dlague
Active member
Arapahoe basin
Conditions: Corn snow
Trip report:
Well it has been a great run for sure right into mid June. We headed up on Saturday due to commitments on Sunday and even Saturday was tough since we dropped our son off at the Air Force Academy for Civil Air Patrol Encampment at 9 and did not get out of there until 9:30. Our target time for arrival 11:15. My wife was questioning whether or not to go since they were shutting the lifts down at 2:30. We prepaid so I wanted to be there no matter what. As our luck would have it there was a brush fire around Georgetown and the 70 was shut down. By the time we got there they had opened things up but traffic was real slow. Unfortunately, we lost about 45 minutes and arrived at noon. Advantage of getting there then is the fact that upfront parking is open. Disadvantage - the snow is real soft but with the right wax it was not much of an issue.
It was amazing to see how much the snow melted. I think a large part of that was due to them pushing snow to the trails they wanted to have open which was Humbug/Lenawee Face to Dercum's Gulch to High Noon via the Rail Park (a section was fenced off for non park goers to get by). Lenawee Face, trail section next to the Rail Park and High Noon were all bumped out and seemed to have good rhythm. The better mogul skiers were finding zipper lines down, some just skied it straight down with their wide and long skis - but I skied it my normal reckless way. Actually, they were the right size bump with the right spacing to make it fun. My wife was comfortable with the bump runs but not so much the crowds. There were plenty of choke points and since she got run over by an out of control skier and broke her shoulder a few years ago, she was not comfortable with lots of skiers/snowboards with varying abilities all in the same place. I have to admit it did get a little sketchy at times. Humbug was an interesting trail since it was kind of shaped like a half pipe. Dercum's Gulch is a wide open area which is also where the lake reveal was happening and a natural pond skim was taking place.
As far as conditions, things skied well and we had a great time. We ended up skiing for about 2 hours, was it worth it? Probably not! But the vibe was really cool and it was a beautiful day! Sadly the bar closed at 2pm and I thought is was a F&B loss. A basin has been good to us and we have truly enjoyed this stretch. I got lift served June sking checked of the list - only July, August and September left to get.
We ended at 47 days just shy of the 50 days goal.
Say bye to the 2015-2016 season
Conditions: Corn snow
Trip report:
Well it has been a great run for sure right into mid June. We headed up on Saturday due to commitments on Sunday and even Saturday was tough since we dropped our son off at the Air Force Academy for Civil Air Patrol Encampment at 9 and did not get out of there until 9:30. Our target time for arrival 11:15. My wife was questioning whether or not to go since they were shutting the lifts down at 2:30. We prepaid so I wanted to be there no matter what. As our luck would have it there was a brush fire around Georgetown and the 70 was shut down. By the time we got there they had opened things up but traffic was real slow. Unfortunately, we lost about 45 minutes and arrived at noon. Advantage of getting there then is the fact that upfront parking is open. Disadvantage - the snow is real soft but with the right wax it was not much of an issue.
It was amazing to see how much the snow melted. I think a large part of that was due to them pushing snow to the trails they wanted to have open which was Humbug/Lenawee Face to Dercum's Gulch to High Noon via the Rail Park (a section was fenced off for non park goers to get by). Lenawee Face, trail section next to the Rail Park and High Noon were all bumped out and seemed to have good rhythm. The better mogul skiers were finding zipper lines down, some just skied it straight down with their wide and long skis - but I skied it my normal reckless way. Actually, they were the right size bump with the right spacing to make it fun. My wife was comfortable with the bump runs but not so much the crowds. There were plenty of choke points and since she got run over by an out of control skier and broke her shoulder a few years ago, she was not comfortable with lots of skiers/snowboards with varying abilities all in the same place. I have to admit it did get a little sketchy at times. Humbug was an interesting trail since it was kind of shaped like a half pipe. Dercum's Gulch is a wide open area which is also where the lake reveal was happening and a natural pond skim was taking place.
As far as conditions, things skied well and we had a great time. We ended up skiing for about 2 hours, was it worth it? Probably not! But the vibe was really cool and it was a beautiful day! Sadly the bar closed at 2pm and I thought is was a F&B loss. A basin has been good to us and we have truly enjoyed this stretch. I got lift served June sking checked of the list - only July, August and September left to get.
We ended at 47 days just shy of the 50 days goal.
Say bye to the 2015-2016 season
