Pajarito-Bred
New member
Sometimes low expectations are not so bad!
At the beginning of the week it looked like it'd be desert golf as a last resort for this past weekend, but the snow gods finally kicked the storm out of CA so those of us in CO could feast on the powder after the moisture had been thoroughly wrung out!
I didn't know what to expect in the AM, and missed hearing the latest snow depth report, but dropping into the back bowls first thing was a real treat! There'd been 18" + the previous two days, which made for a very soft base. There was only a hint of mogul buried under the fluff.
Vail gets hammered by so many skiers that even the vast back bowls show tracks upon tracks by mid-morning, but if you hit it early, you can work your way across the bowls from west to East and into Blue Sky Basin without crossing tracks for 3 or 4 runs.
For this day we bravely started at the East end of Vail, at Golden Peak, and missed the more-crowded Lionshead gondola. -- but we also missed out on dropping into the vast sundown bowl to the legendary Chair Five.
We made the mistake of hitting a tempting powder field in the center of China bowl only to discover that it was a trap-- too deep, not enough steep-- A couple of years have passed since I last fell into the SAME trap! It was futile to attempt to push, when my poles sunk to my wrist with little forward effect- it'd have been much better to keep heading east, over to Siberia Bowl. Fortunately, this fiasco was after a grinning powdery blast into Sun Up bowl, and another sweet run off the Tea Cup ridge.
Earl's bowl, the western portion of Blue Sky provided 4 more wind-buffed powder runs. The wind had been strong from the west upon those runs during the night, and deposited a bit more in the lee of the ridges. But what looked chunky and ridged from the lift was still a blast to ski, with deep pillows nestled behind each tree.
After a good snowy season start, it looks like we're past the christmas dry spell and into a deep, consistent, powdery season, like the ones from long ago.
Sorry I can't report on frontside conditions, except for this: At the end of the day, we cruised down a groomed Riva Ridge to the base.
Just above the base of the Vista bahn, there are two runs, Giant steps and International, that appeared to have been abandoned by the resort. There's some old snow-making ice, and some nice remnants of powder thru the aspen shoots, it's obvious all of Vails attention is on the backside.
Other important Vail tidbits: You can get good deals on last-minute rooms at vailonsale.com. there's a parking lot just west of the Marriott at lionshead where you can park for *only* $10. (compared to $15 in the garages. ) We'd heard that there were 20,000 skiers expected at Vail on Saturday, so we headed west.
Saturday, Jan 8th we skied Beaver Creek, with the promise of the next storm only tantalizing us with an inch of snow from dark, blustery clouds. Still, they'd had 40" of snow in the previous 4 days, so the less-traveled birds of prey bumps were very soft and pliable. I'm tempted to look to wine labels in the search for appropriate adjectives--- "chewy" or "big, bold, beefy" BC rarely has more than 20 people in the liftline (except at Centenial, at the base, but then you can scoot over to Strawberry Park, where it's a short skate to get to the Red Tail camp, where all the bump runs converge.
At the beginning of the week it looked like it'd be desert golf as a last resort for this past weekend, but the snow gods finally kicked the storm out of CA so those of us in CO could feast on the powder after the moisture had been thoroughly wrung out!
I didn't know what to expect in the AM, and missed hearing the latest snow depth report, but dropping into the back bowls first thing was a real treat! There'd been 18" + the previous two days, which made for a very soft base. There was only a hint of mogul buried under the fluff.
Vail gets hammered by so many skiers that even the vast back bowls show tracks upon tracks by mid-morning, but if you hit it early, you can work your way across the bowls from west to East and into Blue Sky Basin without crossing tracks for 3 or 4 runs.
For this day we bravely started at the East end of Vail, at Golden Peak, and missed the more-crowded Lionshead gondola. -- but we also missed out on dropping into the vast sundown bowl to the legendary Chair Five.
We made the mistake of hitting a tempting powder field in the center of China bowl only to discover that it was a trap-- too deep, not enough steep-- A couple of years have passed since I last fell into the SAME trap! It was futile to attempt to push, when my poles sunk to my wrist with little forward effect- it'd have been much better to keep heading east, over to Siberia Bowl. Fortunately, this fiasco was after a grinning powdery blast into Sun Up bowl, and another sweet run off the Tea Cup ridge.
Earl's bowl, the western portion of Blue Sky provided 4 more wind-buffed powder runs. The wind had been strong from the west upon those runs during the night, and deposited a bit more in the lee of the ridges. But what looked chunky and ridged from the lift was still a blast to ski, with deep pillows nestled behind each tree.
After a good snowy season start, it looks like we're past the christmas dry spell and into a deep, consistent, powdery season, like the ones from long ago.
Sorry I can't report on frontside conditions, except for this: At the end of the day, we cruised down a groomed Riva Ridge to the base.
Just above the base of the Vista bahn, there are two runs, Giant steps and International, that appeared to have been abandoned by the resort. There's some old snow-making ice, and some nice remnants of powder thru the aspen shoots, it's obvious all of Vails attention is on the backside.
Other important Vail tidbits: You can get good deals on last-minute rooms at vailonsale.com. there's a parking lot just west of the Marriott at lionshead where you can park for *only* $10. (compared to $15 in the garages. ) We'd heard that there were 20,000 skiers expected at Vail on Saturday, so we headed west.
Saturday, Jan 8th we skied Beaver Creek, with the promise of the next storm only tantalizing us with an inch of snow from dark, blustery clouds. Still, they'd had 40" of snow in the previous 4 days, so the less-traveled birds of prey bumps were very soft and pliable. I'm tempted to look to wine labels in the search for appropriate adjectives--- "chewy" or "big, bold, beefy" BC rarely has more than 20 people in the liftline (except at Centenial, at the base, but then you can scoot over to Strawberry Park, where it's a short skate to get to the Red Tail camp, where all the bump runs converge.