Last Gasp 2
Once again a few us got together at Arapahoe Basin. It was a great time of snowboarding, sharing meals, and just hanging out, with some older riders. Even resorts elsewhere close for the season in March or April, A-Basin keeps going into June. Our gathering this year was May 13 and 14.
(Yes, you can go snowboarding in May!)
DEALING WITH THE ALTITUDE
This was my third visit to Summit County, and my second for snowboarding. As the name suggests, it’s definitely an “at altitude” place. A-basin, Breckenridge, Copper, and Keystone, all in the county, have a base elevation of at least 9,200 feet.
So during my first visit there (a Labor Day weekend back in 2005 or so), I experienced some mild altitude sickness. When I returned for snowboarding last year, I got a prescription for Diamox, a commonly prescribed drug. It helped.
This year, I didn’t take any Diamox with me. That was a mistake. I usually have a fitful sleep my first night in the mountains (even at a lower elevation such as Vail or Aspen), but that night was bad. I woke up feeling short of breath, and like someone was sitting on my chest. I was so tired and weak that at breakfast I could barely lift my spoon from the cereal bowl to my mouth. But I decided to gut it out, and planned to take it easy the first day.
Once I got to the mountain, I was fine, but I ended the day early, at about 12:30. I got in enough riding to be satisfied, and took a nap in the afternoon. I went to bed early that night, and woke up a completely different person.
So the lesson for flatlanders: Read up on altitude sickness, take precautions, and talk to your doctor if you’re concerned.
GETTING THERE
You can get a nice airport if you spend $5 billion, and Denver International Airport is pleasant, as far as airports go. It’s the home base of Frontier Airlines, on which I got a decent through not spectacular deal the week before I left. Frontier has a three-tier pricing system, which is somewhat confusing, but if you pay $25 more than the lowest fare, you get to check two bags without an extra fee, plus you get to watch DirectTV.
The day before my flight, I booked a van ride with Colorado Mountain Express, for $82. The driver was tour guide and naturalist, giving us a history lesson on the various towns that we drove past en route to the county, as well as pointing out wildlife by the road. We saw prairie dogs, sheep, and buffalo. They delivered me to the door of my condo.
Before I left the airport I noticed the counter for Big Sky Shuttle, which goes from DIA to Summit for $65. I don’t know if they offer door-to-door; be sure to ask.
DINNER
My flight arrived earlier than expected, so I got an earlier shuttle, which meant that I could meet everyone for dinner rather than, as I had planned on, arriving at the condo after dinner. Being able to meet some folks before the first day of riding was a pleasant addition to the trip. We ate at a Mexican restaurant, which offered adequate food.
THE CONDO
Our condo was between Keystone to the east (A-basin was a few miles further east) and Silverthorne to the west. It had four bedrooms, and if you wanted to pack people in them, could have, I’m guessing, slept 16 people or more. It had six levels, if you count the front entrance and the kitchen (separated by a few steps) as being on separate levels. I stayed in the loft, meaning at times that I felt like I had to combine chores so as to minimize the trips I took down to the kitchen or (a few steps below that) the living room. Overall, it was a fine setup. Steve found it on VRBO.com. I highly recommend the site.
TICKETS
If you have time and are willing to do some work, you can often get by without buying tickets at the window. I used Liftopia.com, which claims to offer discounted tickets, but the system was rather screwy the day I tried it. It claimed to offer me 2 days for $67, but when I clicked through, it wanted to charge me twice that. I backed out and selected a different option, and paid $45 a day. That saved me … not a lot of money. Only $3 off the end-of-season window price of $8. On the other hand, there’s a hill around here that charges that during high season, for 300 feet of vertical and about 125 acres.
If you go, you can try Liftopia, but if you don’t get a good deal, see if you can get a “scalper” in the parking lot. Pass holders can “sponsor” friends (or people they’ve just met) for a discounted price. You may also find, as I did, someone in the parking lot hawking some surplus vouchers. I could have gotten one for $30. Bummer that I missed that.
THE FACILITIES AND STAFF
Vail it isn’t; the A-basin parking lot was dirt, reminding me of many a Midwestern lot. The base day lodge is an upgrade from Midwestern day areas, but equal to or arguably a step below what you might find at some Midwestern areas such as Lutsen or Granite Peak. The mid-mountain Black Mountain Lodge is only a few years old, and looks it. We ate lunch there both days; expect to pay ski-area prices for your food. (Meatball sandwich with two sides: north of 10 dollars.) It’s a comfortable place to hang out, though (showing my age, part 1), I thought the music on the outside loudspeakers was too loud. It was tuned to an XM music channel, and (showing my age, part 2), I didn’t recognize any of the songs until an Eagles tune came wafting towards me. One nice thing about the Black Mountain Lodge: The food service was moved out on the patio, buffet/cookout style. I dropped my plate of food before I even got a chance to eat much of it. The staff saw the incident and gave me a whole new plate of food without question.
