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Post by JimRatliff on Feb 4, 2014 19:00:05 GMT -7
JIm….I was just making a joke about the word 'oriental' I had no idea what the real names of the Vail bowls were. Thanks, I know (now). Lynn told me I was being dense.
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Post by JimRatliff on Feb 4, 2014 20:32:47 GMT -7
Breckenridge Peak 6.
We were pretty amazed at what a good job they did of blending piste and off-piste skiing with the new Peak 6 lifts (from what we could see, it was snowing and windy and visibility above treeline was poor). It goes up above tree line, but its an easy enough pitch that most of the trails down are Blue and most of the off-piste is only black. It appears that there will be a lot of open terrain (no trees) just as there is from the t-bar on Peak 8. And then, farther down, there is a lot of 'somewhat' open tree skiing with lots of places to access it from the groomed trails. We have always enjoyed Peak 7 because the trails twist and turn and undulate, its just a lot of fun. I learned absorption from skiing over the crests of these ridges and flexing at the top to keep from going airborne - great fun.
For anyone that finds themselves at Breckenridge, make the effort to work your way over to Peaks 7 & 6. Unfortunately, the long traverse from Peak 8 is still the route, and it still results in use of ski poles.
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Post by JimRatliff on Feb 6, 2014 8:48:36 GMT -7
Just A little update. It is colder in Denver than in the mountains. The HIGH at the airport yesterday was -1, the low the night before was -20. I believe that was a record for the lowest high temp. Meanwhile the high at Beaver Creek was in the upper teens.
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Post by JimRatliff on Feb 7, 2014 18:32:10 GMT -7
What a great week of skiing. They had 2-3 feet of snow just before we arrived (and most of the state is going to get another 2-3 feet in the next 3 days. We had 1 bluebird day on our first day skiing "sloppy seconds" in Vail's back bowls, but there was still plenty of untracked and slightly tracked and a great day. Monday was a 1/2 day lesson with Bob, Tuesday was exploring Peak 6 at Breckenridge, Wednesday was another 1/2 day lesson (we are eventually going to learn how to ski) focusing mostly on 2 footed releases and short turns (and using something other than my head for counter balance , thursday and Friday we kept skiing at Beaver Creek working on our new skills, playing around in the trees, getting to use our wider skis for the first time in a couple of years. A great week, and Lynn successfully got her new MYA 8's tuned and the love affair continues to grow. And I was reminded how versatile and how much I like my Ullr's Chariots for just doing a little bit of everything. If you are headed to Colorado this weeked, congratulations. On the downer note, we had 30-60 minute waits in traffic waiting for accidents to be cleared three times this week. On the way from Beaver Creek to Dillon there was a lane closure on the east bound side where a car had apparently rolled and wound up on it's roof. There were at least 4 separate accidents on the west bound side, including a jack knifed tractor-trailer that resulted in the closing of west bound I-70 at Copper Mountain. drive safely, wherever you may be chasing the snow. Jim
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Post by superbman on Feb 13, 2014 7:56:54 GMT -7
That is a well-capsuled up and downside report of a trip to summit/eagle county resorts!
Made the call, we're hitting the PNW (Washington Crystal, Stevens and Baker) in mid March. Cost and 'something a little different' and tome constraints won out over Silverton and Smell Your Ride. And, the snow starting trucking into the cascades an seems set to continue for the next 6 weeks or so….
Skiing Berkshire East Tomorrow through Tuesday, in Massachusetts first However : ) Could be 20 inches on the hill by tomorrow morning, which, even our big mountain elitists will acknowledge as a very legit POWDER day. Come out and join me Peakskiers or Lurkers or those who Peak at the skiing of lurkers.
Liam
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Post by gary on Feb 18, 2014 8:54:40 GMT -7
Powder Mountain, Utah....a Skiers Mountain! Located in Eden, Ut.
Drift back to a 1970's resorts....NOTHING has changed with Powder Mountains infrastructure in 40 years.
Having said that...what a very cool mountain to get to..albeit difficult if you're driving from any distance. We fortunately were 5 miles down mountain....a sometimes slippery 4 wheel drive required trip up the twisty road to the mountain...but so well worth it.
