billski
Active member
In a word, vast.
This will not be your ordinary review, with Mr. Cheap on his way to the highest-priced lift-served area in the USA. I spent three days as a guest of Vail and a strong tour operator, getting some interesting insight into the range of offerings at the largest resort in the USA. The first two days were at Vail, the third day at Beaver Creek (separate report). This report is more oriented to someone who has never been there before, rather than a “what did I conquer” “where are the goods?” report.
So let’s start by talking value for a minute. Mr. Cheap is having his first major conflict-of-interest challenge. Compare a $98 Vail ticket to an $89 Stowe ticket. 5,280 vs. 480 acres. 31 lifts vs. 13. All the other stats simply don’t compute: snowmaking and amount of all snowfall – who cares? Vail simply keeps all the snow that falls. On the ticket front, you can sometimes find deals for Stowe. You can almost never find a deal for Vail. The type of terrain offerings, from green groomers to truly extreme drops are all there, all in huge servings. A Vail rep. indicated to me that she never hears anyone from the east complain about the snow conditions at Vail, not even in the springtime. After two days of skiing ranging from spring conditions to midwinter storm, I’d have to agree with her. From a value perspective, Vail is worth every dollar of a $98 ticket.
So here’s the rub for Mr. Cheap. In-town, walk to the lift lodging (Vail Village, Lionshead) ranges widely in price but starts out pretty high to begin with. Eating out is hugely expensive. How about $32 for breakfast for one at a “diner” or $24 at the Marriott for a buffet? $3 for a small glass of orange juice? Or $12 for a single glass of Chardonnay with dinner? So consider staying in the nearby village of Avon. Better yet, rent a condo and cook yourself.
After inspecting the Arrabelle at Lionshead, I concluded that if Lindsey Vonn and her husband can afford to live there, they too must be vastly loaded. With money.
Pic of the Arrabelle, with our posse in the foreground.
Even the on-mountain cafeteria-style lodges will set you back a pretty penny. Pretty much $20 for a small pizza and a soda. Good news is that the drinking water is abundantly available and free.
A little shopping around and you CAN find a deal on rental equipment. I brought my boots, rented performance demo skis for $27/day. Not only do I hate to carry my skis around, I like the flexibility of changing out equipment when the conditions change, or issues arise. A smart move this trip.
First quote of the trip goes to the tech at Vail Ski Tech shop, who upon inquiring of conditions informs us east-coasters, “It’s bullet proof ice. Absolutely impossible to edge.” Hmmm. After a couple of exchanges with what we later described as a “spoiled local”, we dropped the discussion. After insisting on the right tool for the job, he handed me some Tigershark 10-footers. “you’ll need these today.” Thank you, have a nice day.
Dinner at Mezzaluna, which was excellent.
So to the slopes.
Day one was a bluebird, spring day with temps moving from about 32 into the 40s. We met up with Tom, our guide for the day, a private instructor and former GS racer on the world circuit. “Did you notice a member of our group said privately that all the instructors are tall and thin (men) and all the women are drop-dead gorgeous?” No accident I’m sure.
Tom is probably on the far end of 50 years, perhaps even a decade more like many of the instructors. And they ski without breaking a sweat. Most professional, personable, talented, knowledgeable person I’ve ever met – been with Vail for 30 years. Tom was hell-bent on showing us as much of the resort in one day as possible. “Impossible” said my ski bud, who had spent a week skiing here on a prior trip. “Here’s the plan” said Tom, We’ll ski front side till things soften a bit, then by lunch time we’ll hit the bowls after they soften. “Let’s get a move-on” is the phrase we incessantly heard throughout the day. We rocketed from lift to lift, mountain so fast I entirely lost orientation of where I was and where I had been. With a mountain range 7 miles wide and 5 miles deep, I would have needed a GPS tracker to keep a record for me. Swear to God, if this was an airline, I would have qualified for a free trip at 25,000 miles! I later insisted on a map de-briefing over lunch, but that would have to wait.
