yak
New member
I started my western trip with some bad vibes this year. My buddy Ziggy managed to break two ribs a week before I arrived, so it didn't look good for skiing with the Z man.
I had a couple of buddies, Jim & Jim, who joined me for my first day on Vail mt. Continuing the bad vibes, I managed to eject from one ski, fly through the air backwards, and smack my head on the only rock visible for miles at the bottom of Faro Glade on my first full run. Lucky for me, my trusty helmet bore the brunt of the impact, but I got my bell rung pretty good, and I think I was left with a mild concussion. Here's a shot of the dent it put in my helmet. My goggle strap protected the helmet from getting too scratched up.
(you can click on any of these images to see a larger view)
We took a quick break after that, and I decided I would continue to ski. Since Ziggy wasn't skiing, he offered to be the pickup man for our BC runs down to Minturn, so off we went. The back bowls were closed due to high winds (as they were on the previous day), and the recent snow was wind-loaded all over the mt. We alternated between lunar landscaped ridges of breakable wind crust, and creamy leeward pockets of dense pow. Here's a shot of the beginning of the long runout to Minturn.
When we returned to Vail, we were planning on doing another lap when we noticed that the bowls were open, so down we went, finding more creamy dense pow over on Seldom. The view over to Ptarmigan Peak from Chair 5.
We got stuck in an hour liftline at Chair 5 due to the bowls having been closed the previous day, and Blue Sky Basin was still closed as well, but we mastered the finer points of the 4 man power wedge and made good time through the masses. That was the only ungodly line I would be in for the rest of the week. I ended up hitting the sack at 7:45 pm, leaving a pretty good sized party going on downstairs at Ziggy's condo. My total vertical for the day was 16,480
Day 2 - I started out on my own, as the Jim's headed down to do a few days of hut skiing in the San Juans. I had originally planned on doing some backcountry day skiing with Ziggy, so I didn't bring any winter camping gear and didn't join the Jim's on their hut trip.
It was overcast and looking like it wanted to snow, but no joy. I hiked Ptarmigan ridge and met a group of 4 skiers & boarders from Maine and Denver, and ended up showing them some of the finer stashes around Vail for the rest of the day. Here's me with the Mt of the Holy Cross on the left, and one of the gates to Minturn Mile on the right.
All of the places we skiied has some degree of untracked, and it was more of the same heavy, dense, creamy powder that would grab you just when you were relaxing through a few turns. Blue Sky Basin opened that day, so we found some nice turns over there as well. Here's Siberia and the Mongolia bowls viewed from BSB.
Total vertical 17,400
Day 3 - It was a bluebird day, and I decided to ski the Beav.
Another buddy met me at the gate and I followed him up the mt road and used his pass to get into the parking garage near the Dusty Boot. The Beav was a little firm on the north-facing slopes. I spent some time in the woods, and more time alternating between north-facing bumps and sunny groomed runouts. Some of the steeper faces in West Elk Glade were showing some hidden rocks:
Riding the Birds of Prey Chair:
Gerry' Ford's house. I was told that the flat roof in the foreground used to house the communications bunker back when he was in office.
View from the Larkspur Chair. Birds of Prey runs to the left, Grouse Mt to the right.
The view from the top of Loco
I stopped for some beer & wine on the way back at my favorite place. (Years ago I had a great t-shirt from these guys but my mom threw it out. :lol: )
Total Vertical 22,620
Day 4 - It was another bluebird day, but now the temps were forecast in the 40's for the valley. It felt like a beautiful spring day, with a nice bake going on in the back bowls.I skied with Mike, who manages the condo I stayed in. We skied sweet corn snow all day out back. Here's me with BSB in the background.
Total Vertical 18,790
Day 5 - Another bluebird day. Ziggy decided it was time to ski with the Yak, broken ribs 'n all! I forgot to pack the camera that day. We started on some groomers on the front side, jumped into some of the sunny aspects on the back that were baking and found the same sweet corn. It was a bit cooler and windier, so you really had to be choosy about your apect to get the soft snow. We met a couple other buddies, and Ziggy dropped off after one run with the group. I skied with them until they wanted to head down the front side. I was having too much fun out back so I banged out three loooong Forever's off Chair 5, then called it a day at 4:00 with a fast run down the front side on groomers.
