Vail Trip: Day 2

So this was my big day at Vail. Too bad the weather didn’t cooperate.

It started out with overcast skies from the moment I looked outside the condo:

It’s not that I had a bad day; it just would have been better had it not snowed so much.

I took lift 16 up to 4, and then rode the Timberline cat (not as bad as I had feared) down to the base of 14. That was the path to get into the China Bowl. The cat was fun in its own way; with all the nearby trees covered with snow, I felt like belting out “Winter Wonderland.”

I restrained myself, but it would not have mattered; there was hardly anyone around to listen.

After a stop at the Two Elks restaurant, I dropped into the China bowl by taking another cat that is just below.

It was hard to see anything. I could see far enough, but there was a haze over everything. I slipped off the cat onto the ground below, which would eventually go lead me to a small cliff. Fortunately the loud crunchy sound of the off-cat snow alerted me to the need to get back on track.

As I was cautiously making my way down the cat, to a point where I could drop in, an older guy on skis came up behind me. We talked briefly, and I decided that it would be good to have him around as a point of reference.

As it turns out he wasn’t looking for a mountain companion–when we got to the next lift, he quickly took off without waiting for me–but having someone else around as we both went into the bowl was comforting.

The bowl was unlike anything I have ridden before, but I would have to wait until the next day to appreciate that–that is, when I could ride with some sunshine. If you’ve never been skiing in such an environment, picture the guys from the “Bonanza” television show atop their horses, looking down into a valley that seems to go for miles and miles. It’s something like that. But covered with snow for all sorts of sliding.

Though there are no trails as such in the bowl, I did take the Poppyfields route (blue) down towards the Blue Sky Basin. I had only a vague sense of where I was going.

The bowls are great for powder days, but this was more “dust on crust,” or a few inches of snow on top of harder stuff that you would scrape against. It wasn’t the greatest snow, but it was my day to be in the bowls, so I stayed the course.

Getting to the bottom of the China Bowl is only part of the challenge of going to Blue Sky basin. There is also, you guessed it, another catwalk, one that winds back upon itself and requires crossing two bridges.

Getting to the basin is not, then, for the beginner. Then again, you don’t have to be an “expert,” if by expert you think of halfpipe tricks, or riding through chutes or jumping off cliffs. Simply being able to do a speed-check on a constantly declining cat is the most important quality after negotiating the China Bowl.

There is one thing that is helpful, however: Having calves of iron. There are many ways to ride on a long catwalk; I spent much of my time standing slightly on tiptoes.

Now I had been working out several times a week, including doing calf raises and dips. But getting to the basin gave a workout that I had never experienced in the gym. I wanted to stop at different times, but resisted, since coming to a complete stop would have killed any speed and made things more difficult.

Blue Sky Basin is advertised as a lift-served backcountry experience. It’s sorta kinda like that. Not that I have backcountry experience, but the “trailness” of the place is not like you would get on the front side of Vail, and it’s much less open than the bowls, which you can often see from BSB.

The light was adequate for a while, but pretty soon, the cloud cover increased and snow started falling. Then it started getting heavier, and hard snow started to pelt my jacket.

These were not the best conditions in which to ride the basin. First of all, I had never been there before. Second, the not-a-bowl but not-a-trail nature of the place made it hard to know where I was going. I had never been there before, and feared getting into a line that lead to some rocks, or simply, confusion. Add to that the fact that I was alone on a acreage that saw few people. What if I fell into a tree well? When would someone pull my frozen body out of the snow? All these factors combined to keep me in a conservative approach.

It took me a while to figure out where to go, and even then, I was disoriented. For example, I intended my first trip to be through “Grand Review,” but it took me a while to find out where that was. Once I got out of the more unpleasant terrain, however, the ride was great.

Another trip down I tried to follow a different line, “The Star.” At this point, the light was getting worse, and I never did see a sign telling me where I was. Unsure, I spent the good part of 15 minutes working my way down the mountain by going underneath the chairlift, on a tight and gnarly path.

I later joined up with a family, for a brief time. Parents, teenaged kids, and little kids. I asked the parents if I could tag along with them. They said sure, but we don’t know where we are going, either. I followed them, then lead them, and then lost them. We made it through a more difficult part of the basin, I think. At least it felt that way, as I tried to follow the teenaged son through a field of small, tightly spaced trees.

After fighting the flat light and falling snow, I decided to bail out for the front side of Vail. So I made my way back to lift 36, and up to Whisky Jack, a reasonably pleasant blue run on the front side. I followed that up with the green runs in the same area (Two Elks), such as Sourdough, Tin Pants, and Flapjack. The easy cruisers were a different kind of pleasure than the rough and tough conditions I had been through. As my father-in-law would say, when the snow is falling, head for the groomed tree runs.

I ended the day with a wide sweeping trip to the base, going from (I think I have it right) west to east. I started on Expresso (lift 4) and made my way over on Eagle’s Nest Ridge. This part of the day would have been a great time to have a riding companion who knew which line to take. “No, don’t go there, go here; it will make things much easier a few minutes from now.” At least once I had to unbuckle and climb back up hill to get to the trail I actually wanted to be on.

The final run took me over to the Lionshead area, down Simba. I kept it all blue, avoiding the black diamond shorter steeper pitches. I had had a long day (no complaining here!), and there was no need to push things.

NIGHT
Despite having spent much more time on the mountain, I was in better shape at the end of this day than the day before.

I also had some fine views, which had been absent during the day.