Snow conditions were amazingly packed powder, some was “quite packed” but it was infinitely carve-able. So much for the ski tech’s assessment of conditions. However, with only snowfalls of a few to several inches at time, not much hope for powder stashes. Only on the most severe of bump runs did we hear that east-coast scrape. We screamed from chair to chair.
Well, after about an hour, Tom had enough of our skiing ability. In the most diplomatic, friendly, constructive, kind manner, he frankly told us that our ski technique sucked. Without missing a breath, he called out each of the eight of us, highlighting our individual failings and giving us several things to work on. Well, when you’ve got an instructor riding rough-shod over you for the full day, you don’t just get to practice, you get huge reinforcement. I definitely got better. I felt like I had a coach more than an instructor.
Now, it’s about 10:30 in the morning, and we’ve already been across most of the front side, he drops us into Sun Up Bowl via The Slot. Our legs are burning, our breathing belabored from less than 24 hours at altitude. And Tom is just standing at the bottom smiling. We felt like freaking lower-intermediates and it wasn’t even lunch time!
A little too early for bumps:
Up to China Bowl, it’s about 11AM, probably the worst run of the day, pretty scrappy, FGR. “Um, yeah, I guess we did hit this a little earlier than I planned.”
Wonderful stop at Two Elk Lodge for lunch, kinda pricey, even with the $10 special (which I would recommend) “Lunch for Less” and the friendly greeters holding tissue boxes at the ready.
In the afternoon we hit the Blue Sky Basin, perhaps the best snow conditions for the day. A de-briefing session at the Tavern on the Square ensued till we all needed the hot tub or a nap before dinner.
Day Two
Free ski day. No guide, no schedule, no grueling task-master.
With snow in the forecast and still running on east-coast time, I was up at 5AM, peeking out the window, only a dusting to be seen. Within minutes, it started to dump, at a rate of 3 inches an hour. By the time 9AM came around there was a good 10” on the ground. A debate ensured later that night among the group – one fellow scouted about and was convinced it was more like 14” on the mountain in various places he measured. 9” was the official number. Does Vail under-report? Maybe. Then again, this might be attributable to the “Billski Effect”. My streak still holds – where I goes, it snows.
Off to the shop for a different set of tools. – Nordica Enforcers with 98 underfoot. In and out in 10 minutes. Good choice. We’re on our own, blasting through the pow, all over the frontside. My ski bud has some xcreams that are quite narrow under foot. For every 2-3 turns he made, I made one. Floater city. Wonderful on front side. Quite windy in the bowls – to the point that windslab and drifts were quite common in China bowl, making it our only bowl run of the day. It was even windier in Blue Sky Basin, which resultantly was closed for the day.
We'll let the pictures talk today:
Yep, those bugs are skiers and boarders in the bowl:
We saw abundant tracks in the gnarly woods, some really tight shots, some really wicked good skills. The mountain was very, very busy, even with the I-70 traffic tie-ups, the skiers mobbed the mountain known for days of 20,000 skier-attendance. By noon, most of the traditional trails were getting tracked out, much to my amazement. Even the green trails were really fine for powder floating. Some fellow tried to huck a 15-20’ cliff under the chair and didn’t make it. Pretty nasty looking. Surrounded by about eight patrol, boards and equipment at the ready, he laid motionless, face down in the snow. Not a pretty site.
98 under foot and the world floated by, run after run, hour after hour. Even the woods runs were heavenly. By about 1pm I was fried, but foolishly persisted. The snow was deep but heavy, like the 25 Feb. powder day snow at Magic. By 3PM, I was totally exhausted, but was at the top of Wildwood just hoping to get home safely. It was green groomers all the way down, taking what seemed like forever. Apologies to my ski bud who had to tolerate my pi##in' and bi$&in' the whole way down. Veg-o-matic was I.
Day Three – Beaver Creek
Look for a separate report on this uber-luxurious destination.
