Keystone/ Vail

[johnnash]

We've been skiing Keystone and Vail the last 3 days. Conditions have been REALLY variable. At Vail, the Blue Sky Basin was packed powder Tues., and high on the mountain, conditions were almost as good even high on the front side (Game Creek Bowl, Avanti), but as you skied down, by mid-mountain, things were starting to slush up by afternoon, with the bottom of the mountain pure slush. This was our first time at Vail, and we enjoyed it a lot. Only complaint was that we found it difficult to move around without using the extensive system of almost-flat cat trails. So we spent WAY too much time tracking horizontal instead of vertical. I guess next time we'll probaly be able to figure out how to avoid these tracks.

At Keystone, co_knuckl-dragger's account of Mozart is exactly right. We could make it down the slope still standing, but it wasn't fun. Starfire was also a dsaster. But other runs were in great shape -- Last Alamo, Prospector and Elk Run were packed powder all the way down. One of the workers pointed out that these runs have excellent preservation because of their direction and the fact that they're almost always shaded.

Today (Wed.), the area got some re-surfacing. Keystone website claimed 3 inches, but it was at least 7-8 inches on some runs on the North Peak. Conditions were good all over in the morning, but the warm temps had started a lot of melting by the afternoon. At mid-mountain on Dercum, slush was starting to form, and the bottom was like Vail the day before. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Hopefully we'll have some PP at least at the top.

 

[Tony Crocker]

The Vail catwalks are there mainly to allow beginners to access all the green terrain, as some of it is isolated, like Sourdough. The Mountaintop-to-Sourdough catwalk was the only one I used Monday because of China Bowl opening before chair 5. On a normal day I could have dropped in to the original backbowl from Game Creek and avoided the mid-Vail lift line crunch as well.

This issue is another good analogy with Mammoth. Both are vast areas that can be confusing to first time visitors. But once you know your way around they flow very well, with interesting skiing even when you're moving from one part of the area to another.

Riva Ridge is definitely the best way to get off the mountain at the end of the day at Vail. When the Golden Peak lift was extended to provide high speed access to the base of chair 11, Vail unfortunately removed the small lift from the base of chair 10 to the top of Golden Peak. So from the base of chair 10, you now have to ride it back up for 13 minutes or take a tedious and now partially burned off catwalk to the bottom. They did post a warning sign at the catwalk so I knew to go back up chair 10.

On the other issue, our observations are the same: stay high, and watch the exposures too. I also noted that it does seem to be going back to spring conditions very fast after these small snowfalls. I'm surprised Starfire was bad, it's pretty high and I remember it as one of the best fairly steep cruiser runs anywhere. Given Breck's east exposure, I would recommend especially that you stay high when you go there.

 

[johnnash]

We skied Vail for the second time yesterday, and this time we spent the whole day in the back bowls, which was a good strategy, mainly to avoid the crowds on the front side. (On our way back, there was what I would guess to be at least a 20-minute line at Northwoods. In the bowls, we never waited more than 2-3 minutes.) Blue Sky Basin was excellent PP fom top to bottom in the morning. We went over to China Bowl around 2:00, and although the bottom half was softer than I prefer (close to the lift, puddles were forming), it was still quite nice. The temps and sun were defintely having an impact, however.

We played it smart at the end of the day and took the Riva Bahn to the base. But we'll certainly be back to Vail on our next trip to the area.

 

[Tony Crocker]

A useful report. I assumed Northwoods was busy Monday because the bowls were closed. One of the virtues of huge areas is that people do not distribute themselves optimally. It's nice to know that much of Vail's best terrain is quite manageable during such a busy week. Get on the hill early when everything is open, and I'll bet you could get close to 40K, even this week.