We woke up with a decision to make: with the weather forecasted to be identical (sunny and warm but windy) do we take another run at Breck, or head 40 minutes west to Vail? A sore back and thumb, bent pole, and general soreness were all the signs I needed. Vail it was.
Quick stop at Ty’s ski shop to grab a pair of bigger, broader skis to demo -- 20 cms longer than mine and wider, too, would help float on the powder more -- and then off to Vail. Free (but limited) parking is available at the nordic club, where you can then hop a brief bus ride to main base.
At 9:30am, it was already 30 degrees and there was not a could in the sky. I repeated my plea from the day before: new pair of skis, let’s take a couple runs to get comfortable. It rang just as hollow as the day before. We bombed down a groomed black-diamond, though keeping up wasn’t difficult.
[The new skis -- Rossignol S3’s -- were as good as advertised. Long and broad, they ski much shorter than they are. The edges catch a little differently, but the length makes for great speed and the width and bounce enable the skis to float easily over powder and unexpected humps. Highly recommended, especially for western skiing.]
The next stop was the back side of the mountain, all bowls, and we never left. There was never any way we could hit all parts of the mountain in one day. If Breckenridge’s claim to fame is its vertical, Vail’s is it’s breadth. It is monstrous. It has nearly 5,000 acres of terrain, more than twice that of Breck.
Many of the bowls face south and thus were pounded by the sun all day. Shells were off by the 3rd run of the day; by the end we were without jackets, too.
To take advantage of the sun, the north- and east-facing bowls were first, starting at Sun Down, then: Sun Up, Tea Cup, China, Siberia, and ultimately Blue Sky Basin (Pete’s Bowl and Earl’s Bowl) around lunchtime. We skied all seven before lunch.
[The views were incredible everywhere on the back bowls. They are techincally below the tree line, but because of an epidemic many years ago, the trees are few and far between. On a sunny day you can far across the Rockies. If the powder doesn’t get you out here, the views will.]
By the time we returned to the west-facing bowls, the sun had softened up the snow so it was as if we were riding on fresh powder. The last several runs of the day were nearly perfect. Wide, long, and sun-drenched
Knowing that the day had to end on the front-side, once the bowl lifts closed we took the longest run on the mountain to the bottom. Riva’s Ridge is 4 miles, but all blue and black, so it goes pretty quickly.
We skied 23,000 vertical feet (Jake’s biggest day of the year). Add that to yesterday’s total and we did over 41,000 feet in two days of perfect weather in CO.
On to Big Sky.
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Vail Review
Mountain terrain: 8.5 -- big, open, and terrain for every skier/boarder
Lifts/lines: 9 -- so much area that there are few lines
Town: N/A -- didn't spend any time there.
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