EMSC
Well-known member
Guys Trip Day 4
Cold and windy. Another storm had blown in - literally - but had dropped only 2" of new snow at the Basin. While far from ideal, we had pre-selected Abasin as one of our days and this was the final day for most of the crew. That's right; most fly in each year, where ever the trip is, for 3 days on snow from either of the 2 coasts. Fortunately it wasn't nearly as cold as earlier in the week as at Beaver Creek and the tickets were cheap having been bought way back in October. So we sucked it up and went at it as best we could minus the main trip organizer who was feeling very sick (more on that in a minute).
As usual we had a late-ish start trying to organize a dozen people, a couple of whom are there to party as much as ski. We actually pulled off one and a half laps off the top in one giant group before splitting up. Something we try to pull off each year of course. None of my group had ever seen the Zuma Bowl so that's where we went for multiple laps despite the overcast and flat light. Where we found some still, very good, blown in partially chopped up powder runs. The consensus is always the same: very good addition, nice & fun runs, but nothing particularly steep and spectacular as to set it out from the steep skiing competition at other places around the country per-se.
We eventually had a run where we were wind blasted so hard traversing along the rim of the bowl that we got quite chilled and headed in to the Black Mtn Lodge at mid-way where much of the rest of our group was either going in or out themselves. During lunch one out of our 11 cell phones somehow was working inside the lodge (almost no cell coverage anywhere at ABasin). The news was not good. Our head man was diagnosed with pulmonary edema and given oxygen from a doctor's visit. He had been sick prior to he trip and assumed it was coming back, but instead he had been getting progressively worse headaches and finally visited a doctor. I told the group that an oxygen tank was not going to really cut it and he needed to get down lower and fast in order to really help him. One of our 3 car loads quickly volunteered to pack up and leave ASAP (much better in Denver, and as he says today "NYC air never smelled so good before").
The remaining 8 of us continued to ski with my group hitting the Pali chair and skiing 5 laps on that in various variations including main street twice (nice soft and smooth upper gives way to bumped out bottom section), Gauthier on the far edge of the resort, and some of the other Alley's. The cloud had lifted a bit, but not much for part of the afternoon before it came back in again with light snow. Super wind stripped and affected far more than usual on the shoulder above Pali getting to the various Alley's. Though one of our group did find that the traverse portion and lower East wall had finally opened this year for the first time. Much of the upper chutes are stripped bare from large avalanches though so it will be interesting to see if spring storms bring enough new snow to ever open them this year.
Eventually we ended our day about 3:45 in the 6th Alley (similar to Golf's 19th Hole concept). The postscript is that on the Saturday night of the guys trip a vote is taken on the best crash and there is an actual trophy awarded which of course comes in it's own travelling whiskey box plastered with stickers from the locations we've been over the years. It originated from a cousins crash into a half pipe at Mammoth requiring a hospital visit for torn thumb ligaments and concussion way back on the very first guys trip. This year's award went to the sickest man now already down in Denver who also happened to be the driver who slid into the bumper kiss of two rental cars on our Beaver Creek day before 8 of the 12 guys had even been on snow yet... As you can tell "Crash" is taken a bit liberally in this group. Strange final dinner and night given the dislocation of 1/3 of the team.
Cold and windy. Another storm had blown in - literally - but had dropped only 2" of new snow at the Basin. While far from ideal, we had pre-selected Abasin as one of our days and this was the final day for most of the crew. That's right; most fly in each year, where ever the trip is, for 3 days on snow from either of the 2 coasts. Fortunately it wasn't nearly as cold as earlier in the week as at Beaver Creek and the tickets were cheap having been bought way back in October. So we sucked it up and went at it as best we could minus the main trip organizer who was feeling very sick (more on that in a minute).
As usual we had a late-ish start trying to organize a dozen people, a couple of whom are there to party as much as ski. We actually pulled off one and a half laps off the top in one giant group before splitting up. Something we try to pull off each year of course. None of my group had ever seen the Zuma Bowl so that's where we went for multiple laps despite the overcast and flat light. Where we found some still, very good, blown in partially chopped up powder runs. The consensus is always the same: very good addition, nice & fun runs, but nothing particularly steep and spectacular as to set it out from the steep skiing competition at other places around the country per-se.
We eventually had a run where we were wind blasted so hard traversing along the rim of the bowl that we got quite chilled and headed in to the Black Mtn Lodge at mid-way where much of the rest of our group was either going in or out themselves. During lunch one out of our 11 cell phones somehow was working inside the lodge (almost no cell coverage anywhere at ABasin). The news was not good. Our head man was diagnosed with pulmonary edema and given oxygen from a doctor's visit. He had been sick prior to he trip and assumed it was coming back, but instead he had been getting progressively worse headaches and finally visited a doctor. I told the group that an oxygen tank was not going to really cut it and he needed to get down lower and fast in order to really help him. One of our 3 car loads quickly volunteered to pack up and leave ASAP (much better in Denver, and as he says today "NYC air never smelled so good before").
The remaining 8 of us continued to ski with my group hitting the Pali chair and skiing 5 laps on that in various variations including main street twice (nice soft and smooth upper gives way to bumped out bottom section), Gauthier on the far edge of the resort, and some of the other Alley's. The cloud had lifted a bit, but not much for part of the afternoon before it came back in again with light snow. Super wind stripped and affected far more than usual on the shoulder above Pali getting to the various Alley's. Though one of our group did find that the traverse portion and lower East wall had finally opened this year for the first time. Much of the upper chutes are stripped bare from large avalanches though so it will be interesting to see if spring storms bring enough new snow to ever open them this year.
Eventually we ended our day about 3:45 in the 6th Alley (similar to Golf's 19th Hole concept). The postscript is that on the Saturday night of the guys trip a vote is taken on the best crash and there is an actual trophy awarded which of course comes in it's own travelling whiskey box plastered with stickers from the locations we've been over the years. It originated from a cousins crash into a half pipe at Mammoth requiring a hospital visit for torn thumb ligaments and concussion way back on the very first guys trip. This year's award went to the sickest man now already down in Denver who also happened to be the driver who slid into the bumper kiss of two rental cars on our Beaver Creek day before 8 of the 12 guys had even been on snow yet... As you can tell "Crash" is taken a bit liberally in this group. Strange final dinner and night given the dislocation of 1/3 of the team.