Whitey
Member
We followed our plan and went to Winter Park on our last day. We had a red-eye flight out of Denver so we could ski to the end of the day. That came in handy as between getting out of the condo at Steamboat and driving to WP, we didn't get there until lunchtime. The drive was pretty easy even though it was spitting snow most of the way.
It was a busy Saturday but after you got up the mountain we really didn't have much waits on the lifts or see many other people on the mountain. The upper mtn (Panoramic Express and Eagle Wind) were closed due to winds. We mostly skied the MaryJane area of the mountain. I can see why many on this forum express some love for WP. It's an interesting and diverse mtn. At 1st I wasn't skiing the bumps that well because they had gotten the same thaw and refreeze that Steamboat had gotten. They had also gotten the snow but the troughs were getting skied out a bit. I changed my style and focused on skiing the tops of the bumps which still had some good loose snow. Once I did that I had some great bump runs. Outhouse and Railbender were most notable.
We were surprised by the quality of the tree skiing. Everywhere we went there were good tree shots and tree runs. Especially in the MaryJane area. We lapped runs all afternoon and had a blast. Linked here is a poorly shot, poorly edited video with no music that gives you the general idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxLWak4wJUU&t=41s
Some pics - Outhouse trail:
Boys & MJ sign:
Boys in woods in MJ area:
Phantom Bridge woods:
We thought the base area of WP was nice. If you look you can see a sign on the slope in the upper right of this pic. They were having the Wells Fargo ski cup there that day and that's where the races were:
It was a busy Saturday but after you got up the mountain we really didn't have much waits on the lifts or see many other people on the mountain. The upper mtn (Panoramic Express and Eagle Wind) were closed due to winds. We mostly skied the MaryJane area of the mountain. I can see why many on this forum express some love for WP. It's an interesting and diverse mtn. At 1st I wasn't skiing the bumps that well because they had gotten the same thaw and refreeze that Steamboat had gotten. They had also gotten the snow but the troughs were getting skied out a bit. I changed my style and focused on skiing the tops of the bumps which still had some good loose snow. Once I did that I had some great bump runs. Outhouse and Railbender were most notable.
We were surprised by the quality of the tree skiing. Everywhere we went there were good tree shots and tree runs. Especially in the MaryJane area. We lapped runs all afternoon and had a blast. Linked here is a poorly shot, poorly edited video with no music that gives you the general idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxLWak4wJUU&t=41s
Some pics - Outhouse trail:
Boys & MJ sign:
Boys in woods in MJ area:
Phantom Bridge woods:
We thought the base area of WP was nice. If you look you can see a sign on the slope in the upper right of this pic. They were having the Wells Fargo ski cup there that day and that's where the races were:
