A couple inches of snow were expected last night, but I awoke this morning to nothing and the sun peeking through the clouds. Nevertheless, it started dumping around 8am and the gondola was on wind hold when the lifts opened. I had to take 3 lifts before reaching any skiing as a result, and groomers were the call first thing as only about 2 inches had fallen.
I later headed back to the condo to grab an extra layer and lucked out as the Gondola opened right when I got down to it. However, it was running really slow and it probably took 25 minutes to get to the top. Despite the poor visibility, I was able to see that the Back of Bell runs were collecting the most snow, so I headed over there next. I found maybe 5-6 inches of snow, not enough to cover the bumps on the main runs, but still a lot of fun, especially in the well-spaced trees between the cut runs.
Next run, I tried to return to Bell but got lost and ended up on Gents Ridge. Once there, I took it all the way to the rope line and skied Jackpot, which was nice but had more obstacles and not as much snow as the Back of Bell.
After lunch, it continued to snow pretty hard and I tried out the Zaugg Dump area, the Face of Bell, and more Back of Bell. All were good and fairly similar, probably 6-8 inches of snow in the troughs of the bumps. As noted before, the bumps are very well shaped here, so even though I normally try to avoid bumps, they are a lot of fun on Aspen Mountain, particularly in powdery conditions.
One thing that amazed me was the total lack of crowds. I set the traverse to the Back of Bell more than an hour after the lifts opened. At 1:15pm, there was maybe 1 person for every 15 chairs on Ajax Express, which I'm assuming is one of the most popular lifts. All afternoon, it was the norm for me to be the only person in the entire lift maze area. It was kind of strange, really, but I'm not complaining.
The best news of the day may be that my flight was cancelled, so I'll be skiing Aspen Mountain again tomorrow until about 2pm.
I later headed back to the condo to grab an extra layer and lucked out as the Gondola opened right when I got down to it. However, it was running really slow and it probably took 25 minutes to get to the top. Despite the poor visibility, I was able to see that the Back of Bell runs were collecting the most snow, so I headed over there next. I found maybe 5-6 inches of snow, not enough to cover the bumps on the main runs, but still a lot of fun, especially in the well-spaced trees between the cut runs.
Next run, I tried to return to Bell but got lost and ended up on Gents Ridge. Once there, I took it all the way to the rope line and skied Jackpot, which was nice but had more obstacles and not as much snow as the Back of Bell.
After lunch, it continued to snow pretty hard and I tried out the Zaugg Dump area, the Face of Bell, and more Back of Bell. All were good and fairly similar, probably 6-8 inches of snow in the troughs of the bumps. As noted before, the bumps are very well shaped here, so even though I normally try to avoid bumps, they are a lot of fun on Aspen Mountain, particularly in powdery conditions.
One thing that amazed me was the total lack of crowds. I set the traverse to the Back of Bell more than an hour after the lifts opened. At 1:15pm, there was maybe 1 person for every 15 chairs on Ajax Express, which I'm assuming is one of the most popular lifts. All afternoon, it was the norm for me to be the only person in the entire lift maze area. It was kind of strange, really, but I'm not complaining.
The best news of the day may be that my flight was cancelled, so I'll be skiing Aspen Mountain again tomorrow until about 2pm.