This place get's great snow falls. The 4 lifts had 1 or maybe 2 groomed runs...that's it....so don't go there to cruise groomers or enjoy luxurious restaurants...AND no accommodations on the mountain...this all adds up to very light crowds. The terrain has some fantastic black steeps and tree runs that are not extremely tight. BUT such fun. A single person pomel takes you up the Sunrise area where there are fantastic blue open fields and trees.
Timerberline chair has some sweet headwalls and evergreen tree skiing...one of our favorite areas to ski. Hidden Lake chair...well was hidden for much of the time with fog but when we could see...some really fun tree areas (best place to ski then) and open fields to ski.
The snow we had was VERY Deep...it was also VERY compressed, dense. SO...we ended up surfing in many areas 6 inches of butter and some chopped up crud. Other areas in the steeps, your first turn would push away volumes of snow. Skiing there....I know my game improved!
Overall...I give the terrain 5 out of 5 stars....so very playful and a great way to challenge yourself.
Best, G
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Post by JimRatliff on Feb 18, 2014 10:53:35 GMT -7
And Cobabe Canyon?? Powder Mountain is an interesting place. I've become somewhat more enamored of Snow Basin since the updated for the Olympics some years back. But laid back and not crowded is certainly an apt description.
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Post by JimRatliff on Mar 2, 2014 18:01:09 GMT -7
My first trip to Big Sky, Lynn had been here for a conference several years ago. It is an interesting layout, you get the feeling of it really being open because from any of the smaller peaks you can see many of the trails on the others. This was our first day skiing, and excellent timing. Yesterday's temperature never got above 0 with wind chills of 35-50 below, today was upper 20s with minimal wind. Also, unlike many other larger resorts there aren't any significant lodges mid mountain or anywhere other than the base village, a challenging arrangement on a bitter cold day. Saturday's weather had the full respect of the locals (and us, just in walking around). We started today with 12" in the last 48 hours, and an inch overnight, so a little bit of fresh. Lots of fresh snow along the edges of trails, a sugar coating on the middle of the trail where it had been groomed. One trail even had "new growth" tree skiing on one side of the trail. 6-12" of powder with just the tops of evergreens sticking through the snow, sort of like the "brushies" they use to simulate slalom gates, but nothing to run into. Really fun, easy skiing. A couple of pictures. One is Lone Peak, which dominates the scenery once the clouds lifted. We'll be going up in the Tram to the top for the view if we get some more good visibility. The other is just a tree section that we liked. Pretty steep entry with 3-4' moguls, but quickly eased up and became fun. This is near the bottom and it has really flattened out. Certainly not the tight NE trees that others post about. A great day for my Peak 84's; a mix of untracked packed powder, groomed, and trees with crossing lines. Overall, lots of tree skiing terrain. And almost everything off the top of Lone Peak is double black.
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Post by JimRatliff on Mar 4, 2014 20:36:52 GMT -7
Final Day at Big Sky. We headed up into The Bowl on our way to the Tram. As it turned out, there was about a 40 minute delay at 15 people every 10 minute round trip, so all we got was a wannabe picture and skiing back down in the plentiful packed powder. A great picture by Lynn, and one of our favorite trails is under the lift. Middle of the afternoon, and there is still untracked snow.
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Post by JimRatliff on Mar 4, 2014 21:31:35 GMT -7
My summary of Big Sky. It feels pretty big, with large tracts of trees in between trails. The tree line is lower than in Colorado, so the open Bowls and flanks of the slopes are lower. The trees are open like Blue Sky Basin, and there is a lot of Blue tree-ski areas. They have a a lot fewer skiers, so untracked snow stays around. This moderate slope was untouched 3 days after the recent storm. But the lack of facilities anywhere up the mountain is a pain. Unfortunately, we failed to get a picture of Todd's Hole (really, that was a trail name, but we kept getting distracted on our way to get a pic). Lynn now has a new motto. The next stop is west Yellowstone. We knew we were there when we got to this Stop sign.
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