It just kind of happened; we didn’t mean to ride all the lifts at Snowmass today. But once we’d done Coney Glade, and realised we already had been up Sam’s Knob and Campground, then, it seemed a waste not to hit them all.
Snowmass has 12 main lifts, and a few short beginner rides. Here’s how our day went.
Starting around 10:15, Cody, Angela and I struck out for the Sam’s Knob area on the Village Express. The plan was for Angela to wind around the east side of the Knob, aiming for the Lower Slot, which had been groomed last night. While she went down Moonshine, Cody and I trooped down Zugspitze. Stiff snow and growing moguls, with a few patches of softer stuff near the bottom. Onto the Slot, I led Angela astray on a little side patch which is NEVER groomed, but was this time. Unfortunately, it has a sudden right hand turn while the fall line goes left and down. Angela didn’t know this, and plowed into the wall of powder the groomers had left. at the curve. Sort of like the hay bales on Straw Pile, on the Aspen downhill course.
We rolled over the dog tracks (normally called “Cat Tracks”, for the snow cats which use them for transport, this lane is the preserve of the Krabloonik dog sleds, and two of them trotted by while we went rolling down.
Back to the top on the Campground lift, Angela’s first time up this slow double chair with startling views up Snowmass Creek valley to 14‘ers Daly and Capitol. Then over to the Sam’s Knob lift, and down Max Park to the Sheer Bliss lift.
Now, here we cheated a bit. Sheer Bliss and the Burn lifts run in parallel. Usually, both are only open on weekends, with only the Sheer Bliss open during the week. Noticing that Whispering Jesse was the Noon Groom, and the time was about 11:15, we determined to take a run down Mick’s Gully, then back up Sheer Bliss (in lieu of the Burn lift) a second time, and on up to the Cirque Poma to Snowmass’ high point, “Rocky Mountain High”. Notably, this was another first for her (yesterday she went on her first fixed chair lift), and she fell off within the first ten feet. But we made it all the way up, from where there was only one way down – the Cirque and the High Traverse are still closed due to the anemic and treacherous snow pack.
Since we like long runs, we went almost all of the way down: Coyote Hollow, Burn, Whispering Jesse, Monkshood, Banzai, finishing at the Coney Glade lift. I filmed the whole run, and it took 12 minutes.
We were treated to a few jumpers in the terrain park; apparently, there was some sort of competition happening there, and a helicopter circled overhead filming the whole ordeal. From there, we took Lunchline to Banzai again, this time going all the way to the Gondola at the bottom. I got as chance to eat lunch, and we decided, having done the toughest ones to bag – Coney Glade and Campground – we had to go all in, and ht the remaining five lifts, even if it meant going down Cascade. But first, up the the warming hut on Elk Camp, to finish lunch and snag some hot chocolate. Then it was the bumps under the lift, and circle around to Cascade/Creekside and the endless flats at the bottom leading to the Two Creeks lift. Contrary to our fears, the snow was nice on the steeps under the lift at top, and then it was well groomed and lightly skied the rest of the way.
This left just Alpine Springs and High Alpine, for an Edge/Naked Lady escapade (I took the Showcase bump option.) We could have called it quits then, but talked ourselves into a repeat engagement on Alpine Springs, with Granite for the young ‘uns, and the old lift line (not lift there now) for me.
This was a first for me, as far as I know, but I’m sure there may have been a high powder day somewhere in the past when I got all the lifts in, I just never acknowledged it before. And, except for the extra Alpine SPgs ride at the end, we only rode each lift once.
Now, I just have to figure out how to ski UNDER each lift, and ride each one once. THat might take some planning.
Here’s a bonus video of Cody in the trees at the top of the Burn, on our first run down there today.