Saturday Skiing at Vail
Feb 18, 2007 · 08:55 AM · permalink
Saturday was the first outstanding day of my ski season. We came up Friday night, dragged ourselves out of bed early Saturday morning and made the trek to Vail in time for first lift. Man, was it worth it.
After booking to Mountain Top, we skied down to Teacup Bowl to get first tracks in 12"-14" of nicely wind-loaded powder. Thence we took Teacup lift back to the top of China Bowl and dropped in to Dragon’s Teeth for lots more untracked powder. Then Orient Express back to the top of China Bowl where two of us split off to check out conditions in Siberia and Inner Mongolia. As expected, lee slopes were wind-loaded with variable powder, and windward slopes were crusty and scoured. On the whole, Inner Mongolia and Siberia Bowls were not in great condition, so we met back up with our group at Orien Express, and made laps through the trees on the east side of China bowl, where we found copious amounts of excellent powder.
Blue Sky Basin did not open yesterday until almost noon, but as soon as it did, we were on Skyline lift. Big Rock Park and Cloud Nine are both great fun in the fresh powder—before they get completely tracked up. But we opted for a single run through those popular areas before heading straight to Pete’s Express and laps on Grand Review and in the deep powder and challenging trees just out of bounds. 
At the end of one of these, I dove into the trees just above Pete’s Express, thinking I could hit the catwalk, and found myself stuck in a waste-deep draw. Getting myself extricated used up what energy reserves I still possessed, although I still had enough for a second lap, and a really fun drop into an untracked ravine before heading back to Skyline.
After a late and leisurely lunch, we ended the day with a few runs through Pete’s bowl and then back to the front side via Orient Express.
After 7.5 hours of skiing, the exhaustion was complete and we dragged ourselves back to the condo. A high-calorie meal at Arapahoe Cafe was just what we needed before falling into a coma. Last season was full of days like that—let’s hope the spring holds more of them because collapsing into an inert heap should be the goal of a ski day.
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