EMSC
Well-known member
Powder Day 
Couldn't be a more different day than Saturdays super warm temps and sunshine (see my A-Basin post for 3/1).
We stayed in Breck overnight. Early snow report was only 2 or 3 inches overnight for the summit county areas and 6" for Vail. So off over Vail pass on mediocre roads. It was worth the trip. It snowed all day though by about noon it was starting to taper a bit and alternated between flurries and light snow mostly in the afternoon. Probably somewhere in the 2-4" range was gained on top of the morning report with boot top snow in a lot of areas by late morning.
We stayed on the front side all day. Based on Zuma bowl softening on Saturday I knew that the back bowls would be an icy mess underneath. And 6-10" is just not enough new cover to overcome that. Plus we heard how horrendous the visibility was back there today (Blue Sky Basin was heard to be really good though - if you wanted an ugly run through the bowls to get all the way back to it).
My wife & I skied a lot of runs that are away from the main lifts to get some good powder. Riva Ridge, Prima a couple times, Rogers run. I slotted through the cliff bands in Prima Cornice a couple times down to Northwoods. I found a line that no one else was skiing. It required a 20 vert foot down-hike through the cliff bands. But once down, untouched powder was to be had for the next several hundered verts at least. After a late lunch around 1:30 in Buffalo's at the top of the mtn, I hit the small cliffs under mtn top express on our way to game creek bowl. My wife hitting some blues by then, after our morning of mostly double diamonds. I hit the trees in Game Creek where you could still find decent sections of untracked and semi-tracked all the way to closing time.
My legs took a good beating for the day and were less than excited by the full top to bottom vertical run down into the village. My wife was a real trooper going all day and we skied till closing bell basically; finally getting down to the village around 4:20pm. Crowds were surprisingly light in general with short to no lift lines for most of our runs (our one time on mtn top express would be an exception).
Roads were mostly quite decent and not too crowded for a change (I-70 closed for at least a while heading into the mtns during the morning rush so that may have helped). So, in spite of the snow and a couple iffy sections of road, only a 2 1/2 hr drive back to Boulder area.
Couldn't be a more different day than Saturdays super warm temps and sunshine (see my A-Basin post for 3/1). We stayed in Breck overnight. Early snow report was only 2 or 3 inches overnight for the summit county areas and 6" for Vail. So off over Vail pass on mediocre roads. It was worth the trip. It snowed all day though by about noon it was starting to taper a bit and alternated between flurries and light snow mostly in the afternoon. Probably somewhere in the 2-4" range was gained on top of the morning report with boot top snow in a lot of areas by late morning.
We stayed on the front side all day. Based on Zuma bowl softening on Saturday I knew that the back bowls would be an icy mess underneath. And 6-10" is just not enough new cover to overcome that. Plus we heard how horrendous the visibility was back there today (Blue Sky Basin was heard to be really good though - if you wanted an ugly run through the bowls to get all the way back to it).
My wife & I skied a lot of runs that are away from the main lifts to get some good powder. Riva Ridge, Prima a couple times, Rogers run. I slotted through the cliff bands in Prima Cornice a couple times down to Northwoods. I found a line that no one else was skiing. It required a 20 vert foot down-hike through the cliff bands. But once down, untouched powder was to be had for the next several hundered verts at least. After a late lunch around 1:30 in Buffalo's at the top of the mtn, I hit the small cliffs under mtn top express on our way to game creek bowl. My wife hitting some blues by then, after our morning of mostly double diamonds. I hit the trees in Game Creek where you could still find decent sections of untracked and semi-tracked all the way to closing time.
My legs took a good beating for the day and were less than excited by the full top to bottom vertical run down into the village. My wife was a real trooper going all day and we skied till closing bell basically; finally getting down to the village around 4:20pm. Crowds were surprisingly light in general with short to no lift lines for most of our runs (our one time on mtn top express would be an exception).
Roads were mostly quite decent and not too crowded for a change (I-70 closed for at least a while heading into the mtns during the morning rush so that may have helped). So, in spite of the snow and a couple iffy sections of road, only a 2 1/2 hr drive back to Boulder area.
