Aspen Snowmass 2005

Super Snow at Snowmass

Report and in-report pictures by Ed Martin (from video camera)

Sunday

I won't go into the travel difficulties in detail, for most of our party the last leg from Denver to Aspen was pretty grueling due to snow at Aspen and fog at Denver. Also the plane was overloaded which gave a few of us the opportunity to forfeit our seats and fly Sunday morning, receiving a free ticket and hotel room. I was among these few and it was by far the best deal. Thank's John for the suggestion, Those that waited for the Saturday evening plane didn't arrive at their condominium until 2:00am Sunday.

We also had train travellers who were delayed by over a day due to the heavy snows over the previous few days.

Monday

It snowed a lot Sunday night providing us with terrific powder conditions Monday. We were skiing at Snowmass where the lift is just a short walk from our condo. The skiing was as sweet as anyone could imagine with options of groomed with a little powder cover to un-skied powder a foot or more deep. Also there was a lot of partially skied powder which was the best fun for me. [Snowmass Scean]

Many of us took the 10:30 tour as an introduction to the mountain. A nice touch, Snowmass has is hot cider and cookies at the tour gathering point, a good reason to get there sharp.

Snowmass offers a great variety of tree skiing from hairy dense little woods, which I kept out of, to sparsely spaced trees which added interest and scenic beauty without the risk of getting too tree friendly.

It continued to snow much of Monday and the visibility became poor in the afternoon. I skied with Helga and Rich Fisher and we were tied puppies by the afternoon anyway so we quit around 2:00pm.

Our condo., comprising Helga Campbell, Marguerite McInnes, John Schultheis, Rich Fisher, Eric Linthorst and I got along very well together, we all agree we made a good choice to share the same unit which was well equipped and a short walk from a double level hut tub and heated our door pool..

Tuesday

We skied at Highlands today in clear weather. Highlands is not a large resort and has a lot of double blacks. This was great for such as John but the limited single blacks and blues left many of us wishing for more variety.

Monday night and the day were cold enough to maintain the good snow and there was still plenty of powder around to enjoy. The grooming was good for those that preferred cruising and there were a number of runs with parallel groomed and un-groomed terrain.

BAC put on a fine cocktail party in the evening with hors d'oeuvres good enough to serve as dinner. The gathering also gave our house chance to invite a few friends around for cocktails Wednesday.

Wednesday

Today was a Colorado classic with clear blue sky and a temperature of around 20 degrees. I know you've heard this before, perhaps even from me, but my skiing experience was my best ever. We skied at Snowmass again with powder still to be found in good condition. But the highlight was from the top of the Elk Camp lift. We took a short but steep "skis off" hike to the Long Shot run, recovered our breath while enjoying the most spectacular view, and began the ski of a lifetime. The snow was the lightest powder at just the right depth, the terrain a gentle downhill through sparsely spaced trees. You could weave every which way puffing through undulating powder, much of which was totally un-skied. It was just about the best fun I've ever had, really just about indescribable. Helga and Rich were enjoying it with me and were equally enthralled. The run gradually turned into a regular groomed tree lined trail finishing at base level.

Time went by so fast we had to scramble to make it to our 1:00pm. date with the Mountain Lunch, put on by the FWSA. This was a model of efficiency, and the food was good too. We talked up our tree skiing venture so well we had a larger group join us to repeat the whole thing, and I can tell you it was just as good the second time.

What a long ski day, we started at 8:30 and made the last lift out of Two Creeks after the cut-off time of 3:30. One can always bus back.

Wednesday was also our house party day so after a quick soak in the hot tub we began our entertainment at 5:00pm.

Thursday

We planned to take the bus to Ajax today but were drawn back to Snowmass again, the lift outside the door beckoned. Our early start was rewarded with beautifully groomed corduroy and we got a few runs in before diving into the trees again along side Sneaky's and other runs from Big Burn. The day was picture perfect with clear blue sky and temperatures in the 20's. [Cirque]

After lunch, "quoted the best pizza above 11,000 feet", we took the Cirque palmer to Rocky Mountain High (John Denver), an open tundra starting down from 12,500 feet and lapped up the large field of chopped powder. Boy was that hard work but by now Helga too was charging through the stuff with abandon.

Far West provided cocktails and appetizers at the "ski-in" Cirque Bar to complete another exhilarating but tiring day.

This evening four of us, Helga, John, Rich and I decided to bus to Aspen and have our big treat meal at The Range, most of us enjoying rack of elk and a bottle of Big Ass Cabernet. The most Cabernet of Cabernets I've ever tasted.

Friday

Finally we took the bus to Ajax to ski the original slopes, starting with the 10:30 mountain tour. Brian showed us a good part of the resort and we had soon covered everything at our level up top. Again the day was perfect if a little warm and the slopes well groomed. After tiring with the top we made the canyon style run all the way down to the gondola to return and do it again. Ajax is fairly small and would have been more enjoyable if it were not for Snowmass, which remains our favorite by far.

Friday was our wrap up banquet at the Snowmass Conference Center. With seating for over 700 this was quite something and was carried off with excellent efficiency. Renee, David and John received their medals for placings in the races and BAC won the council cup.