A-basin is famous for “the beach,” an area in the parking lot where people cook out and drink. We didn’t stop there, however.
The lifts (at least the ones I used) are at least triples, and reasonably fast. On the other hand, the trail map should include more information–in particular, the time required to travel each lift as well as the elevation gain made by each.
THE MOUNTAIN
The stated statistics include an area of 900 acres, split between the original basin (490 acres) and the Montezuma Bowl (410 acres), which became lift-served during the 2007-08 season. (Prior to that you had to hike out of it.) The expansion increased the relative importance of advanced (black) and expert (double black/ex) terrain. Intermediate terrain became 122% larger, the advanced terrain became 340% larger, and the expert/extreme became 211% larger. Overall, 207 of the 900 acres (23%) are rated expert, leaving about 500 acres for us mortals. (For what it’s worth, Colorado law defines “extreme terrain” as having a 50 degree average pitch over a minimum distance of 100 feet.)
(In front of the East Wall, 2008 photo)
The A-basin trail map claims a vertical rise of 2,270 feet, which is respectable. But most people will find that to be a misleading number, since it comes from subtracting the base elevation (10,780) from the elevation at the top of the 13,050 at the top of the Upper East Wall. To get to the Upper East Wall, you have to hike from the top of the Lenawee lift (which someone on the mountain told me was at 12,450). That’s a 600 foot vertical hike, so for most people, the available vertical rise is only 1,670 feet. Respectable, certa
inly, but less than, say, the 2,030 of Aspen’s Buttermilk, a place with a much, shall we say, milder reputation.
PLAYING ON THE MOUNTAIN
We were all advanced riders, with perhaps an expert thrown in for good measure. Two guys who normally ride soft boots hooked up with a younger guy who spends a lot of time on hardboots, to try hardbooting. I figured that being at altitude was enough of a challenge, so I kept my setup.
On the first day that I was there, we warmed up by taking laps off Exhibition, the lower lift in the front basin. It’s a got a mix of green and blue runs, but nothing too difficult. The blue runs, in addition to being somewhat steeper, a generally more narrow.
If I recall correctly, we moved on to take laps on Lenawee, which serves the upper reaches of the front side. Most if not all of the area served by the Pallavicini lift (mostly black and double black) was closed, since the Pali lift was closed. We could have taken a traverse to ride down the lower east wall (which we did last year), but at least when I was there, nobody in our group did.
After some laps on Lenawee, we went to the Montezuma bowl. You have to ascend a short distance to get there, maybe 50 feet. It’s not a horrible climb, but enough to make you want to unstrap your board and carry it.
Most of the Zuma bowl was closed, but the intermediate terrain down the middle was open. The top pitch looked like it might be trouble (steeper and hardpacked) but wasn’t bad. The most troublesome spots, in fact, came once the grade leveled out some. Some areas had been groomed. They weren’t anything like fine corduroy, but there were certainly rideable. But if you got off the (ex)groomers, you were likely to get some nasty, bumpy, frozen snow, sort of like trying to ride on frozen mashed potatoes–or worse.
After three, four or five trips through Zuma, we returned to the front side. I left about 12:30, since I had more than enough riding for the day. I slept off much of the afternoon, which helped me immensely the next day.
On the second day, the Zuma bowl was closed, so we spent most of our time lapping the Lenawee chair. The hardboot guys worked on their technique and tweaking the equipment, and I simply enjoyed taking nonstop laps. By the way, the ride from top to bottom was somewhat less than I had expected. At the end of the day, it took me 10 minutes to ride from the top of Lenawee to the base. I wasn’t bombing it (the snow was too chopped up for that), but I also didn’t stop to rest along the way.
THE PEOPLE
I enjoyed meeting everyone in our group, and learned something different from each of them. We had a couple of gearheads, an instructor, and two (ex)southerners, who provided some accents I haven’t heard that often in the mountains. We talked about snowboarding techniques, families, ski schools, and other topics. Back at home, I usually ride alone, but having riding and dinner companions is a great component of big-mountain riding.
(Some of the riders, on top of the ridge separating the front bowl from the Montezuma bowl.)
NEXT YEAR!
A newcomer to our group said that we ought to meet again next year. He even suggested a name: Last Gasp 3. I like it. What do you think?
For the inaugural and second year, we met during the second full week of May. While we were blessed with 8 inches of fresh stuff last year, we didn’t do as well in the snow department this year. Maybe we should make our next meeting during the first full week of May. That way, we might benefit from more snow, but still be able to get mud season rates for lodging, and have fewer crowds than during the peak season.