A Basin and Loveland - 3/1 - 3/4

[dblskifanatic]

Resort or Ski Area

Arapahoe Basin

Date

Mar 1, 2021

Snow Conditions

1. Packed Powder

So, we have not skied much at all this season and we were excited about this trip. We had purchased A Basin passes prior to moving from Colorado to Boston, We also had purchased the GEMS Card back then as well. As a result our focus was on A Basin and Loveland (GEMS BOGO). We had planned on flying out on Sunday and returning on Saturday but as things unfolded our dog sitter fell through so we had a change of plans and decided to drive out with our dogs. Lucky for us they travel well. We left on Friday evening after work and arrived in Dillon/Keystone at 5 PM on Sunday. The temps were super cold - around 8 degrees and over night it got down to -6 without windchill. Overall there were no powder days but conditions were great and sun was awesome.

Day 1 arrive at at A Basin around 10 to let things warm up. Turns out the whole week was relatively warm with temps around 35 each day except Thursday. We also had bluebird skies each day except for Thursday. Our first day was kind of chill since we had only skied Nashoba and we wanted to warm up a bit - at least that was the plan. After a couple runs of Black Mountain Express we decided to find runs that were a little more interesting like Falcon, North Fork, Powder Keg and North Chute to name a few. These are great warm up runs for bumps. We also skied some fast runes from the top of Lenawee to the base a couple times before heading in for lunch. Lunch was interesting - the hostess was a mask police. She even wanted us to wear mask while ordering food even though we had something to drink at our table. But then she would come over and clear our table without the requirement. It was a little weird. She also would not let us sit at the bar because it was not disinfected even though we said we would wait. Five minutes later, she cleaned it and sat someone else there. After lunch we opted to ski Montezuma bowl and skied some initial runs down the middle starting with Larkspur to Miners Glade Then Columbine to Torreys. The tree runs were all bumped up which makes it more fun. Final run over there was Long Chute before we head back to lap Pallavicini Lift to finish out the day.

East Wall - not open - looks cool through



Lenawee



Top Terminal of Palavicini Lift and West Wall, South Chute, Nose etc.



North Fork - a blue bump run with decent bumps - wife was beat after a non stop from the top of Lenawee



South Chute



Falcon



Looking down Falcon



Looking Down Montezuma Bowl

 

[dblskifanatic]

Day 2 - We decided to ski Loveland Pass. Loveland's parking lot seemed pretty full but there were no lift lines. So Loveland was like Nashoba where they not only wanted masks worn in line but also on the lift. There was never a situation that required it since rarely did we have people on chairs above or below us. So we played the mask up as we get off scenario. Once again the conditions at Loveland were like A Basin - dry Packed Powder. We basically did a quick tour of Loveland by hitting each lift Chet's Dream, Chair 6, Ptarmigan, Chair 9, Chair 4 and lastly Chair 8 which gets you all the way around. We skied a variety of fast runs, some trees and bumps. Hitting each chair took us most of the morning so around 11 we headed in for lunch and beer. In the after noon, we worked our way back to Chair 8 to take a couple of runs through the trees. They are fun and are quick and moderately bumped. We then lapped Chair 4 since my wife can ski what she wants and I got to ski stuff that I liked to skiers left - trees and bump runs. Finally we lapped Chet's Dream so I could ski a few runs under the chair like Cats Meow, Tigers Tail to Holy Cat and Avalanche Bowl to Busy Gully. It was a beautiful day with a lot of great skiing.

View of Loveland coming down from Chair 9



View of I70 and Loveland Pass coming back from Chair 8



View off Ptarmigan



View From Ptarmigan Lift towards Porcupine Saddle



Entrance to Chair 8 Trees



Splashdown Chair 4



View of runs under Chet's Drem



Looking down Cat's Meow

 

[dblskifanatic]

Day 3 - We headed back to A Basin and we were focused on skiing more interesting terrain that we did not hit on our last visit. Runs include skiing the walls of Montezuma Bowl (Northern Spy, Max and Groswold) , Beavers (Face Shot Gully, Davis, Marmot (Rocky)), Pallavicini front side (North Glades, Pallavicini, Man Street and International) then some booting around on other trails that we did not ski off Lenawee. While we skied hard each day this was the most exhausting day due to terrain that was being skied, When you come from 50 feet above sea level and are skiing above 10,500 feet above sea level, it always enter your head about breathing but it was like we never missed a beat. Maybe we were not gone long enough considering we moved in early December 2020.

