Arrived Vail Eagle airport around noon 28 Feb (Thurs) and rode the Eagle County bus to Vail (cost $4).  Not renting a car...priceless.  My brother arrived a couple hours later.  He gets senior rate ($1) for bus.  Check weather, NWS posting blizzard storm starting Sat morning.  We check in hotel (Marriott) and hit shopette for six pack...gatoraide for hydration.

Friday: Surprised with a 3" freshy, 30 deg temps and sunny sky.  Was my brother's first day of season so we kept to the front side and mostly groomers.  I did peek in the trees to sample conditions which were pretty good.

Couple pics from Mid-Vail

This is from top of terrain park.  We lap this a few times...not the features but the fresh pow on the right side.

Some trees I sampled for future reference knowing pow was coming, but still there was lots of good pow.

I like how the late sun plays in the trees

Saturday: Storm front slowed and was now forecast to arrive ~10am.  Very overcast.  Headed to Blue-Sky basin for morning laps in Pete's and Earl's bowls.  Unfortunately the cold air had made it too crusty for tree fun so we stayed on/near piste most of the day.

Top of Big Rock Park

Riding up Chair 36 looking at Poppyfields & Shangri La Glades

We lunched at 2Elk lodge then went on to Blue Ox.  Often a long bump run, it was groomed overnight so we were able to get several laps in before meeting up with a friend of mine formally from WV, now lives in Vail.  We did Riva Ridge and few others off chair 11.  Storm didn't start until after 4pm.

Sunday: Woke up to 11"...snow that is ;)  Got out to gondola at 830am to see the whole Denver population in line.  It was no kidding 50yds long.  We took the lesser of 2 evils and rode the chair up which required a second chair to get to top.  Headed into Game Creek bowl. Got 2 laps of fresh tracks in Game Creek before lines exploded there so we moved to runs off chairs 3, 4, 19 & 11.  Lines were long most everywhere but the runs were boot deep, espically the trees.

Brother driving into pow in Game Creek

A 5 yo with instructor looking for her lost ski.  I stopped an helped for 10 min without luck.  She found it about an hour later.

Da trees were loaded.  Trees are not to my brothers linking so I stayed with tree stands between or along runs so I wouldn't go off into unsafe areas alone.

Fri & Sat we got 29K vert each day...Sun was 15k.  Some due to lines, some due to being wooped and quiting an hour early to save ourselves for the next day.

Monday: Woke up to another 5" and it was nuking.  Best part was there was 20% the people from Sunday so never a line to be seen.  I got out solo early and had intentions of hitting back bowls but the viz was so bad I didn't want to fight the vertigo, especially alone, to get there.  Besides, everyone I spoke to said there was more than enough good stuff on the front.  Started with several laps in Game Creek then met up with brother and went to chair 19 & 11.  My friend left work early and joined us, took me on some AWESOME tree stash runs off of Christmas, Riva Ridge, Born Free and Bwana.  Must of snowed an additional 6" through the day.

Dealer's Choice (Game Creek)

Chair 11

Shelter among giants

Mid-day crowd

Steep & tight trees with my friend Chip

Cracked the vert century mark after 4 days

Monday's flights were cancelled and left me hoping ours would be on Tuesday.  Woke up Tuesday with another 14", unfortunately the skies cleared and I had to leave that pow.

Great report.

For future reference:  There is an area in Blue Slip bowl where Vail uses a special size groomer to groom a glade run.

Morgan B   aka The Colonel

The Colonel wrote:

Great report.

For future reference:  There is an area in Blue Slip bowl where Vail uses a special size groomer to groom a glade run.

Morgan B   aka The Colonel

Where is Blue Slip bowl?  Did you mean Blue Sky Basin?

Cloud9 & Big Rock Park, Grand Review & Star (all in Pete's bowl) are semi-glade runs that get groomed.

Very nice report TB.  Sounds like an absolute blast.  I hope our group decides on Vail for a day on our upcoming trip.  I'll lobby hard for that venue.

You are 2 for 2 on POW days in WV and CO in the past few weeks.

I assume I'll see you at SS this weekend's NO POW skiing.   I'll shoot you a txt on Fri at some point.

oops, Yes, meant Blue Sky Basin!

Morgan

Blue Don 1982 wrote:

Very nice report TB.  Sounds like an absolute blast.  I hope our group decides on Vail for a day on our upcoming trip.  I'll lobby hard for that venue.

You are 2 for 2 on POW days in WV and CO in the past few weeks.

I assume I'll see you at SS this weekend's NO POW skiing.   I'll shoot you a txt on Fri at some point.

If you're successful, let me know and I'll help you with recommendations for navigating the mountain to achieve your group's goals.  You can't cover the whole mountain in one day but there are some must-see spots, and ones to avoid.

Yeah I'll be there.  Mrs B may be working so I might be solo.