Total Vertical 22,100
Day 6 - The Jim's returned from the San Juan's with tales of deep thick powder and empty huts. They said I wouldn't have even needed a sleeping bag, it was so warm in the hut. After some discussion, we gassed up the sleds and headed out through Minturn to ski Vail Pass. Vail Pass Winter Recreational Area is a network of groomed roads that runs from Shrine Pass over on I-70 over to Redcliff and down to Camp Hale. There's lots of sled tours, and plenty of skinning trails off the groomed roads.
We geared up and launched the sleds at Camp Hale under partly cloudy skies.
Zig and I pulled the Jim's up Resolution Road to Ptarmigan Pass. Here's me giving Jim a rest on the way up:
Ominous words on the Pass:
Our first and second runs were down into this bowl:
We hung close to the trees, as the lookers left side was one big ugly wind slab. Avy conditions were moderate with pockets of considerable on NE-NW slopes that day, and even though this bowl is fairly skier-cut from all the Vail Powder cat activity, we weren't taking any chances. The snow below the wind slab was bottomless sugar with no support.
We left my sled at the top of Ptarmigan Hill, and we were doing pretty good with Ziggy pulling the two Jim's with me on the back seat, until we looked back after a gnarly downhill turn and saw only one Jim, laughing hysterically. The other Jim was wearing tele gear and didn't navigate that last turn quite as well. We found him back on the trail no worse for the wear & tear.
We took a lunch break on the Vail Cats yurt platform:
Here's Ziggy pulling the Jim's to the top of Ptarmigan Hill:
A little mandatory air:
We then headed down the road a little bit to a bowl west of Machine Gun Ridge. (All these areas were named by the 10th Mt Division who used to train here). Here's the view of our next target from the main road below.:
The view from the top of the ridge looking back up at Ptarmigan Peak with Resolution Road visible:
Here's a Jim skiing out the lower slope:
My ride, with wind-scoured Sugarloaf Peak in the background:
After a couple runs down that area, we called it a day. Here's the Zig man waiting while the Jim's skied ahead of us down the road:
After saying goodbye to the Jim's, Ziggy and I headed into the thriving metropolis of Redcliff for a brew and some chow:
Total Vertical 9,400
I headed out the next day for home. Here's the Eagle County airport from above:
That's the end of my story. All in all a great trip. No champagne, but many first tracks were laid down, much fun was had, and the sledding adventure was fantastic. I'll hopefully be back in the soup soon, as we're looking to get another dumper this week back east.
I'll end with one last thought:
I had a couple of buddies, Jim & Jim, who joined me for my first day on Vail mt. Continuing the bad vibes, I managed to eject from one ski, fly through the air backwards, and smack my head on the only rock visible for miles at the bottom of Faro Glade on my first full run. Lucky for me, my trusty helmet bore the brunt of the impact, but I got my bell rung pretty good, and I think I was left with a mild concussion. Here's a shot of the dent it put in my helmet. My goggle strap protected the helmet from getting too scratched up.
(you can click on any of these images to see a larger view)
We took a quick break after that, and I decided I would continue to ski. Since Ziggy wasn't skiing, he offered to be the pickup man for our BC runs down to Minturn, so off we went. The back bowls were closed due to high winds (as they were on the previous day), and the recent snow was wind-loaded all over the mt. We alternated between lunar landscaped ridges of breakable wind crust, and creamy leeward pockets of dense pow. Here's a shot of the beginning of the long runout to Minturn.
When we returned to Vail, we were planning on doing another lap when we noticed that the bowls were open, so down we went, finding more creamy dense pow over on Seldom. The view over to Ptarmigan Peak from Chair 5.
We got stuck in an hour liftline at Chair 5 due to the bowls having been closed the previous day, and Blue Sky Basin was still closed as well, but we mastered the finer points of the 4 man power wedge and made good time through the masses. That was the only ungodly line I would be in for the rest of the week. I ended up hitting the sack at 7:45 pm, leaving a pretty good sized party going on downstairs at Ziggy's condo. My total vertical for the day was 16,480
Day 2 - I started out on my own, as the Jim's headed down to do a few days of hut skiing in the San Juans. I had originally planned on doing some backcountry day skiing with Ziggy, so I didn't bring any winter camping gear and didn't join the Jim's on their hut trip.
It was overcast and looking like it wanted to snow, but no joy. I hiked Ptarmigan ridge and met a group of 4 skiers & boarders from Maine and Denver, and ended up showing them some of the finer stashes around Vail for the rest of the day. Here's me with the Mt of the Holy Cross on the left, and one of the gates to Minturn Mile on the right.
