dlague
Active member
Arapahoe Basin
Conditions: soft creamy PP to PP
Trip Report:
What a party at A Basin. We were excited to head up to A Basin for the 15th Annual Festival of the Brewpubs which features bear from the following Breweries: Pug Ryans, Ska Brewing, Lefthand Brewing, Elevation Beer Company, Oskar Blues, Deschutes Brewery, Upslope Brewing, Colorado Native, Breckenridge Brewery, Dillon Dam Brewery, Odell Brewing Company, Avery Brewing Company, and Great Divide. While I did not try them all, I went for IPA's that I had not tried and had a Colorado Native IPL which had all the hop taste but with the taste of a lager, as well as , Deschutes Inversion IPA which was pretty good but after those two went back to something known.
Oh right, skiing! Well most of the steep terrain is closed apparently due to water running under the snow. The trails look good but the snow could peel away if it were skied on. However what was open skied really nice. There were a few bump runs open like Exhibition, The Gulch, High Moon as well as runs down the West Wall. Most of the bumps were easy to ski with the exception of High Moon which had deep tight bumps which some of you bumpers probably would have liked. I wish I could ski bumps top to top because those would have been fun.
We skied Montezuma's Bowl for a couple runs but it was open straight down the middle for the most part with the exception of the eastern part of the bowl called Northern Spy. For the most part we skied all over the Front Side Bowl. We skied a few runs down the Lower Lenawee trails but the dumped us on a flat runout to the Lenawee Lift or down Wrangler which is also pretty flat. So most of our runs were variations off Upper Lenawee that all merged on to Dercum's Gulch then down to the Lenawee Lift or the Lower Mountain runs which also provide various runs back to Black Mountain lift. The snow was not a corn snow it was very smooth almost cream cheese like and relatively firm. The below freezing temps at night probably helped. I also think our skis ran well due to Swix CH 10 wax. We never experience that slow down feeling and were skiing fast right up to our last runs. We skied from 10 until 3 with the sun full on when we arrived to clouding up and threatening by noon or so then clearing again for party time.
We did eat lunch at the Black Mountain Lodge and they have a BBQ Platter that is super yummy and easily enough for 2 people. That is a real cool place to stop for lunch since it is away from the crowds at the bottom and has lots of chairs to sit on outside, however last weekend it was packed so we had skipped it. We ended our day listening to the band (Jakarta) and having a couple beverages. The base area was a huge party scene with everyone having fun. While there were lots of people there, the lift lines were minimal or nonexistent which was nice.
Overall a great day of skiing and chillin'.
Conditions: soft creamy PP to PP
Trip Report:
What a party at A Basin. We were excited to head up to A Basin for the 15th Annual Festival of the Brewpubs which features bear from the following Breweries: Pug Ryans, Ska Brewing, Lefthand Brewing, Elevation Beer Company, Oskar Blues, Deschutes Brewery, Upslope Brewing, Colorado Native, Breckenridge Brewery, Dillon Dam Brewery, Odell Brewing Company, Avery Brewing Company, and Great Divide. While I did not try them all, I went for IPA's that I had not tried and had a Colorado Native IPL which had all the hop taste but with the taste of a lager, as well as , Deschutes Inversion IPA which was pretty good but after those two went back to something known.
Oh right, skiing! Well most of the steep terrain is closed apparently due to water running under the snow. The trails look good but the snow could peel away if it were skied on. However what was open skied really nice. There were a few bump runs open like Exhibition, The Gulch, High Moon as well as runs down the West Wall. Most of the bumps were easy to ski with the exception of High Moon which had deep tight bumps which some of you bumpers probably would have liked. I wish I could ski bumps top to top because those would have been fun.
We skied Montezuma's Bowl for a couple runs but it was open straight down the middle for the most part with the exception of the eastern part of the bowl called Northern Spy. For the most part we skied all over the Front Side Bowl. We skied a few runs down the Lower Lenawee trails but the dumped us on a flat runout to the Lenawee Lift or down Wrangler which is also pretty flat. So most of our runs were variations off Upper Lenawee that all merged on to Dercum's Gulch then down to the Lenawee Lift or the Lower Mountain runs which also provide various runs back to Black Mountain lift. The snow was not a corn snow it was very smooth almost cream cheese like and relatively firm. The below freezing temps at night probably helped. I also think our skis ran well due to Swix CH 10 wax. We never experience that slow down feeling and were skiing fast right up to our last runs. We skied from 10 until 3 with the sun full on when we arrived to clouding up and threatening by noon or so then clearing again for party time.
We did eat lunch at the Black Mountain Lodge and they have a BBQ Platter that is super yummy and easily enough for 2 people. That is a real cool place to stop for lunch since it is away from the crowds at the bottom and has lots of chairs to sit on outside, however last weekend it was packed so we had skipped it. We ended our day listening to the band (Jakarta) and having a couple beverages. The base area was a huge party scene with everyone having fun. While there were lots of people there, the lift lines were minimal or nonexistent which was nice.
Overall a great day of skiing and chillin'.
