My good buddy, Mark Lewis, celebrated his bachelor party over the weekend up in Keystone. Really, it was a great excuse for a guy's weekend of skiing. Mark's family has an amazing place in Keystone Country Club, equipped with a pool table and outdoor jacuzzi. Perfect pad for the event.
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| The "first" round of Kings. |
On Friday, we had originally intended to ski Vail, but given the unseasonably warm temps and random isolated snowstorm that hit
Arapahoe Basin the night before (6" on the mountain, wind-loaded up to 10" in several places), it was a no-brainer to head to A-Basin. The skiing was unexpectedly great. Go figure. Fresh, untracked lines all morning and soft snow on the steeps on Pallavicini (aka. Pally).
On Saturday, we had a beach spot already reserved, so we headed back up the road to A-Basin (~15 min from the Keystone house). Storms in March can be tricky. The day-old snow was a bit skied out, but still soft and silky, even without the addition of late morning March sun that we usually need to soften the snow. My buddy, Dan, from the Bay area and Mark's brother, Brad, and myself, eventually split off from the group for a little hike-to terrain on the East Wall. There was boot deep powder that had wind loaded from the previous day's storm, which skied really well. Unfortunately, Brad took an aggressive line on the north side of the couloir along the spine and made friends with some shallow rocks... twice... double ejected and took a nice header. Luckily nothing broken (skis or body).
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| Dan Portman (left) and Brad Lewis (right) at the top of Willie's Wide. |
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| View from the top of Willie's Wide. |
The rest of the Saturday afternoon was spent skiing 4-5 run sessions, punctuated by breaks for keg beers, Baja fog (Corona with a shot of tequila on the top), food from the grill and Frisbee in front of the Pally chair.
On Sunday morning, our reserved day of cat skiing at Keystone was cancelled by the mountain staff do to "unsafe conditions". We went right back to the Basin for day 3. I took two runs and called it day, went back to the truck with a tall boy of PBR and kicked it with the dogs for the rest of the late morning. I was eventually joined by more of the guys around 11am, then nearly everyone by 2pm. Peter put on some 1980s Dynastar racing skiis (about 70 under foot) and demonstrated the proper way to ski the bumps course on lower Pally to cheers from the parking lot.
Killer weekend. Thanks, Mark.
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| Beaching it at A-Basin. Heath Thompson on the grill. |
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| Yep, count 'em... two kegs. |
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| Wilder and I in an enthusiastic discussion about skiing the backcountry in Rocky Mountain National Park. |
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