All of the places we skiied has some degree of untracked, and it was more of the same heavy, dense, creamy powder that would grab you just when you were relaxing through a few turns. Blue Sky Basin opened that day, so we found some nice turns over there as well. Here's Siberia and the Mongolia bowls viewed from BSB.
Total vertical 17,400
Day 3 - It was a bluebird day, and I decided to ski the Beav.
Another buddy met me at the gate and I followed him up the mt road and used his pass to get into the parking garage near the Dusty Boot. The Beav was a little firm on the north-facing slopes. I spent some time in the woods, and more time alternating between north-facing bumps and sunny groomed runouts. Some of the steeper faces in West Elk Glade were showing some hidden rocks:
Riding the Birds of Prey Chair:
Gerry' Ford's house. I was told that the flat roof in the foreground used to house the communications bunker back when he was in office.
View from the Larkspur Chair. Birds of Prey runs to the left, Grouse Mt to the right.
The view from the top of Loco
I stopped for some beer & wine on the way back at my favorite place. (Years ago I had a great t-shirt from these guys but my mom threw it out. :lol: )
Total Vertical 22,620
Day 4 - It was another bluebird day, but now the temps were forecast in the 40's for the valley. It felt like a beautiful spring day, with a nice bake going on in the back bowls.I skied with Mike, who manages the condo I stayed in. We skied sweet corn snow all day out back. Here's me with BSB in the background.
Total Vertical 18,790
Day 5 - Another bluebird day. Ziggy decided it was time to ski with the Yak, broken ribs 'n all! I forgot to pack the camera that day. We started on some groomers on the front side, jumped into some of the sunny aspects on the back that were baking and found the same sweet corn. It was a bit cooler and windier, so you really had to be choosy about your apect to get the soft snow. We met a couple other buddies, and Ziggy dropped off after one run with the group. I skied with them until they wanted to head down the front side. I was having too much fun out back so I banged out three loooong Forever's off Chair 5, then called it a day at 4:00 with a fast run down the front side on groomers.
Total Vertical 22,100
Day 6 - The Jim's returned from the San Juan's with tales of deep thick powder and empty huts. They said I wouldn't have even needed a sleeping bag, it was so warm in the hut. After some discussion, we gassed up the sleds and headed out through Minturn to ski Vail Pass. Vail Pass Winter Recreational Area is a network of groomed roads that runs from Shrine Pass over on I-70 over to Redcliff and down to Camp Hale. There's lots of sled tours, and plenty of skinning trails off the groomed roads.
We geared up and launched the sleds at Camp Hale under partly cloudy skies.
Zig and I pulled the Jim's up Resolution Road to Ptarmigan Pass. Here's me giving Jim a rest on the way up:
Ominous words on the Pass:
Our first and second runs were down into this bowl:
We hung close to the trees, as the lookers left side was one big ugly wind slab. Avy conditions were moderate with pockets of considerable on NE-NW slopes that day, and even though this bowl is fairly skier-cut from all the Vail Powder cat activity, we weren't taking any chances. The snow below the wind slab was bottomless sugar with no support.
We left my sled at the top of Ptarmigan Hill, and we were doing pretty good with Ziggy pulling the two Jim's with me on the back seat, until we looked back after a gnarly downhill turn and saw only one Jim, laughing hysterically. The other Jim was wearing tele gear and didn't navigate that last turn quite as well. We found him back on the trail no worse for the wear & tear.
We took a lunch break on the Vail Cats yurt platform:
Here's Ziggy pulling the Jim's to the top of Ptarmigan Hill:
A little mandatory air:
We then headed down the road a little bit to a bowl west of Machine Gun Ridge. (All these areas were named by the 10th Mt Division who used to train here). Here's the view of our next target from the main road below.:
The view from the top of the ridge looking back up at Ptarmigan Peak with Resolution Road visible:
Here's a Jim skiing out the lower slope:
My ride, with wind-scoured Sugarloaf Peak in the background:
After a couple runs down that area, we called it a day. Here's the Zig man waiting while the Jim's skied ahead of us down the road:
After saying goodbye to the Jim's, Ziggy and I headed into the thriving metropolis of Redcliff for a brew and some chow:
Total Vertical 9,400
I headed out the next day for home. Here's the Eagle County airport from above:
That's the end of my story. All in all a great trip. No champagne, but many first tracks were laid down, much fun was had, and the sledding adventure was fantastic. I'll hopefully be back in the soup soon, as we're looking to get another dumper this week back east.
I'll end with one last thought:
