Matt Duffy
New member
Zoo? Circus? Yeah.... <BR> <BR> <BR>Conditions at Keystone today were quite good. Nick and I found the trails <BR>to be covered with soft, chopped powder for the most part. We were lucky <BR>enough to be in the proper position once as patrollers dropped a rope, and <BR>a some deep powder was the result. 22" new had fallen since yesterday. We <BR>found pieces of untouched here and there, but through no fault but my own, <BR>we arrived too late to get the early morning top to bottom powder runs. <BR> <BR>In order to ski Kmart West, I had to get my pass photo taken at A-basin to <BR>get the bonus lift tickets. Thus, we arrived in the Kmart parking lot at <BR>9:35 or so. Jason had arrived with us, but opted not to pay for a ticket <BR>(even a discounted one) after he saw the parking lot. He instead chose to <BR>drive back up to Loveland Pass and wait for the road to reopen. I wonder if <BR>he's still waiting there.... <BR> <BR>Jason left because there was a bazillion kijillion people at Kmart today. I <BR>have never seen such a crowd. I knew it would be crowded, but I had no idea <BR>it could get like this. By the time Nick & I got off the shuttle bus, it <BR>was 10:20 and we still had about 45 minutes of waiting in line before our <BR>first run. Such is life in early November at Kmart West. <BR> <BR>While the runs were all good, the lines got worse as time went on. And on, <BR>and on. It's very frustrating to get in a good run, get excited for the <BR>next, then wait in line so long that the sweat turns to cold dampness and <BR>the rush is gone. Suddenly, waiting in a car for hours at the closed gate <BR>to Loveland Pass doesn't sound so bad... <BR> <BR> <BR>But then finally comes the next run, in nice November powder, and it's not <BR>quite so bad while the run lasts. We hit a wedge of trees with minimal <BR>tracks and 20 or 30 great pod-racer turns. There were some decent runs open <BR>with phenomenal forgiving chowder that raised my confidence another notch. <BR>Every so often, I'd veer off into the untouched on the sides of flatter <BR>sections just to get the float. It was slow, but phloaty none-the-less. <BR> <BR>But then there'd be another line. I think our shortest wait of the day was <BR>about 20 minutes. No other waits were below 30 minutes. Toward the bottom, <BR>multiple trails converged into what looked like an overpoopulated ant farm <BR>from afar. <BR> <BR>The circus image was complete when Nick and I noticed some kind of trapeeze <BR>artist performing near the sun deck. I think anybody could just pay to get <BR>strapped in to a kind of sort of bungee swing monstrousity above a <BR>trampoline. Keystone is truly the Kmart of the West.