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A Basin 3/26/2017

dlague

Active member
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
8,792
Points
36
Location
CS, Colorado
Conditions: Powder (4-6), powder chop and PP

Darn Colorado blow torch seems to be delivering snow. With 4-6 inches on Friday into Saturday then another 4-6 falling overnight Saturday into Sunday, the setup seemed to be good for a Sunday trip to A Basin. My initial thoughts were that Sunday was not going to be good due to warmer temps in the afternoon on Saturday then refreezing at night. However, my wife was telling me that as much as 6 inches of new snow was expected into Sunday so we departed early Sunday with an 8:30 arrival. It was a very easy drive with no issues either way in the 70.

After a warm up lap on High Moon and North Fork which had a nice set up with bumps about half way down, we set out for a relatively untracked area – Half Moon Glades (really more of a trail between trees) but as we descended we cut over to a true gladed section back to the lift. Snow was soft and surfy. We wanted to hit East Wall but it was roped off so we opted for West Wall to hit King Cornice and Norway Mountain Run. While these trails were starting to get tracked out there was plenty of untracked to hit still. After those two runs we noticed that they opened up East Wall so we headed that way to get fresh tracks. This was an area that my wife has not skied yet and while nervous, she was up for it. She was not worried about the pitch but more about hidden rocks. So we went along the traverse about mid-way and skied nice untracked snow which was so silky. Next we skied even further past a roped off line and repeated. My wife was stoked – still did not like the traverse though. Around this time our legs were beat and we headed in for lunch.

When we came back out, we headed back for the East Wall again and skied Land of the Giants and while my wife was still nervous about the rocks, she was a trooper. That is a fun area. We then headed over to Montezuma Bowl and we brought my wife to more firsts. She traditionally has skied the groomers there and today she did the contrary. First run was on Black Bear and then on Long Chute – it was getting very choppy but still pretty nice. Obviously that is were everyone was geting after it in the morning. On another run we kind of traversed both of those open spaces all the way over to Durrance and skied down - the snow was starting to get heavy so we did one last run on Northern Spy but that was not really worth the fare. Heading back to the front side, our original plan was to go to East Wall again but the consensus was legs were getting beat so we opted to ski Falcon to Cabin Glades with a nice easy glide on Wrangler over to North Fork.

Today was like a playground of sorts at A Basin with people hiking to the top of A Basin and skiing Upper East Wall – we did not! Others were hucking huge air in Land of Giants. Lots of people gliding across and hiking on Zuma Cornice then dropping in. It was amazing to watch. A Basin is a wonderful playground especially after the touch up we got and there has not been much in terms of snow loss there. This ended up being one of the most fun days this season and I was excited to see my wife try new terrain.

Damn Colorado blow torch!
 

dlague

Active member
Joined
Nov 7, 2012
Messages
8,792
Points
36
Location
CS, Colorado
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