After a day off the mountain, I was itching to get out and rally with my friends. I got on Swift Current with Logan and headed up toward the top. With the Triple not yet open, we opted to hit up Challenger to catch up with Stergy and friends. We immediately ran into them at the base of the lift.
The plan was to ski Country Club, then cut over to 17th green. Just as I suspected, the snow was fresh and it was smooth underneath, so there wasn’t much to think about other than just going fast. After a couple runs, Amanda, the friendly patroller, popped her head out of the patrol shack to let us know that the Tram had opened. The LRT Traverse was a no-brainer, and we caught a ride on the Triple up to the Tram. We were stoked to find walk-on Tram rides as we had for the entire week. On the way up, conversations drifted somewhere between face shots and Vail’s record setting 30,000 skiers in a day.
Since the Tram line remained non-existent, Dave, Matty, Ben, and I did a couple quick laps down the Gullies. 3rd Gully was deep. 2nd Gully was deep. Cron’s was deep. We wanted more. After 2 laps, we just couldn’t keep ourselves from letting it fly in Marx. Once again, some high speed, untracked cruising had us laughing in amazement at our little find. Off to the Dictators, we couldn’t see a single thing. Vertigo set in as I started down 2b. I fell down trying to find down. Once I regrouped, the turns were really good all the way out the bottom of Lenin. On our way by, I couldn’t help but hear the call of Paradise Trees with not a single track in it. Dave was in front of me and gave me a look, which I returned with a nod, which resulted in a launch into some bottomless pow. The skier’s left tree line was face shot after glorious face shot. After we made our way to the base, we went to the Caf for some fried chicken and mashed potatoes. I can’t wait to go skiing again...
The Way I Ski It. by Mike Mannelin
