Vail, Co March 1-5

yak

yak

New member
I'm sitting here watching the snow clouds flying off the peaks in the Gore range on yet another bluebird day. Today's forecast calls for 50 mph winds on top of Vail. :shock:

Sunday was a beautiful spring day, temps in the high 40's on top. The back bowls had the bake going, so it was follow the sun all day. I was able to show my Eagle County Airport boarding pass and get a free lift ticket - woo hoo.

Monday was more of the same, with a little increase in the temps. My buddy used his pass to score me a $50 ticket, shweeet.

Tuesday we took the sleds into the backcountry and explored some new terrain. Got in one good run of about 2K vertical. Everything from speed crust on top to creamy powder to a very dangerous melt layer down in the lower elevations. The lowest stuff was so bad it was unskiable. You would immediately sink 3 feet into a percolated bottomless wet sugar layer that just collapsed under you. I took a king-sized mattress slab for a little ride on a steep face, spooky. The last 100 yards took about 25 minutes to get through. We were glad to get out of there.

Yesterday we were back at Vail enjoying another day of spring melt with my buddies' 20-something kids. Got some good footage of his son rocking some nice air. Cooked some cheese brats on the grill at Blue Sky, trucked up a lot of beer in the backpacks, and had another great spring day. I scored another discount lift ticket for $45. Grand total for 4 days of skiing so far is $95. (I hope my wife reads this).

Now it's time to head west. We're leaving for SLC this afternoon and plan to hook up with Marc on Saturday.

More to come.
 
I got through editing a video from Monday's spring-like day. My buddy Bill and I started out for a few runs, then met up with Jocko, Bobby D, and his friend Matt. In the afternoon, we picked up Ziggy, his cousin Dave (the lone knuckle-dragger) and his buddy Matt. It's too much video, but I made it longer so they would see more of themselves. I also realized that spring bumps do not make for good helmet cam imaging.

At one point we were looking for a plaque that Bobby and Matt placed on a tree in WFO a few years ago to remember their buddy who died on 9/11 and loved Vail. Talk about searching for a needle in a haystack, but amazingly, we found it and I included some stills of it for Bobby D.

http://vimeo.com/3573908
 
Good video/music, that got me pumped for my Colorado trip at the end of March
Like the plaque also, crazy you guys could find it!
Maybe the 2nd half of March will be better for snows out there :-k
 
mikesathome":36jr0fz3 said:
Good video/music, that got me pumped for my Colorado trip at the end of March
Like the plaque also, crazy you guys could find it!
Maybe the 2nd half of March will be better for snows out there :-k
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I'm not worried about the weather. The chances are they will get some refresher by the 25th of march. Frankly, if it's warm and soft I'll be happy. I love watching the ladies ski in shorts and tank tops. Besides, beer taste better in the spring.
 
They already got another foot since I left (the story of my life).

I hope it snows for you guys.
 
I'm not worried about the weather. The chances are they will get some refresher by the 25th of march. Frankly, if it's warm and soft I'll be happy. I love watching the ladies ski in shorts and tank tops. Besides, beer taste better in the spring.
Click to expand...

Sounds good to me! I am a big fan of the New Belgium beers brewed out there in Fort Collins Colorado, fat tires, spring board, 2below =P~
 
Final day - March 8

While Marc had graciously invited us to join the group skiing White Pine on Sunday, we decided to bee-line it back to Vail after skiing Alta on Saturday. Vail was expecting 4-8 inches. The ride down LCC wasn't bad, and within a half hour we were on the interstate. Ziggy drove to Green River where we stopped for dinner, and I drove from there. It was kind of mesmerizing with the cruise control locked on 77 mph, but we made it in at 1:30 after stopping at the Eagle airport to retrieve Zig's other vehicle which his nephew had left in the free parking lot. So now it's really 2:30 with DST starting. Off to bed with about 3 inches of fresh on the deck.

7 AM came too quickly, but the mountain was reporting 6 inches. Ziggy and I parked near the West Vail rotary and met Bill and Stiggy. Yes, it was a Ziggy and Stiggy day. I scored a free ticket courtesy of Bill's Epic pass, and we met Jocko on top. We decided to do a test dummy run down the back, knowing that it would be death crust underneath. It sure was. Ziggy called it, appropriately, "rock candy". That was all for the back for us, time to seek out either smooth crust under the powder or (preferably) deeper snow. Next we hiked Ptarmigan, skied the fresh face with a smooth crust underneath that you didn't hardly notice, then traversed skiers right into Coyote Bowl, a sweet open field that yielded to nicely-spaced aspens. I almost went too low in the aspens to miss the traverse left back to chair 5. If not for Bill being skinless, we would have skied it all the way to the creek then skinned up the service road. Riding chair 5, we noticed all the tracks in the back bowls, but no one was doing a second run through the rock candy.

