Conditions: powder, packed powder
Weather: low twenties
Gear: skis
Wednesday morning, Kyle and I headed over to Vail. Vail is one of the most incredible mountains that I know. There is so much skiable terrain. You really have to ski it to believe it.
I got to the mountain a little bit earlier than Kyle, so made some runs off of Pride Express on the front side. The terrain there isn't really anything special, but there weren't many people there either. It was a good place to get my legs warmed up before heading for the trees.
(The "Parade of Cats" - grooming continues into the day to provide corduroy for everyone.)
(West Wall on our way to Two Elk for lunch.)
(China Bowl - the stuff I dream about.)
When Kyle showed up, we made our way to Northwoods. There are some incredible runs off this lift, but everyone seems to know that and so it attracts too many people. We only did one run there before hitting Two Elk for lunch. I'm sure there are other places to eat on the mountain, but this is the only one I've ever been in. It can be nutty crowded on the weekends, but it wasn't bad at all today.
After lunch we headed to the back bowl and Blue Sky Basin. It was more of a grey sky today -- the tops of the lifts were in the clouds making for lousy visibility. But we had some awesome runs off of Skyline. There was plenty of knee deep powder in the trees and very few other tracks. Blue Sky Basin has some of my favorite terrain anywhere, but it's been discovered so try to hit it on a weekday away from the holidays.
(The base of Skyline, enroute to Blue Sky Basin.)
(Decisions, decisions!.)
My legs are holding up better than I had expected. It's been a while since I skied three days in a row and a very long time since I did three powder days in the trees in a row. Hopefully they'll hold up for a few more days!
'til later,
- Jeff
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