East Wall while having a beer



Eureka in Montezuma Bowl



Northern Spy



Zuma Cornice with Max and Groswold



Pallavicini Cornice



Dropping in off Pallavicini Cornice



Main Street off Pallavicini



North Glades



Looking down International



Looking down a trail not shown on the map next to Land of Giants

 

[dblskifanatic]

So day four was a white out with snow and fog. Picture below was looking at East Wall. Skied one run from top of Lenawee and you literally were skiing blind. went to the trees but that was somewhat limited so we hiked with the dogs.






Other pics while walking the dogs on other days

Looking towards A Basin from Keystone Golf Course

 

[Cornhead]

Beautiful pics, thanks for posting, love Abasin, haven't skied loveland yet. CO is getting walloped this weekend. My kid is living in Boulder, actually Bloomfield now, he's planning on boarding at Copper this weekend.

 

[Tonyr]

Wow great trip, you have some good looking dogs there too! Thanks for sharing. How long was the drive out there?

 

[dblskifanatic]

Beautiful pics, thanks for posting, love Abasin, haven't skied loveland yet. CO is getting walloped this weekend. My kid is living in Boulder, actually Bloomfield now, he's planning on boarding at Copper this weekend.

Having lived in Colorado for five seasons we prefer A Basin and Loveland over the Vail Resorts and we had an Epic Pass. I think the Vail Reports are expensive and over crowded. A Basin and Loveland offer terrain for all and have a cooler vibe.

 

[dblskifanatic]

Wow great trip, you have some good looking dogs there too! Thanks for sharing. How long was the drive out there?

We took 2.5 days but could be done in 2 with one stop. But it is about 28 hours from Boston. Our dogs are recue dogs from Turks and Caicos that we brought back with us when we visited.

 

[Cornhead]

Having lived in Colorado for five seasons we prefer A Basin and Loveland over the Vail Resorts and we had an Epic Pass. I think the Vail Reports are expensive and over crowded. A Basin and Loveland offer terrain for all and have a cooler vibe.

Yeah, Abasin is alot like MRG, skier's mountain, no lodging, or other bs. My kid went to Copper, said he was lucky to make it back to Broomfield, 6hrs, I 70 closed. Has a Chevy Colorado 4x4 with the off road package, said it was required or probably wouldn't have made it home.

 

[dblskifanatic]

Yeah, Abasin is alot like MRG, skier's mountain, no lodging, or other bs. My kid went to Copper, said he was lucky to make it back to Broomfield, 6hrs, I 70 closed. Has a Chevy Colorado 4x4 with the off road package, said it was required or probably wouldn't have made it home.

Colorado is like that with respect to I 70. When we lived there we had a back way that worked well. with normal traffic it was like 30 minutes longer but it was consistent unlike I 70, Glad he was safe.

 

[jimk]

Just looking at this now. Nice pics! I love both those ski areas. Interesting to see how whiter Loveland looks compared to A-Basin, probably because the lower angle terrain at Loveland holds snow better. All that probably changed since big dump in Colorado this past weekend. I was skiing in Utah same time as your trip and they are having a relatively low snow year there too.
Way to get out there and do the big drive. Before this winter is done, I will make the East to Utah round trip drive two times I80 across WY can be a b____.

 

[dblskifanatic]

Just looking at this now. Nice pics! I love both those ski areas. Interesting to see how whiter Loveland looks compared to A-Basin, probably because the lower angle terrain at Loveland holds snow better. All that probably changed since big dump in Colorado this past weekend. I was skiing in Utah same time as your trip and they are having a relatively low snow year there too.
Way to get out there and do the big drive. Before this winter is done, I will make the East to Utah round trip drive two times I80 across WY can be a b____.

Well A Basin is on the western side of the Continental Divide where Loveland is on the Eastern side. N=Most systems go west to east and winds do too. As a result a lot of snow gets blow out of A Basin into Beavers and Montezuma bowl. Zuma Cornice gets developed nicely during seasons with more snow - it was kind of rounded this time. Where Loveland benefits as a receiver of wind blown snow. A Basin is more rocky as well. Interesting observation - never really saw that in the pics!