Next we headed to FTH for more aspens, which led us to an exit traverse to the base of China Bowl. From there we popped down to chair 37 in Blue Sky for a run down Montane which was nice low-angle powder over smooth crust. Onto chair 36 from there brought us to he top of China bowl, and we did a straight shot down Ghengis Khan which had softened in the sun, and hopped on Chair 21 to Two Elk. We left Bill and Jocko there, and me, Ziggy and Stiggy took the platter to Mongolia Bowl, then bootpacked/skinned to the top of the East Vail chutes.

In 30 years of skiing Vail I had never skied East Vail, so I was very excited to finally be there. We grabbed a snack up top and took in the views, then checked out the cornices from a safe vantage. The avy report was similar to Utah's, low in most areas, with moderate above treeline from NNE to E facing slopes. The base layers were well consolidated after the week's warm temps, and the only concern was wind-loaded new snow. East Vail is one huge bowl that collects all the snow blown up China and Mongolia bowls and over the ridge, and other than the cornices, most areas are well-cut by continuous skier traffic . The cornices looked ready to pop, so we took a straight shot down the shoulder and traversed right well below the first cornice. The snow was thigh-deep for the first 100 yards, then started to taper to knee-deep as we dropped through the first cliff band. That yielded to boot deep through the second cliff band, then gradually tapered to the reported 6 inches as we traversed left to get more vertical shots. We skied it one at a time, stopping well below the cornice, but there's no really well-defined safe zone since you're under a full ridge of cornices. I was able to take some photos after we quickly got through the upper area.

At the bottom we traversed left out of the woods, and hopped on the free bus from East Vail to the Village, then another to Lions Head, where we loaded our 3 packs with beer and food and headed up the gondy at 3:30 to meet the krew on Lightening Ridge for a late-day party. There had to be about 50 people with the same idea out there. As we left, we skied down the shoulder, where you can either turn left down to Minturn (which we had skied earlier in the week) or right down to West Vail where our car was. The front side was soft and boot-deep, and gradually turned to wet powder as we reached the lower elevations. This face has nice consistently-spaced trees, and we skied all the way to the Marriott Streamside at the West Vail rotary. A nice way to end an excellent week. Here's some photos from the day.

Cellphone shot of the traverse into Coyote Bowl

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Ziggy checking out the cornice in East Vail

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Looking north at the Gore Range

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Looking down into East Vail.

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Looking east, with Copper Mtn in the distance and I70 through Vail Pass on the left

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Zig and Stig negotiating the first cliff band

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Ziggy on the lower face

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Stig sweeping behind a tree - great timing on that shot, eh?

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Looking up through the first cliff band

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Looking up from further below after traversing skiers left

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Looking up from way below. This run goes on for quite some vertical. You can see how the second cliff band extends the entire width of the bowl.

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R&R on Lightening Ridge

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Me with the Mount of the Holy Cross in the background

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Stiggy and Ziggy in the aspens on the front side

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On the road to Utah (not part of this day but I like the photo)

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Nice shots! And great looking terrain in East Vail, too.

yak":3rp8xnh6 said:
On the road to Utah (not part of this day but I like the photo)

IMG_5789.jpg
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Actually, on the road in Utah -- that's US 6 between Green River and Price. Just west of that stretch of road is the northern half of the San Rafael Swell, and from where you were you'd never quite realize what's there:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6804

The first post in that thread includes a download that, when opened in Google Earth, shows our pictures geotagged with place and time.
 
yak":22xvob42 said:
Leave it to you Marc to recognize the location from one shot. =D>
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Don't give me too much credit, it was rather easy. That's the primary route to not only the Colorado Rockies, but also Moab, the SE Utah desert and Lake Powell. Probably the most dangerous road in Utah, too, based on accident statistics.
 
The Summit County Maggots are always going on about East Vail.

Looks alright, if you're into that sort of thing.
:wink:
 
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