of lifts were open. In fact we could see a skiers over in Game Creek bowl and decided to make that our immediate destination. Turns out that Vail opened much of the upper part of the front side of the mountain on Saturday. We skied anywhere from 4-14 inches of new snow (4-6" overnight, 14" as a lot of terrain opened with no tracks from the previous storm earlier in the week and it snowed several inches during the day). We ski pole measured the snow pack in Game creek bowl - about 18-20" base or so. The skiing was excellent (quite a bit of 'little tree' skiing still) and while a lot of people where on the hill in absolute numbers, we only waited a couple of times for about 2 minutes. Around 12:30pm it began to snow really hard and winds started up, taking the temps from 34F eventually down to 20F (and both of those are at/from the TOP of Vail).
What was open? 1/2 of game creek bowl (the north facing half, the west/south facing part had much less snow as did the back bowls we could see). The whole mid-Vail area was open, Avanti chair areas was all open, they were prepping Northwoods for Sunday opening. Though a small number of rocks could be seen, they were easily avoided and neither of us hit any. However, the lower mountain has only 2 trails of man made to get you to the village and quite scrapey.
Overall it way beat our expectations and I'll throw it in as my first powder day of the season. The nightmare of the day was spending 3 hours getting back over Vail pass (to Breckenridge). The storm started really warm and so the snow was very wet to start which of course turned into an icy mess on the pass by the end of the day when temps dropped.
DAY 2 - ABasin: A reported 7" of new and surfaces were much, much better than last weekend. Highly disappointing though that only one new trail was open since last weekend. Much/most of the blue under Lenawee lift looked just as skiable and as deep as what Vail had open, but it was all closed. See the comparison pics from last week vs this week at Abasin. I snowboarded till 1pm to take the early route home - my legs being pretty tired from Vail and not quite into mid-season shape just yet.
I can also report that Breckenridge opened several trails on Peak 9 on Sunday with just natural snow (you could see skiers on them as I drove past on the way to Abasin).
Long post. Here are some pics...
