EMSC
Well-known member
“Rolling the dice”
With Tony Crocker hitting Colorado for the first time in a few years I headed out the door early to meet up with him at Vail. Hitting rain at lower elevations (Georgetown, Dillon) and wet slushy snow above ~9,000 to 9,500 feet. And of course the precipitation then ended 2/3 of the way down Vail pass where it was overcast, but 45F and dry as a bone at Vail. :? After meeting up with Tony and his friend Richard we headed up to check out how sporting the conditions would be as I lamented that we might be better off at Breckenridge since it was snowing hard over that way.
Conditions were very frozen up top where the temp was 26F and even the groomers off Mtn Top were not particularly fun despite a dusting of snow. After a couple of quick laps Tony needed to meet up with a group of folks on a trip with a different forum. So as a group we headed over to Game Creek for a lap on a groomer which was in much better condition IMHO though only a few light flurries had come down so far. The Back Bowls and Blue Sky Basin were closed, presumably due to the hard frozen conditions so the group instead headed toward Northwoods getting in one lap there before all heck let loose.
With initially graupel the size of marbles pounding down for 10 minutes before it switched to just very heavy snow. Once at the top again and having made the choice to try a different trail on Northwoods a single flash of light and thunder came along. Having skied in thunder snow before I knew what was next – every lift on the mountain shut down leaving us no option but to either stand in the whipping snow or to ski all the way back to the base.
We headed down on about a very quick inch or so of snow making for already dramatically better conditions. The group decided to eat an early lunch (it was about 11:40) at the Red Lion in the main village which is actually the first time I have ever eaten in the village for lunch (I’m always up on the hill for lunch, assuming I even stop). By the time we finished the lifts had re-opened (they had closed for about an hour). By that time at least 4-5 inches had fallen, softening things up quite a bit and most of the back bowls were opened though still no Blue Sky Basin.
With the much better but not exactly deep conditions, lower angle slopes were the call and we basically lapped China bowl for the afternoon until it closed at 3:30. It was what the doctor ordered as the lower angle stuff skied great and the hard bottom was only really evident on the few and mostly avoided steeper pitches. Oddly though there could not have been more than about 40 skiers if that skiing anywhere in China bowl. So untracked lines on each lap were not an issue at all. Unfortunately Mongolia bowl was not open, though for no apparent reason we could think of. BSB and the back bowls should have skied great Monday morning.
Once the back bowls closed we took tea cup lift out and headed down to Highline lift taking a short bump run section which was much softer even in the troughs than I would have guessed though with probably 8” or so by then, things were getting fairly nice. Two laps off Highline including being the last ones on the lift exactly at 4pm finally put us back in town around 4:25. We had heard that I-70 had closed down back just after lunch and it was still closed so we opted to change out of ski gear and eat dinner in Vail. A friend I grew up skiing with owns a place right next to the covered walking bridge; so we had some good food at The George while waiting out the closure.
We heard the closure had been lifted early in our dinner sojourn and each headed onto I-70 around 7:30pm only to get caught in a second closure with only a hundred yards worth of cars in front of us. We missed the window by literally 3 minutes, grrrrrrrrr……… There was also an overturned wreck in the median only a mile from the on-ramp from Vail highlighting the road conditions for everyone.
After close to an hour wait they finally re-opened Vail pass again, with the taillights of cars ahead of me glimmering off the road surface over the pass. Interestingly though I never slipped or slid a single time going over… granted only doing about 30-40mph. I-70 up and through the tunnels was in much better shape and the snow stopped with completely dry road just 10 miles east of the tunnel as frequently happens… only to have it start snowing again on the final hill into Denver.
A very long day, but better than I had anticipated given the heat wave on Saturday (80 degrees in Denver). Tony, glad to have finally met you.
