FC Mag Goes Colorado Styles
Day 6: The Other Vail

02.20.04 - Mink coats, long lift lines, groomers, and two hour $150 lunches: the definition of vail in the eyes of the ignorant. Hitting lover's leap's cornice in stride, skiing through lunch, and ripping hard all day; that's the vail I experienced on my first day in Colorado. Thats the real vail. Mink coats and groomers could only represent the other vail, I thought, while strolling through vail village. It was my last day in Colorado so I forced our 5 man posse up early to ensure an early and groggy start to the ski day. Being blessed with the presence of "the guide" I knew my last day of this trip would be memorable; however, I didn't know it would re-write my definition for the other vail. But on february 7th, 2004, I learned that the other vail wears no mink, drinks no frappacino, rarely waits for anything, and definitely never sees a groomer. Instead, the other vail rips through waist deep untracked powder off a 15 foot cliff like an f-16 tears through fluffy clouds at mach 3. Thats the other vail.

(About the guide. The guide is the more athletic and heavier drinking younger counterpart to one of my good friends. He rips down a slightly bumped up wide open snow filled bowl, and if he feels like it, makes a turn. The guide finishes off a long day of skiing by skiing the mintern mile, a long route off the back of vail down into the neighboring town of mintern finishing at a local bar. The guide rips, and so does his crew.)

We hopped on the vista bahn express among the small crowd at lift opening, traversed over to the mountain top express lift, and took it to an elevation of 11,250 feet. The guide blurted out to our crew, "windows", and skated along a narrow trail and into the trees. Upon reaching the top of windows second entrance, I knew it was going to be a snow filled day. The trail had been skied pretty heavily, yet had a ton of snow on it. Chewed up knee deep snow can sometimes be even more fun to ski than fresh pow, so I dove in energetically. Turning with everything my cold legs had, I tore down through windows and followed the crew left into the trees. Breaking out of the short and tight tree patch into a wide open bowl with soft snow, I witnessed the guide set the standard by making a single turn during his high speed decent. One after another we flew down with reckless abandon to the run-out which took us to the lift.

I felt a bit nervous on the lift ride up because my legs didn't feel good and keeping up with this crowd could prove to be a challenge. When we reached the top we traversed to an out of bounds marking rope, and ducked under it. Continuing on a narrow broken trail along flat ground for a few hundred yards, we then entered some tight trees. Now beginning to fall behind, I continued to follow the pack sometimes up hill in the tight trees. Eventually, I came upon our crew resting near the right edge of the trail which dropped off 15 to 25 feet depending where you stood. Catching my breath at the back of the pack, I suddenly saw a flash of blue as one of our crew, Brad, went flying off the 20 foot cliff pulling a helicopter! Much to his dismay, he landed in a small tree pretty awkwardly causing an uproar of laughter. Finally, someone asked if he was indeed alive and well, and thankfully he responded with an OK. However, as it would turn out, Brad would have to call it quits early because of some knee pain caused by this incident.

I crept up to the edge of miller's cliffs and could see bottomless untracked powder in the chute below! One after one everyone in front of me jumped off, and skied down with a hooting and a hollering. The last man standing, I was shocked to see that a fresh landing area still remained (large enough for me to land sideways). I hopped off the fifteen foot drop off and into a very deep snow drift encompassing me like quicksand. Quickly digging myself out, I began skiing through the waist deep, fresh, untracked, and light powder! The next couple of turns felt like heaven as I floated through the deep and fresh snow. Suddenly, I came to a halt in a very deep drift. Quickly getting myself going again, I skied into paradise on the bottom section of the chute funnelling into the trees below. The trees were tight in areas, but the snow was deep everywhere so it was hard to make a bad turn (certainly some lines were better than others). I lucked out and had a good line once I got out of the guide's tracks swerving through like a playful dolphin in the ocean. Eventually the fun came to an end when I found myself lost and on flat ground. Without question, the skate out was well worth experiencing a big phat nugget of the other vail.

We cooled off with a nice wide open bowl run. The conditions on the mountain were great, and the conditions outside the lines were epic. We wasted no time and were once again skating along a narrow trail out of bounds. Falling behind, I tried to suck it up as much as I could, but coming from sea level to 12,000 feet took its toll on me. When I finally reached our motley crew, we began traversing through a farther section of the woods than last time. The guide informed me that we were en route to an out of bounds run called bushwacker as he stopped to point out a line he wants to ski. The fact that I even refer to it as a line is ludicrous since its a 40 foot drop into an extremely tight section of rocks and cliffs.

