Vail Trip: Day 1

This year I’ve really enjoyed new late-season riding. And when you’re riding in Vail’s record-setting year, it’s easy to enjoy the late season.

For the second ski area in North America (only Whistler Blackcomb is bigger), the scope of Vail is surprisingly easy to grasp, at least superficially. You will hear that it is possible to spend an entire season there and still find new caches of snow, and that’s probably right. In my own case, I was able to sample the front side, two of the back bowls, and portions of the Blue Sky Basin.

Here’s what happened on the first day, a Monday.

Landing at the Eagle Vail airport
I took a small prop plane from Denver to the Eagle County airport. Flying over the mountains in the equivalent of a bus is not for the weak of stomach. Fortunately, my stomach held up well enough, but the ride certainly was turbulent enough.

Once on the shuttle, I noticed that the appetite for direct flights on large plans continues to grow. Our van had to stop for 5 minutes as a fleet of earth-moving equipment paraded across the road, dumping fill for a runway extension for this growing airport.

Once in town, I changed into my gear. It’s amazing how long it takes to unpack and put on various forms of protective clothing. But soon enough I was on the mountain.

Everyone knows it’s Windy
The day featured a mostly cloudy sky, with winds. I started out in the Lionshead area, and decided to take lift 19, the Eagle Bahn gondola, rather than lift 8 (the Born Free lift) because it would take me further up the mountain. OK, I also thought that a gondola would be more interesting than a chair lift, since I had been in a gondola all of one time in my life.

Lifts 8 and 19 are fairly close together, so it was with some disappointment that I noticed the gondola I was in stopped in mid-journey, several times, while lift 8 continued up the mountain. By its boxy design, the gondola was more likely to be buffeted by winds, forcing operators to slow its operation to a crawl. Bad choice on my part, then.

This was a lesson in how what you don’t know can hurt you.

My bad luck continued. I had hoped to ride over to lift 2 (Avanti) and play around in the area known as Mid-Vail, which offers easy access to a number of shorter runs of all colors. But somebody at the top of the gondola told me that lift 2 was closed as well, due to winds.

Catwalks
When I asked a patroller what should I do, he advised me to ride back down a longer trail (Born Free) and then take the Vail Village catwalk over to lift 16 (the Vista Bahn). This introduced me to one thing I did not care for so much: catwalks.

Now, I have come a long way in my riding skills, so the cats no longer strike fear in me as they once did. A cat can even be a nice change of pace, a way to slow down after charging through several runs. But on my first descent from the lift? I did not need that just yet!

Well, my complaints are not too serious. Such is the wonder of living in 21st century America, when the biggest complaint of the day is taking the wrong line down a mountain in an expensive winter sport! The trip down to lift 16 was easy.

PHQ
Once I left chair 16, I took the short ride down to chair 4 (Mountaintop) to, well, the mountain top, or more specifically, PHQ (Patrol Headquarters). In this area, two lifts serving the front side (11 and 4) meet in roughly the same spot.

I took a few runs from each lift, starting with Northwoods (blue) and then adding in Expresso (blue) and Ramshorn (Green), before taking #3 up to the Wildwood area.

Wildwood
I finished that off with a quick trip over to Wildwood, which was at the top of lift 3. This lift would have normally taken me into the Game Creek mini-bowl, but GC was closed for the season, the largest (and perhaps only) area that was officially closed at Vail.

From the top of Wildwood I took another run or two down Hunky Dory (blue) back to lift 3. I took some bump runs, which demonstrates how well this day served up “hero snow.” I have tried bumps in the Midwest, but without much success. At home, the bumps are usually icy and the field is narrow, requiring rapid edge changes. This day at Vail, the moguls were soft but not too much so. The field was wide enough that I could traverse and made wide, sweeping loops rather than try to make rapid turns.

For the end of the day, I took Hunky Dory , Meadows (green) and Transmontane (another cat) down to Riva Ridge (blue-black). Riva is the longest run at Vail, but for some reason I was never able to find its start at the top of the mountain. I always ended up riding only a portion of it: two or three miles instead of 4.5. Again, not exactly a crushing blow, but kind of odd.

Download?
I had seen signs suggesting that due to conditions on the lower mountain, customers might wish to download (ride the lift down the mountain) at the end of the day.

Why was that? Perhaps the snow had melted so much that rocks were exposed? I could not see anything like that from the lifts. And I wasn’t going to let a little soft snow near the base deprive me of time on the board; I would rather ride ON the snow with my board than ride suspended OVER it in a chair.

Sure enough, the snow was a bit soft in spots. But all that meant was that I had to pick my lines more carefully. As it turns out, warm snow may be another one of those conditions which is easier for snowboards than for skis. Or maybe it’s just that I was used to spring conditions.

Not Bad for the First Afternoon.
A few years ago, I read an account of a guy who hopped on a plane in New York, flew to Utah, quickly made his way to the mountain and then to the top of the mountain … and then puked all the way down while attempting to ski.

Altitude sickness.

Fortunately I had nothing of that sort happen. I did have a slight headache, which I usually do during my first day in the Rockies.

Once I got back to my condo, then the more serious symptoms set in: I was wiped. Dehydrated, probably. The few juice packs I had taken with me were not enough.

But I opened the water tap back at the condo, let it flow, and got much better. Recovery took only an hour or so. Not bad for heading out to the mountains on the first day. And not a bad amount of terrain for a short day of riding.

My wild guess is that I got in 10,000 feet of vertical descent in just over 2 hours. By comparison, getting in that much back home would require riding from 9 am until 9 pm.

Oh yes, thanks in part to my aggressive schedule, I slept much better than I usually do for the first night.