Vail
Friday 21 April 2006

Weather

Conditions

Story of the Day

Friday morning and I decided to drive to Vail, getting there just after 8am. By the time I had got ready, got my lift ticket and visited the loo, it was almost ready to start. Vail was not busy!

Conditions were pretty crispy first thing in the morning. There was no question at all of getting olff the groomed slopes. I spent the first part of the morning cruising on crispy corduroy searching for the first areas that the sun had softened up.

Looking up Born Free lift	Poor cover under the lift
The top of Born Free	Frozen run under Avanti
The top of Avanti

The ridge leading way from the Patrol HQ area was the first area of soft snow I found. Nearing the bottom of Northwoods lift, I made my first mistake of the day. Following a sign to another lift that turned out to be closed, I ended up following a long cat walk down to the valley floor.

Cliff under Mountaintop	Cell phone masts hidden (almost) in the trees
The top of Mountaintop	Looking back up Brisk Walk
Terrain park near the bottom of Riva Bahn	Crossing over brisk walk
The sun glinting off frozen snow	The top of Riva Bahn
Back at the top of Northwoods	Separate the skis for security!
So I did!

Back at Patrol HQ I needed a comfort stop. I wanted to head towards Blue Sky Basin but had lost height, so first of all I needed to get b\ack to the top of Patrol HQ. Once back at the top, I headed off into one of the back bowls, via Headwall, quite steep but nicely groomed.

At the top of Mountain Top	Broad expanse of Headwall
Approaching Sun Up lift

At the top of Sun Up, I still needed to get across to the top of China Bowl and the lift across to Elk Lodge was not running. This entailed either an uphill hike or another run and lift. I chose the run and lift.

At the top of Sourdough I was in the right position to get across to Blue Sky Basin. A short track around the top of the bowl lead to Poppyfields a long, groomed trail down past the bottom of Orient lift, which was in the process of closing for the season, along Silk Road to the base of Skyline lift.

Skyline lift was not busy. Most of the terrain was still frozen. A few adventurous skiers were scraping their way down the run under the lift, but, like me, the majority were heading down the groomed trail along Cloud 9 and through Big Rock Park. This turned out to be the best run of the day. There are enough trees left standing to make the run interesting. It is certainly not possible to ski down with concentrating on the path to be taken.

Nearing the top of Skyline	Looking towards Cloud 9
The top of Skyline	Lots of snow alongside Cloud 9
The track through the trees at the top of Cloud 9

Grand Review from the top of Pete's Chair was nowhere near as much fun. Broad and groomed it was simply an easy way down the mountain. My plan was to get an early lunch at this point, but I eventually did two more runds through Big Rock Park before actually taking Tea Cup back towards the front side.

The top of Pete's Chair	Snow covered mountains to the West
Back at the top of Skyline	Not a run under Tea Cup
The original ski resort Mardi Gras tree	Sun Up Bowl
Sun Down Bowl

Back at the top of Northwoods, I put off lunch for 1 more run. After a morning of cruising, I decided to venture into Sun Down Bowl. The entrance, along Windows run was mogulled, some parts nicely soft; other parts still a little crispy. The bowl itself looked more difficult than it actually was. Late season conditions meant that quite a lot of mud was mixed with the snow, giving a mottled brown and white surface. The heat of the sun had softened the snow so with good modern skies it was slmost possible to ignore the bumps and troughs in the snow.

At the top of Northwoods

One long run into Sun Down Bowl was enough for my legs and when I stopped for lunch, I realised how tired I was. After lunch I decided to ski back to Lionshead and call it a day. This being the last run, I did take more challenging runs.

Fire somewhere over to the West

Looking back to Wildwood lift from Eagle's Nest Ridge

I finished around 1:30, which meant that I had skied for more than 4 hours. I was very glad to be able to crash out in my hotel room for a good part of the afternoon.

Runs

Last updated: 4th February 2007