This will not be your ordinary review, with Mr. Cheap on his way to the highest-priced lift-served area in the USA. I spent three days as a guest of Vail and a strong tour operator, getting some interesting insight into the range of offerings at the largest resort in the USA. The first two days were at Vail, the third day at Beaver Creek (separate report). This report is more oriented to someone who has never been there before, rather than a “what did I conquer” “where are the goods?” report.
So let’s start by talking value for a minute. Mr. Cheap is having his first major conflict-of-interest challenge. Compare a $98 Vail ticket to an $89 Stowe ticket. 5,280 vs. 480 acres. 31 lifts vs. 13. All the other stats simply don’t compute: snowmaking and amount of all snowfall – who cares? Vail simply keeps all the snow that falls. On the ticket front, you can sometimes find deals for Stowe. You can almost never find a deal for Vail. The type of terrain offerings, from green groomers to truly extreme drops are all there, all in huge servings. A Vail rep. indicated to me that she never hears anyone from the east complain about the snow conditions at Vail, not even in the springtime. After two days of skiing ranging from spring conditions to midwinter storm, I’d have to agree with her. From a value perspective, Vail is worth every dollar of a $98 ticket.
So here’s the rub for Mr. Cheap. In-town, walk to the lift lodging (Vail Village, Lionshead) ranges widely in price but starts out pretty high to begin with. Eating out is hugely expensive. How about $32 for breakfast for one at a “diner” or $24 at the Marriott for a buffet? $3 for a small glass of orange juice? Or $12 for a single glass of Chardonnay with dinner? So consider staying in the nearby village of Avon. Better yet, rent a condo and cook yourself.
After inspecting the Arrabelle at Lionshead, I concluded that if Lindsey Vonn and her husband can afford to live there, they too must be vastly loaded. With money.
Pic of the Arrabelle, with our posse in the foreground.
Even the on-mountain cafeteria-style lodges will set you back a pretty penny. Pretty much $20 for a small pizza and a soda. Good news is that the drinking water is abundantly available and free.
A little shopping around and you CAN find a deal on rental equipment. I brought my boots, rented performance demo skis for $27/day. Not only do I hate to carry my skis around, I like the flexibility of changing out equipment when the conditions change, or issues arise. A smart move this trip.
First quote of the trip goes to the tech at Vail Ski Tech shop, who upon inquiring of conditions informs us east-coasters, “It’s bullet proof ice. Absolutely impossible to edge.” Hmmm. After a couple of exchanges with what we later described as a “spoiled local”, we dropped the discussion. After insisting on the right tool for the job, he handed me some Tigershark 10-footers. “you’ll need these today.” Thank you, have a nice day.
Dinner at Mezzaluna, which was excellent.
So to the slopes.
Day one was a bluebird, spring day with temps moving from about 32 into the 40s. We met up with Tom, our guide for the day, a private instructor and former GS racer on the world circuit. “Did you notice a member of our group said privately that all the instructors are tall and thin (men) and all the women are drop-dead gorgeous?” No accident I’m sure.
Tom is probably on the far end of 50 years, perhaps even a decade more like many of the instructors. And they ski without breaking a sweat. Most professional, personable, talented, knowledgeable person I’ve ever met – been with Vail for 30 years. Tom was hell-bent on showing us as much of the resort in one day as possible. “Impossible” said my ski bud, who had spent a week skiing here on a prior trip. “Here’s the plan” said Tom, We’ll ski front side till things soften a bit, then by lunch time we’ll hit the bowls after they soften. “Let’s get a move-on” is the phrase we incessantly heard throughout the day. We rocketed from lift to lift, mountain so fast I entirely lost orientation of where I was and where I had been. With a mountain range 7 miles wide and 5 miles deep, I would have needed a GPS tracker to keep a record for me. Swear to God, if this was an airline, I would have qualified for a free trip at 25,000 miles!