When we finally reached the top section of bushwacker I could see that we reap what we sow. We were at the entrance to a fantastic glade run with untracked bottomless powder as far as the eye could see. The guide stepped off to the side and pointed ahead, giving the honors up to a couple of us who don't get the chance to ski bushwacker on any given sunday. Stoked, pumped, and happier than a puppy being let off its leash for its first time, I took off into the wide open section of the glade without direction or hesitation. Turn after turn, the snow enveloped me up to my knees and sometimes waist keeping my speed in check as I flew down. About ten turns later the run began to tighten up; however, I still enjoyed knee deep, fresh turns while taking a wack here and there as part of the punishment for having such a damn good time! Farther down I found myself in a tight section and bushwacked my way left towards the guide to enjoy a few final turns before the traverse out. The other vail. Can you ski it?

~CG

 Jump To Top

Part Two:
Champagne on New Years Eve,
Utah Style

01.27.04 - Now that we had settled into the groove, and slowly began coming to grips with our powder situation: 17” at Park City followed by a foot or so at the Canyons in two glorious days, it was time to ring in the New Year, Utah styles. Which turned out to be, well, a minor letdown given the high we were coming off of from the skiing. We cruised Main St in Old Town, Park City, and met up with the drunkards, shared our New Year’s hats with some ladies, and then crashed out after giving a hollah out to our New York City brethren who had just watched the ball drop.

Freedom

1.20.04 - Snow is an incredibly pleasing component of the winter season. It whitens our Christmas morning, closes school for hopeful youngsters, and opens the doors of a winter sports world that flourishes in its existence. Jay Peak 2003/2004 has taught me something else about snow. It seldom comes alone. There exists an evil so great that even Billy S, the leader of the Northeast Kingdom, has no weapon powerful enough to combat this force. Not a triple, nor a quad (not even a high-speed one), nor the almighty tram, could overcome this great threat to skiing...

Champagne On New Year's Eve - Utah Style

01.12.04 - One of the first indications that we had made the best decision for being in the right place for New YearԳ since the ӹ5 MSG show was when we were on Park CityԳ Town lift, heading up the Western side of this classic Utah Ski Resort, and my brother and I looked down beneath our freshly waxed dangling skis and heardǠnothing. Below us, hotshots floated down the black diamond trail, Widowmaker, kicking up nothing but the purest champagne powder I had ever laid eyes on and they were not making a sound. The snow was too deep!

A.P.B. - Jay Needs Snow

01.05.04 - The FC staff (equipped with new digital cameras, wide-angle lenses, printers, snowboards, two-way radios, etc.) charged up to Jay Peak to ring in the New Year. We had everything from Grandma’s Lasagna to Theo’s Spanakopita and enough beer to wash down anything in between. Only one problem: no snow. The warming trend over the last week saw periods of fog, rain, and freezing rain effectively ruining the mountain for any off-piste travelers.

Big Jay

12.28.03 - It was 9pm Saturday night when Chaz first brought up the idea of an unprecedented December Big Jay run. But with 200” of snowfall this season and the best December in Jay Peak history, the quintessential back-country experience in the Jay area at least warranted an investigation. By 10am Sunday morning we were in line for the tram and highly enthusiastic about the adventure ahead. Temperatures in the mid to high 30’s, gear on our backs, and thoughts of previous Big Jay mistakes and triumphs clouded our minds while the tram brought us to “Elevation 4000”.

6th Chair, 1st Chair, 1st Tram...
A Great Day

12.27.03 - Kamm, Stu, and I loaded onto the Jay Peak Jet Triple at 8:00am under clear blue skies. We spent the next ten minutes debating whether the new 6”-12” beneath the chair was deep fluffy powder or frozen hard pack ice. It snowed heavily two days earlier and the lifts had been shut down ever since due to high winds. As we entered the trees of Timbuktu, I was elated to see the formerly bumped-out glade had been wiped clean. The intense wind from the day before had left a perfectly flat surface on which a marble would likely have rolled back to the chairlift had I dropped it from the top.

Older Archives

12.08.03 - Big Monday
12.07.03 - Anticipation
12.05.03 - Opening Day
11.22.03 - 10 Ideas to Kick the Pre-Season Blues
11.01.03 - Tech Tip #1: Pre-Season Tune-Up
10.04.03 - Tenney Mountain Opens – October 4th
09.01.03 - FC Magazine Launches Online Winter Home

 Jump To Top