Fresh tracks in Blue Sky Basin at Vail

Standing atop a cliff in Blue Sky Basin at Vail. I think the bowl behind me is the Sun Down Bowl.

At the top of Blue Sky Basin at Vail. Everything you can see behind me is in bounds and lift serviced.

Vail

This is going to be a very long post because I have so many good things to say about Vail. As an employee of Vail Resorts, I now have a ski pass which is good at Vail and Beaver Creek (before I only had Breck, Keystone and A-Basin). It is good at Heavenly too, but that is not very useful when you live in Colorado. Today on my day off I headed over to Vail for a day of skiing with a buddy. This was the first time I had ever been to Vail to ski. I expected big things and I was not disappointed. For those of you who don't know anything about Vail, it is the largest resort in the U.S. and second largest in North America (Whistler-Blackcomb is the largest). Vail has 5,300 acres of skiable terrain. Compare that to 2,200 at Breckenridge, 3,500 at Mammoth, 4,000 at Squaw, 4,800 at Heavenly and 400 acres for Big Bear and Snow Summit Combined. This place is huge, and unlike Heavenly which is nearly as big, most of the terrain doesn't suck. It snowed a bit overnight (2") and was snowing more this morning. The drive from Breckenridge took about 40 minutes in snowy conditions. I parked in the employee lot which is a short distance from the lifts, and more importantly free, unlike the other lots in Vail. We took the Eagle Bahn gondola up for our first run. The gondolas were nice. They had wood trim on the floor. At the top of the gondola we took a cat track down to the Game Creek Express lift which took us to the top of the mountain on the West side of the resort. We got off the lift and dropped into the Sun Down Bowl.

The Back Bowls
The defining features of Vail is the backside of the mountain and the back bowls. There are 7 adjacent bowls which span about 6 miles wide. The bowls are immense and nearly completely wide open with very few trees. Today the snow conditions in the bowls were not great because there had been no snow for 2 weeks until today. The bowls have southern exposure and it has been pretty warm over the past few weeks. It was a dust on crust situation, but there were still many areas with good snow. I was skiing on my Sugar Daddys which excel in these types of conditions. The runs down any of the bowls are incredibly long. There is just so much terrain and vertical feet to ski everywhere. We skied in several of the bowls and they were all pretty cool. A big powder day here would be absolutely incredible. There is so much terrain that you could get fresh tracks all day.

Blue Sky Basin
Beyond the back bowls lies Blue Sky Basin. It is essentially on the other side of the valley from the Back Bowls (almost like a second front side of the mountain, but in the back) This area of the resort is big enough to be a ski resort in its own right. It is composed of several peaks and the runs are mostly North facing so the snow conditions were excellent. When you head out into Blue Sky Basin you get the feeling that you are a great distance from civilization. It would take probably about an hour to get from the Base of Vail to Blue Sky Basin, even if you went directly. Most of this area is left in a natural state. The defined runs aren't completely cleared of trees and there is little to no grooming. The tree skiing in Blue Sky Basin was spectacular. We spent almost the entire day skiing the trees and we were able to take different routes on every run. There seemed to be a greater amount of snowfall at Blue Sky (up to 6" in places). The incredible thing about Vail is that the runs are not crowded at all. There were always a lot of people on the cat tracks going back to the lifts and on the lifts, (I saw very few empty chairs throughout the day) but once you get off the lift and head down a run, you will likely not see any people until you are heading back to the lift. Many of the lines through the trees were untracked. On our very last run of the day before blue sky closed, we got fresh tracks through the trees. This was after 3 in the afternoon. There is simply enough terrain to go around for everybody. The terrain in Blue Sky was absolutely incredible. It is unlike any terrain at any other ski resort I have ever experienced.

Belle's Camp
Belle's Camp is the cabin at the top of the Skyline Express Lift in Blue Sky Basin. There is some food service, but most people pack in their lunches. The most novel aspect of this cabin is there is a big south facing patio with several gas grills that are open for anyone to use. You can bring any food you want and grill it up way out in the backcountry. I didn't know this before hand, so I didn't plan for it, but I will probably take advantage of it in the future. Some people I saw were cooking ribs, flatbread, grilled onions and a bunch of other good looking food. It is a cool setup and it will be a great place to hang out in the spring.

Cliffs
One cool thing about Vail is that there are a ton of cliffs and rock formations all over the mountain. There are cliffs of every size from about 4 ft to greater than 50 ft. It is a really great place to learn and practice cliff drops. Because the snow condition weren't optimal we didn't do to many cliffs today, but I eyed a couple for future expeditions.

The Front Side
Oh, did I mention that Vail has a frontside as well, which is also enormous. At 3pm when Blue Sky and the Back Bowls Closed we began heading back to my car. We started on the far east side of the mountain and needed to get to the far west side of the mountain. It took almost the full hour to traverse the mountain. The runs on the front side of the mountain are wide open and very fast. The trail ratings are the opposite of Southern California. A green circle at Vail is the equivalent of a blue square at most other resorts. Up until this point we had not skied on a groomed run the entire day, with the exception of cat tracks. That in itself is pretty amazing. The runs on the front side were fun and we bombed the entire way down. I think it was easily the fastest I have skied this year. We barely touched the frontside of the mountain. I would like to do some more exploring on the front side when I come over here again. You could spend days here and still not ski every run.

The Town of Vail
The only thing that looks like it sucks about Vail is the town, or rather lack of it. The base area is all condos and hotels. There isn't really any town to speak of. I'm glad I decided not to live here. Breck is much much cooler.

There you have it, an epic post for an epic mountain. If I get a great snow day over there it could possibly be my best day of skiing ever. I plan on making many more trips to Vail over the course of this season. I will be glad to take anyone who comes to visit over there as well and show you around.

Moguls

One of my poorest skiing skills is skiing moguls. I can get down mogul fields without a problem, but I can't ski them very gracefully. Now that I work for Vail Resorts, I get two free lessons a month. Today I took a lesson with the intention of learning how to ski moguls. This was the first time I had taken a lesson in at least 10 years, and the first time I had taken an advanced lesson. My instructor was cool. He liked to ski fast, which suited me well. It was good to get a lot of tips for skiing moguls. I now have a bunch of things I can practice and get better at. Another cool thing we got to do on the lesson was take a few runs on the race course. I destroyed (minimum 2s margin of victory) everyone else in the class except the instructor, but I still only won bronze medals. Overall it was a fun day. I learned a lot. It was good to find out that the manner in which I ski groomed runs is mostly correct. Now I just have to practice those moguls.

Me all official looking at the top of the T-Bar on a gorgeous day.

I have the greatest job ever

The last two days have been spectacular. The temperature has been in the high 30s/low 40s (ie really hot). It has been sunny and not windy at all. Today I only wore a T-shirt under my shell jacket. On days when the resort is not crowded we basically get paid to ski around the mountain all day. We have to do set up in the morning and a little bit of speed control during the day, but most of the time we are just skiing all over the mountain. We ski everywhere including the high alpine bowls. Every now and then we help guests with directions and what not. But mostly, I just get paid to ski. It is so awesome!!! When the resort closes we ride with ski patrollers as they are doing their sweeps to ensure everyone is off the mountain. I got to ride around on the back of a snowmobile today. Tomorrow is going to be another hard day at the office. So far the only downside to my job is that I couldn't watch the NFC championship game yesterday.