Vail December 30th & 31st

[Tonyr]

Resort or Ski Area

Vail

Date

Dec 30, 2023

Snow Conditions

1. Powder
2. Packed Powder
3. Cord
4. Chopped or Crud

We took a break day on Friday and started to make our way back to Denver from Snowmass Village. Along the way we did a two day stop over in Vail. It was just my son and I skiing today, we got about 5 hours in which is the longest I've skied in a while. Today was kind of broken up into two days as we headed straight back to Blue Sky Basin starting at 9 am and stayed back there until noon then skied the frontside from 12 to 2 pm.

It took about an hour to get all the way back there but on the plus side, there were no lines which I've never experienced before at Blue Sky Basin. It last snowed over 6 days ago and we found pockets of untouched powder all over the place in the trees. The snow in general was very chalky with temperatures in the 30's. Vail had 85% of their terrain open so we couldn't complain there but the mountain does need a refill of snow. Here are some of my better photos from Blue Sky Basin, I'll add some of the fronside next. Crowds were not bad at all today, felt like an awesome spring skiing day....

 

[Tonyr]

Here are some of my better photos from the Frontside of Vail today which I think is very overlooked and underrated. There are tons and tons of great pockets of sidecountry trees on the Frontside that rarely get skied. I took my son down the North Rim for the first time then we stuck mostly to sidecountry trees....

 

[Tonyr]

Started back in the Game Creek Bowl this morning hitting some of the sidecountry trees. The snow is getting crusty, it has been 7 days since the last storm, a refill is definitely welcomed at this point. After Game Creek we did some groomers on the fronside, then my wife went in for the day and my son and I headed straight over to Prima/Pronto to ski some bumps.

As we made our way over there we noticed Prima Cornice was open so we decided to hit that instead which was my son's first time on the run. If you've never skied Prima Cornice, the first line into the run is the most ridiculous at a 45 degree angle but that line was closed today. We were able to traverse over the edge of the run and hit lower Prima Cornice which is not as ridiculous but nasty in its own right. The lower section of that run still has a 40 degree pitch.

From there we made our way over to Roger's Run off the Highline lift, which is one of my favorites, then we started our decent all the way back to Cascade Village. It ended up being a 4 hour ski day but half of that time out was traversing which has always been my main complaint about Vail. In any event, here are some of my better photos from the day. Happy New Year!....