I later insisted on a map de-briefing over lunch, but that would have to wait. Snow conditions were amazingly packed powder, some was “quite packed” but it was infinitely carve-able. So much for the ski tech’s assessment of conditions. However, with only snowfalls of a few to several inches at time, not much hope for powder stashes. Only on the most severe of bump runs did we hear that east-coast scrape. We screamed from chair to chair.
Well, after about an hour, Tom had enough of our skiing ability. In the most diplomatic, friendly, constructive, kind manner, he frankly told us that our ski technique sucked. Without missing a breath, he called out each of the eight of us, highlighting our individual failings and giving us several things to work on. Well, when you’ve got an instructor riding rough-shod over you for the full day, you don’t just get to practice, you get huge reinforcement. I definitely got better. I felt like I had a coach more than an instructor.
Now, it’s about 10:30 in the morning, and we’ve already been across most of the front side, he drops us into Sun Up Bowl via The Slot. Our legs are burning, our breathing belabored from less than 24 hours at altitude. And Tom is just standing at the bottom smiling. We felt like freaking lower-intermediates and it wasn’t even lunch time!
A little too early for bumps:
Up to China Bowl, it’s about 11AM, probably the worst run of the day, pretty scrappy, FGR. “Um, yeah, I guess we did hit this a little earlier than I planned.”
Wonderful stop at Two Elk Lodge for lunch, kinda pricey, even with the $10 special (which I would recommend) “Lunch for Less” and the friendly greeters holding tissue boxes at the ready.
In the afternoon we hit the Blue Sky Basin, perhaps the best snow conditions for the day. A de-briefing session at the Tavern on the Square ensued till we all needed the hot tub or a nap before dinner.
Day Two
Free ski day. No guide, no schedule, no grueling task-master.
With snow in the forecast and still running on east-coast time, I was up at 5AM, peeking out the window, only a dusting to be seen. Within minutes, it started to dump, at a rate of 3 inches an hour. By the time 9AM came around there was a good 10” on the ground. A debate ensured later that night among the group – one fellow scouted about and was convinced it was more like 14” on the mountain in various places he measured. 9” was the official number. Does Vail under-report? Maybe. Then again, this might be attributable to the “Billski Effect”. My streak still holds – where I goes, it snows.
Off to the shop for a different set of tools. – Nordica Enforcers with 98 underfoot. In and out in 10 minutes. Good choice. We’re on our own, blasting through the pow, all over the frontside. My ski bud has some xcreams that are quite narrow under foot. For every 2-3 turns he made, I made one. Floater city. Wonderful on front side. Quite windy in the bowls – to the point that windslab and drifts were quite common in China bowl, making it our only bowl run of the day. It was even windier in Blue Sky Basin, which resultantly was closed for the day.
We'll let the pictures talk today:
Yep, those bugs are skiers and boarders in the bowl:
We saw abundant tracks in the gnarly woods, some really tight shots, some really wicked good skills. The mountain was very, very busy, even with the I-70 traffic tie-ups, the skiers mobbed the mountain known for days of 20,000 skier-attendance. By noon, most of the traditional trails were getting tracked out, much to my amazement. Even the green trails were really fine for powder floating. Some fellow tried to huck a 15-20’ cliff under the chair and didn’t make it. Pretty nasty looking. Surrounded by about eight patrol, boards and equipment at the ready, he laid motionless, face down in the snow. Not a pretty site.
98 under foot and the world floated by, run after run, hour after hour. Even the woods runs were heavenly. By about 1pm I was fried, but foolishly persisted. The snow was deep but heavy, like the 25 Feb. powder day snow at Magic. By 3PM, I was totally exhausted, but was at the top of Wildwood just hoping to get home safely. It was green groomers all the way down, taking what seemed like forever. Apologies to my ski bud who had to tolerate my pi##in' and bi$&in' the whole way down. Veg-o-matic was I.
Day Three – Beaver Creek
Look for a separate report on this uber-luxurious destination.
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