A very nice day in a group led by our trip leader who is in the region 2 months each season. It was mostly sunny with almost no wind, even at top of Imperial. High temps were probably in the upper 30's.
View from Whale's Tail.
Some skiing on Whale's Tail.
Second lap we pushed farther out. The lip this skier is about to drop in was slightly softened to almost corn.
View from the runout of upper Peak 7 terrain.
3rd run on Whale's Tail I stopped halfway down to take cross section pics of people skiing Vertigo.
Horseshoe Bowl.
Boundary Chutes, strangely named as they were a north facing pitch through scattered trees. Maybe there are rock spines in lower snow years.
We rolled into lunch at the upper Peak 9 restaurant, which is privately owned and a good value. It will likely be taken over by Vail resorts when its lease expires in 3 years. View of Chair 6 and Imperial from Peak 9.
After lunch the lower mountain had softened, so the group went for Peak 10 and a couple of soft partially south facing bump runs. First Dark Rider, which had good spacing and spring snow of pleasing consistency.
Mustang was a bit heavier and I ended up out of the mogul line skiing some mank on the lower part.
We also skied the gladed north facing Burn while on Peak 10. On the way back to Peak 8 we did one more bump run on Mach 1, which must face directly south. I told the group it was like July 4 skiing at Mammoth.
Total for the day was 22,500 vertical. Breck worked well for spring skiing by sticking with winter snow runs in the morning and hitting other areas later after they had softened. There were a few afternoon clouds, and when we finally skied down to the Peak 8 base at 3PM, the snow was not sloppy. If anything it was starting to firm up again. The higher altitude and colder temperatures here make these areas ski much better in spring than the Park City group, which are similar ski areas in terms of terrain mix.
Absolutely. It may be a small proportion of Breck's overall acreage, but we spent the entire morning in winter snow conditions with 3 laps each on Horseshoe Bowl and Whale's Tail. The alpine above 11,500 only had melt/freeze if there was at least some south exposure. East seemed as good as north up there. No one was much interested in the Lake Chutes. It's a 10-15 minute hike at nearly 13,000 feet and the steep vertical is relatively short. You get close to 1,500 on the Peak 7 runs and when the conditions there are good the Lake Chutes do not seem worth the effort. A few morning pics, first riding Imperial.EMSC":1jn1c01b said:
View from Whale's Tail.
Some skiing on Whale's Tail.
Second lap we pushed farther out. The lip this skier is about to drop in was slightly softened to almost corn.
View from the runout of upper Peak 7 terrain.
3rd run on Whale's Tail I stopped halfway down to take cross section pics of people skiing Vertigo.
Horseshoe Bowl.
Boundary Chutes, strangely named as they were a north facing pitch through scattered trees. Maybe there are rock spines in lower snow years.
We rolled into lunch at the upper Peak 9 restaurant, which is privately owned and a good value. It will likely be taken over by Vail resorts when its lease expires in 3 years. View of Chair 6 and Imperial from Peak 9.
After lunch the lower mountain had softened, so the group went for Peak 10 and a couple of soft partially south facing bump runs. First Dark Rider, which had good spacing and spring snow of pleasing consistency.
Mustang was a bit heavier and I ended up out of the mogul line skiing some mank on the lower part.
We also skied the gladed north facing Burn while on Peak 10. On the way back to Peak 8 we did one more bump run on Mach 1, which must face directly south. I told the group it was like July 4 skiing at Mammoth.
Total for the day was 22,500 vertical. Breck worked well for spring skiing by sticking with winter snow runs in the morning and hitting other areas later after they had softened. There were a few afternoon clouds, and when we finally skied down to the Peak 8 base at 3PM, the snow was not sloppy. If anything it was starting to firm up again. The higher altitude and colder temperatures here make these areas ski much better in spring than the Park City group, which are similar ski areas in terms of terrain mix.
