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4/12-15/2014, Winter Park, CO -- fresh tracks & mid-winter condition in April

abc

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This is the second part of my "Fresh tracks & Mid-winter condition in April" trip I took to Colorado.

After a little over a week in Copper Mountain (and they closed their back bowl despite all the storm), I decided I really need to use my pass for what it's intended: ski BOTH Copper and Winter Park.

Besides, I've had a bit of success in bump skiing, a mini-breakthrough. So I was dying to get more practice in Winter Park which is renowned for having massive amount of moguls of various sizes and shapes to suit different skill level. I asked a Winter Park regular for recommendation of a list of progressive bumps to try...

But first, I had to refresh my legs from the endless powder days of Copper the previous week. So after I was done skiing at Copper on Friday (4/11), I drove from Copper over to Winter Park by way of Kremling, stopping at the hot spring and soaked my tired legs to the bone in their 19 hot spring pools of increasing temperature!!! :D

4/12: sunshine & warm, slushy bumps, soft in the trees, gorgeous views off the ridge (& manky chopped-up powder in the bowls)

With the forecast calling for snow the next day, I decided to take it easy and just use the time to familiar myself to the mountain. I've been to Winter Park twice before but both times I only skied Mary Jane side. I wanted to see a bit of Winter Park.

By now, I got my warm spring day routine down pat: follow the sun as it softens the surface. That means starting on Mary Jane first, slowly work my way up higher to the ridge. The view off the Panorama chair was absolutely stunning! (sorry, no picture yet, till later). I was rewarded with decent soft snow as the sun worked its magic. Skier traffic was so low a lot of lines in the trees were still untouched days after the last snow fall, some of which I dutifully tracked up! :)

The wind, however, started to pick up and got fierce on the ridge. (and I had been forewarned by the guest service that the Pano chair might stop if wind got too strong) On my run back down to the Pano chair, I noticed it had stopped. Figure it's probably gone on wind hold, I took the chair next to it. As my chair was going up, I noticed there were still people on the Pano chair, and it had not been moving for a good 10-15 minutes since I first noticed it. I was lucky I escaped being stuck on it for extended time. I must have missed the hold by a mere few minutes.

So I attempted a few of the "easy" bumps my buddy recommended: Dandy Dancer (x2), Columbine, Golden Spike which isn't "easy" by any stretch of imagination! Later in the afternoon, went over to Winter Park as it soften up, got quite a few very good run on some of the blue groomers off the Olympic chair. But for the life of me, I couldn't quite figure out how to get to the Pioneer chair. And it's getting late so I thought perhaps they stopped running, or didn't run it at all due to late season (being a late season snob myself)

4/13, snowing!

My friend, who used to be a RME van driver, analyzed the storm track and its implication on road condition, decided to drive up from frisco mid-morning. And I had no reason to hit 1st chair either. I used the remaining late morning time to get a bit more familiar with Winter Park. The temperature was lower and the sun wasn't out (duh!) so the surface didn't soften up much. Not entirely enjoying the condition, I decided to first have early lunch, then ambled over to the free Mountain Tour meet up point, to find myself being the only one who's interested in the tour. I immediately mentioned my interest in figure out how to get to the Pioneer and Eagle Wind chair.

My friend arrived at the bottom of Mary Jane and, since I was the only tour participant, we arranged to meet up together. While waiting for my friend to come up on the Narrowgauge (funny/confusing name for a chair), another person showed up for the tour. So we were a tidy group of 4, perfect fit on the almost universal quad chairs WP employed.

Standing at the top to chit-chat, snow suddenly started to fly and fall in earnest. Add the wind, it was getting cold fast. So we moved off to the Pioneer area, perfectly shielded from the wind. Our guide showed us a sneaky way to get there in a slightly roundabout way using a short chair, eliminating the need to skate/pole, which would have been arduous in freshly fallen snow.

We lapped the chair a few times, our guide pointing out the various runs and trees in between, especially the area which would likely be a good candidate for long lasting powder fun the following day. The other participant wasn't quite as comfortable in the increasingly powdery surface. So we stopped and waited when necessary, and as a result, slowly turning into icicles.

The tour ended after 90 minutes. By then, it was snowing heavily and visibility was limited. I wasn't dressed warm enough either. So we called it quit at 3 o'clock and spend the rest of the lift operating hours surfing Belgian beers at the Cheeky Monk at the base village. ;)

4/14: Powder Day!

(to be continued)
 
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abc

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4/14: Powder Day!

We woke to 4" reported on mountain. We were DISAPPOINTED, seriously disappointed. Because the forecast was calling for 8-12! (and Copper got a foot!).

But we overlooked this being April 14! Any fresh snow would be a luxury! Moreover, it was cold enough so the new snow were light and fluffy. Still, instead of jumping out of bed to wait for first chair, we had a leisurely breakfast at the motel, let my friend's dog run around a bit...and didn't get on the Narrowgauge quad till 9:30!

Being a Monday, crowd were relatively thin. We managed to park quite close to the chair and, every other chair went up empty. So it's looking good to have untrack lines somewhere.

We quickly found out, the 4" fallen was still not enough to cover up the slick re-frozen groomer from the previous few days of warm temperature. Particularly on the steeper part of the slope, the new snow were not sticking. To complicate things further, the clouds were still shrouding the top of Vasque Ridge. So we changed plan and headed to the more mellow part of the mountain: the newly discovered (by us) Olympic & Pioneer ridge on the far right (on map) of Winter Park. As our chair went up, we could see which trail still had few tracks on and beeline to it. The relatively few crowd means we got quite a bit of fresh track even on runs that are plainly visible on the chair.