With Tony Crocker hitting Colorado for the first time in a few years I headed out the door early to meet up with him at Vail. Hitting rain at lower elevations (Georgetown, Dillon) and wet slushy snow above ~9,000 to 9,500 feet. And of course the precipitation then ended 2/3 of the way down Vail pass where it was overcast, but 45F and dry as a bone at Vail. :? After meeting up with Tony and his friend Richard we headed up to check out how sporting the conditions would be as I lamented that we might be better off at Breckenridge since it was snowing hard over that way.
Conditions were very frozen up top where the temp was 26F and even the groomers off Mtn Top were not particularly fun despite a dusting of snow. After a couple of quick laps Tony needed to meet up with a group of folks on a trip with a different forum. So as a group we headed over to Game Creek for a lap on a groomer which was in much better condition IMHO though only a few light flurries had come down so far. The Back Bowls and Blue Sky Basin were closed, presumably due to the hard frozen conditions so the group instead headed toward Northwoods getting in one lap there before all heck let loose.
With initially graupel the size of marbles pounding down for 10 minutes before it switched to just very heavy snow. Once at the top again and having made the choice to try a different trail on Northwoods a single flash of light and thunder came along. Having skied in thunder snow before I knew what was next – every lift on the mountain shut down leaving us no option but to either stand in the whipping snow or to ski all the way back to the base.
We headed down on about a very quick inch or so of snow making for already dramatically better conditions. The group decided to eat an early lunch (it was about 11:40) at the Red Lion in the main village which is actually the first time I have ever eaten in the village for lunch (I’m always up on the hill for lunch, assuming I even stop). By the time we finished the lifts had re-opened (they had closed for about an hour). By that time at least 4-5 inches had fallen, softening things up quite a bit and most of the back bowls were opened though still no Blue Sky Basin.
With the much better but not exactly deep conditions, lower angle slopes were the call and we basically lapped China bowl for the afternoon until it closed at 3:30. It was what the doctor ordered as the lower angle stuff skied great and the hard bottom was only really evident on the few and mostly avoided steeper pitches. Oddly though there could not have been more than about 40 skiers if that skiing anywhere in China bowl. So untracked lines on each lap were not an issue at all. Unfortunately Mongolia bowl was not open, though for no apparent reason we could think of. BSB and the back bowls should have skied great Monday morning.
Once the back bowls closed we took tea cup lift out and headed down to Highline lift taking a short bump run section which was much softer even in the troughs than I would have guessed though with probably 8” or so by then, things were getting fairly nice. Two laps off Highline including being the last ones on the lift exactly at 4pm finally put us back in town around 4:25. We had heard that I-70 had closed down back just after lunch and it was still closed so we opted to change out of ski gear and eat dinner in Vail. A friend I grew up skiing with owns a place right next to the covered walking bridge; so we had some good food at The George while waiting out the closure.
We heard the closure had been lifted early in our dinner sojourn and each headed onto I-70 around 7:30pm only to get caught in a second closure with only a hundred yards worth of cars in front of us. We missed the window by literally 3 minutes, grrrrrrrrr……… There was also an overturned wreck in the median only a mile from the on-ramp from Vail highlighting the road conditions for everyone.
After close to an hour wait they finally re-opened Vail pass again, with the taillights of cars ahead of me glimmering off the road surface over the pass. Interestingly though I never slipped or slid a single time going over… granted only doing about 30-40mph. I-70 up and through the tunnels was in much better shape and the snow stopped with completely dry road just 10 miles east of the tunnel as frequently happens… only to have it start snowing again on the final hill into Denver.
A very long day, but better than I had anticipated given the heat wave on Saturday (80 degrees in Denver). Tony, glad to have finally met you.
We skied anything on those skis back in the day. From personal experience I think back to my days working at Jay when we skied powder, ice, crud, trees, breakable crust...anything you can imagine. I was on a variety of skis through my patrol period -- Salomon Equipe 1S's at 204cm, some others I can't remember the name of that were 194cm with a shapelier sidecut but none of them were more than about 65mm underfoot. And I was far less of a skier back then than I am now (which admittedly ain't sayin' much). 