tseeb
Well-known member
On Monday after Super Bowl 50, I was on gondola at 9 at Breck where it was much cooler and windier than previous two days. I picked Breck because I only had one lifetime day there, more than 10 years ago with my wife and son, plus it was about halfway between where I stayed down-valley from Aspen and DEN airport where I had an 8:55 PM flight home. And my Tahoe Local Pass gave me a free ticket - walkup price is $154. I could have stopped at Beaver Creek as I did two years ago and had a longer drive after skiing and gotten free hot chocolate cookies to end my day, but I wanted to return to Breck, even though it meant getting farther off I-70.
I was wondering if I made a mistake when I could see clouds formed by wind over the peaks in the 10 Mile Range. Then the shuttle driver at remote lot on Airport Rd asked if I had face protection which I did, but since I had time I returned to car and added heat packs to my gloves and grabbed a thin neck gaiter that I added to my helmet liner. I wore both all day. An older lady in the Breck Connect gondola offered to show me around, but she was not booted up and did not know what I was talking about when I said I wanted to ski from Imperial Express towards chair 7. So I was somewhat disappointed to see a sign that said Imperial Express and steep E-chair were not running, but it turned out to be normal for those to open later.
I started out with one of the chairs from Peak 8 base, then went up the T-bar. I skied one of the runs in Horseshoe Bowls which had OK snow, then went up T-bar again and skied Pika, looker right, which was wind-affected at the top. I went across chair 7, which my wife skied 10 years ago while my son and I went up Imperial, to chair 6, which was added in last couple of years. I skied Bliss the groomer, lookers left of chair before taking two laps on Intuition, lookers right at the top where snow was good once past the avalanche debris, that may have come from cornice at ridgeline. But it was a long runout back to lift so I skied to Independence, the Peak 7 lift which had the biggest line of the day, but still under 5 minutes.
From the there, I went up the T-bar, then lapped Imperial Express at least three times before stepping up very little and skiing towards Whale's Tail. I did at least three laps in this area, the first two going off the windpacked cornice into excellent windsifted snow, probably Debbie's Alley, then Vertigo before going past the cornice and gingerly stepping over and above some rocks to get into Y-Chute which had a longer fall line. Here wind was picking up snow I was throwing from my turns and blowing it past me so I was skiing through it on most of my turns.
I moved to slow and steep E-chair and skied Devil's Crotch where I had to go into the trees to get around rocky entrance, but then found best snow off this chair the rest of the way down. I also skied between Windows 1 & 2,
then started on Tom's Baby and finished on Tom's Mom, but snow in this area had some big bumps, tight lines and a few rocks. I moved back to Imperial and did a few more laps there, starting with a hike to 12,998; Peak 8 above Imperial once (my head was over 13K) and finishing with one more lap into far Y-Chute where blown in snow was even better than earlier.
EpicMix says I rode 30 lifts not counting gondola from where bus dropped me to Peak 8 base even though I skied back down to there at end of day. It also said I rode Imperial 11 times, the T-bar 6 times and both Peak 6 and E-chair 3 times. EpicMix had me at 33.1K and adding in the gondola from parking gets me to 33.5K. My watch counted 32,700 vertical and 28 runs before I quit at 3:30. I bused back to remote lot, changed and re-packed, then stopped at Tommyknocker Brewpub in Idaho Springs for a pint and soup and salad. My timing was pretty good as after a little delay crossing Denver in traffic , then filling and returning rental car, shuttling and checking in and getting to gate, I barely opened my laptop before boarding started. While I usually have trouble sleeping on planes, I did not after driving 550 miles in less than a week while skiing 5 days plus two hours at A-Basin on arrival day and snowmobiling over 30 miles followed by Super Bowl party on the day I took off from skiing.
I was wondering if I made a mistake when I could see clouds formed by wind over the peaks in the 10 Mile Range. Then the shuttle driver at remote lot on Airport Rd asked if I had face protection which I did, but since I had time I returned to car and added heat packs to my gloves and grabbed a thin neck gaiter that I added to my helmet liner. I wore both all day. An older lady in the Breck Connect gondola offered to show me around, but she was not booted up and did not know what I was talking about when I said I wanted to ski from Imperial Express towards chair 7. So I was somewhat disappointed to see a sign that said Imperial Express and steep E-chair were not running, but it turned out to be normal for those to open later.
I started out with one of the chairs from Peak 8 base, then went up the T-bar. I skied one of the runs in Horseshoe Bowls which had OK snow, then went up T-bar again and skied Pika, looker right, which was wind-affected at the top. I went across chair 7, which my wife skied 10 years ago while my son and I went up Imperial, to chair 6, which was added in last couple of years. I skied Bliss the groomer, lookers left of chair before taking two laps on Intuition, lookers right at the top where snow was good once past the avalanche debris, that may have come from cornice at ridgeline. But it was a long runout back to lift so I skied to Independence, the Peak 7 lift which had the biggest line of the day, but still under 5 minutes.
From the there, I went up the T-bar, then lapped Imperial Express at least three times before stepping up very little and skiing towards Whale's Tail. I did at least three laps in this area, the first two going off the windpacked cornice into excellent windsifted snow, probably Debbie's Alley, then Vertigo before going past the cornice and gingerly stepping over and above some rocks to get into Y-Chute which had a longer fall line. Here wind was picking up snow I was throwing from my turns and blowing it past me so I was skiing through it on most of my turns.
I moved to slow and steep E-chair and skied Devil's Crotch where I had to go into the trees to get around rocky entrance, but then found best snow off this chair the rest of the way down. I also skied between Windows 1 & 2,
EpicMix says I rode 30 lifts not counting gondola from where bus dropped me to Peak 8 base even though I skied back down to there at end of day. It also said I rode Imperial 11 times, the T-bar 6 times and both Peak 6 and E-chair 3 times. EpicMix had me at 33.1K and adding in the gondola from parking gets me to 33.5K. My watch counted 32,700 vertical and 28 runs before I quit at 3:30. I bused back to remote lot, changed and re-packed, then stopped at Tommyknocker Brewpub in Idaho Springs for a pint and soup and salad. My timing was pretty good as after a little delay crossing Denver in traffic , then filling and returning rental car, shuttling and checking in and getting to gate, I barely opened my laptop before boarding started. While I usually have trouble sleeping on planes, I did not after driving 550 miles in less than a week while skiing 5 days plus two hours at A-Basin on arrival day and snowmobiling over 30 miles followed by Super Bowl party on the day I took off from skiing.