On the Pioneer chair, we could see all the powder on both side of the liftline trail. So that's where we dropped in. To my pleasant surprise, there, the 4" snow nicely filled in the trough of the bumps and I could surf the field like the bumps were not there! In fact, when my skis dropped into the trough, the deep snow just float it right out like I'm bouncing on a nice fluffy feather bed!

We worked our way sideways each run, harvesting the powder in the trees right next to the chair. Then we discovered the open blue groomers had few tracks on it. Everybody must all be at the Mary Jane side battling it out on the Pano chair, and we had the Pioneer ridge all to ourselves! Eventually, people did slowly started to show up but by then, we've worked through most of the woods to our hearts content :D (not that we made much of a dent on the powder, only 2 pair of tracks through each section)

It's about noon and we decided to move camp and go check out the Mary Jane side, particularly the ridge. But first, we want to get
check out the Eagle Wind area, though we suspect the snow might be manky there and the 4" weren't enough to cover them up. We took one ride up that chair, headed into the woods on looker's left. Although we were able to find nice thick layer of fluff, the trees were a little tighter and steeper than my liking. Besides, all the powder slaying had worked up quite a hunger...we need some nourishment in the form of lunch.

Trying to get lunch turned out to be quite an ordeal. Winter Park, for all its nice groomers and some challenging runs, is also quite flat in parts. With all the new snow, the green trails had turned into xc skiing trails requiring rigorous poling and skating. So it was quite a workout to get out of one part of the mountain just to get to lunch! As we ate, we could see the cloud had just started to lift and the ridge now are in the clear. We were anxious to give it a try to see what the condition was like.

Jumping onto the Panorama chair, we studied the snow below and watch every skier passing by. It looked to be dust on crust, unfortunately. Off-loaded from the chair, we dropped into the bowl and just hope... Surprise! There was just a layer of soft fluffy snow on top of the groomed wet goo beneath! We surfed that thin veneer of fluff down the center of the bowl, which led us into the open woods. The snow changes from light fluff to hardpack back to fluff from turn to turn. It was actually quite a lot of fun!

We lapped the Pano chair a few more times and then it's lift closing time. I'm actually glad the lifts are closing, for my legs were having difficulty holding my body upright...

Another mandatory stop at the Cheeky Monk and we headed back to our motel and hot tub.
 

abc

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4/15 - 2 days following storm

Today was all about leftover powder and soft groomers. We knew from past experience, when the groomer mixed a few inches of new snow and groomed it into the groomer, the result is lovely textured corduroy. That is, if it's allow to soften by the sun before it got skied off by herds of skiers.

Fortunately, there's no many skiers still around in April 15, 2 days after a storm, to disturb the perfectly groomed surface till the time is right...

We arrived at Winter Park again around 9:30 and saw few cars in the parking. We dilly dally about before getting on the cabriolet. Walking through Winter Park base village was almost like walking through a ghost town. As we got on the chair, we could see the freshly groomed surface of a normally scraped-off home run lay undisturbed. So we lay a few faint tracks on it.

Having skated and poled excessively, our objective today, besides having fun, was to avoid flat, xc like green runs at all cost. We picked up a grooming map and meticulously went through all the freshly groomed runs that were not green.

Next, we went up the Pano chair again. The day before, the Vasque cat wasn't running and we were hoping it might today. Unfortunately, we saw no sign of the snowmobile. So we just worked the trees some, and even some of the bump runs my other friend recomended. Though for the most part, we were just casually cruising the perfectly groomed trails, soaking in the bountiful sunshine and having a relaxing time in the mountains. It's also my last day in Colorado and I had a flight to catch at the end of the day.

Winter_Park.JPG

To end our day, we took the long groomer from the top of the Pano chair all the way around the ridge and finish at Winter Park base exactly where we started. Partway down, we happened upon a groomer we neglected and so did everybody else. So even at 3 o'clock, the run looked pristine as though it was just groomed 10 minutes ago and soft as butter! It was too good not to get back on again so that's what we did, which brought us to the lift closing time of my last day in Colorado! A perfect ending!!! :)
 
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legalskier

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Nice report, thanks.
Reminds me of when I went there, must be 15 years ago. My memories are of how stunningly beautiful the place is (nestled in Arapaho National Forest), the gorgeous mid-mountain lodge called Sunspot, the lack of oxygen (I'd never skied at that altitude before), my one & only close encounter with a large gray wolf back at the condo, and of course, Mary Jane. A lovely lady she is- who doesn't love Mary Jane? It was there that we stumbled upon one of the longest and steepest bump runs I'd been on up to then, called "Drunken Frenchman" (which is what I felt like when I managed to get to the bottom). I didn't see it mentioned in your report so here it is in a recent vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUaeiPRBu6A The Chutes are pretty darned steep too.
We were there for a 4 day weekend, and it had snowed 2.5 feet the first two days. It was the first weekend of April and I was shocked to hear the locals describe the snow as "heavy and wet." Seriously??- being a NE skier it was fluff to me!
I checked out a trail map online & it looks like they added a new area that I don't remember existing back then, called Vasque Cirque, which can be accessed partially off the Eagle Wind chair: www.winterpark.travel/images/winter-park-trail-map.jpg Did you get up there?
I also remember the Pioneer area, which has a bunch of nice cruising trails. Parsenn Bowl was wind blown, creating a creme brulee surface which was difficult to ski on the skinny eastern skis I had back then.
We had a blast there- I'd go back anytime.
 

abc

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It was there that we stumbled upon one of the longest and steepest bump runs I'd been on up to then, called "Drunken Frenchman" (which is what I felt like when I managed to get to the bottom). I didn't see it mentioned in your report
It was not mentioned because I was specifically zeroing in on "easy" bumps to practice on, so I stayed far away from the "steepest and longest" bump runs, which the Drunken Frenchman was rather well-known for. ;)
 
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