The End of Winter: Part I
18 March 2010, 10 am, Beaver Creek.
Diane and Kayla arrived last night and we're ready for the entire gang to terrorize the mountain. The weather report calls for temperatures in the 50s. Seems a lot more like spring than winter. I swear something like this happened last year. We ride the gondola over to the Lower Beaver Creek Mountain Express lift. That takes you to the Bachelor Gulch area of the resort where you hop on the Upper Beaver Creek Mountain Express lift. It's amazing that you have to take two lifts to get to the runs at the Ritz, and three before you've hit any skiable terrain.
The crew regroups at the top of the Upper Beaver Creek Mountain Express lift.
Now we hit the road over to Beaver Creek proper. We hit a couple of rides up the Larkspur lift. The conditions are a little crunchy, but will soften up nicely later in the day. Dylan shreds the corduroy.
We then ride the Birds of Prey lift up near the top because Dylan wants to hit the park. Everyone hits the halfpipe.
I. Kayla
II. Beth
We do a few rides through the park and then decide to venture back around the mountain and hit some runs at Bachelor Gulch.
I. Over the rail
II. Off the log ride
III. And onto the mega-ramp
Puttin' on the Ritz.
II. The real ritz... Fawcetts with the Gore range in the background
III. Diane in Bachelor Gulch
Beaver Creek has a snow buddha, right next to the pay-to-race race course. That's good Karma for the racers.
We run through the park a few times and then Kayla, Brian and I split off from Dylan and Diane. I suggest Golden Eagle, the run that the world cup Birds of Prey downhill goes down. It's an amazing course. After a half-mile long flat at the top, the course takes a hard left onto a 45-degree pitch, and then a hard right off camber at about 70 mph. This is called the talon turn, and it's sketchy just free skiing it. Kayla is not amused. I bet the family in the lift line that listened in as I told Diane that they groom Golden Eagle is not. They keep the run race ready, which means that there's big sheets of ice on the steep parks.
At any rate, the course takes a few more nasty high speed turns and then three jumps in a row to the finish. It must be absolutely terrifying to race. I'm pretty sure Kayla was absolutely terrified sliding down on her board. Terrified enough to ditch me, take one run and then quit for the day at 2pm.
Kayla uses sign language on Golden Eagle Run. This specific location is the Talon Turn on the Birds of Prey downhill. If you were Bode Miller you would come off of the top take a hard left onto this 45-degree face, and then hard right at 70mph on an off-camber, drop away. Scary.
I asked one of the patrol how they groom Golden Eagle. He stated the obvious: with winches. They tie up to trees and steel posts and winch up and down. Note that the first pitch above is just the beginning of the steep part. It goes on for several more pitches. He said the scary part for the patrol is taking 400 pounds of camera gear down on a sled to the T.V. platforms. Definitely scary.
Kayla is done... had enough of the Birds of Prey downhill (not for snowboards apparently), so I take one run down Grouse Mountain, which is softening up nicely and meet Catherine and Parker. Parker wants to do the Royal Elk Glade. I'm skeptical about the whole deal, but Parker prevails. I must be getting old, because bumps in the trees are not all that exciting to me any more. Parker leads us through to some nice slots on the far skier's left. The snow is softening up and the temperature is downright balmy by the time we get down into the canyon.
Cath and I have had enough of that, so we do a couple of runs down Larkspur. We hit the bumps on Lupine first, and then Loco. It's getting good and mushy, so the bumps are pretty fun.
I.
II.
I head back over to the park to find Dylan. We take a couple more runs and call it a day.
For the evening festivities, Mary and Frank come and visit and we have a little ice cream and cake to celebrate Ruthanne's 75th birthday (which is in two weeks, but everyone is here now. We then have an epic game of scrabble which I kind of half participate in as I play some guitar and try and get Internet access on the computer.
The End of Winter: Part II
19 March 2010, 6:15 am.
The weather report calls for 8-12" of snow overnight so I set my phone alarm for 6am to check the snow report. The plan is to go to Vail if it snows enough. It takes me 15 minutes to get net access and see that Vail is reporting a paltry 1" of fresh. That, on top of 50-degree slush from the day before doesn't sound so appealing. I go back to bed and get up around 7:30. That turned out to be a mistake.
We have a big breakfast and my plan of getting out early turns out to be getting out not so early. We mosey out around 8:45 and get to the gondola around 9. The snow is falling on Kayla at the lower mountain access. Dylan, Brian and I head up for some early runs on Grouse Mountain. Brian kills it on the K2 Hellbents. I'm jealous since I'm having a hard time keeping my tips up out of the 8-12" of heavy gak that actually fell.
Brian shreds down the Ptarmigan run. We do four runs down Grouse Mountain before the pow is ravaged. The bumps are out of the question--you can't really see the bottoms and it's rough going.
Dylan also enjoys the conditions.
We meet the rest of the crew at the bottom and head over to the Birds of Prey with the idea of going down Redtail. Diane is having a hard time in the gak--the BeaverWorld grooming machine is now match for this spring storm. Dylan, Parker, Brian and I peel off skier's left into the glades and find some freshies in the trees. We've found the stash.
On the next ride up I spy the aspen groves over on skier's right of Redtail and suggest we give that a go. We do, and it's a veritable playground. Brian and Dylan shred through the trees.
I. We found it!
II. The Aspen Grove
III. The base is a little thin
IV. But the powder is deep
V. One shred requires another
VI. Tree slalom
VII. It's steeper in some spots
VIII. I'm a powder bird!
IX. Dylan gets the pow coming...
X. And going.
XI. Brian stomps the pow
XII. Last turns
Diane and the rest of the crew peel off for the bottom. The conditions are just too much, plus it's getting close to lunch time. We tell Kayla we're going to do one more down the glade, but in typical fashion, one turns into two, plus we still have the 4000 vertical foot descent to the base. Brian suggests some trees off the bottom of Latigo (near the half-pipe). We get in there and it's a little tight, but we get a few good turns in. We stop for lunch.
Most of the crew calls it a day at this point, but Beth, Cath, Heather, Parker, Frank and I head out for some more adventure. By now the storm is in full force and the wind is howling and it's nearly a blizzard. We head over to President Ford's run and everyone but Frank bails. Frank and I take a couple more runs and then throw in the towel around 3:30.
I. President Ford's
II. Frank
It was nice getting a few runs in with Frank. He just had a knee replacement and was feeling strong. I was amazed, but definitely empathize--skiing hurts a lot more now than it did when I was 21. The idea is to keep on skiing as long as I can.
This was a pretty epic powder day--the best since at least December, and more like last season (see post from March 31st, 2009). You gotta love Colorado--one day sunny and 50 degrees, the next, 10" of fresh pow! What a way to end winter.
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