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Steamboat Jan 29-Feb 8, 2020

NewEnglandSkier

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Day 10, Fri Feb 7
Today was a fairly big powder day, at least for me. It was about a foot. Lines were horrendous--I've never been here before when the gondola line was as long as it was. And the lines for the lifts further up the mountain were just as bad.
Below is a picture out my window of the line up for the Christy lift before it opened--it may not look that bad, but this is a lift that rarely seems to get a big line up.
IMG_1637 copy.jpg

Thankfully, I had another lesson so I didn't have to wait in the lines!
The snow was heavier than it might normally be and visibility was not good--it was foggy and had low hanging clouds today, not just snowing.
Not only do I ski powder poorly, but I absolutely hate not being able to see what I'm skiing into so i skied really badly and defensively. I use the term "ski" loosely as it took me 20 minutes to get down something that normally takes 3 minutes. I was listening to what my instructor was telling me, but could not convince my brain to do it.

I decided we needed to go lower down where it was easier to see. Most of the morning was taken up by my flailing.
After lunch we skied easy stuff off the Christy lift--there were some ungroomed greens and then we lapped the Bashor bowl/Bashor lift for the rest of the afternoon. I'd only gone into the Bashor bowl once a long time ago. I'm not sure why I haven't skied it more. It was fun--lots of options for size of bumps and routes down.
This is a photo taken from the top of the bowl--the bowl is off to the right. This is a time when it cleared briefly.
IMGP0086 copy.jpg

Thankfully, I improved once we skied lower down and the visibility was much better.

Dinner tonight was mexican food at Vaquero's.
Tomorrow is my last lesson/ski day of the trip. I'm hoping the snow finishes up overnight.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Does Steamboat seem more crowded to you in general this season?

Since I and my two ski buddies are going to be at Steamboat over the holiday weekend, we opted to book a semi-private lesson for one of the days. Seemed like a good investment to avoid long lift lines.
 

NewEnglandSkier

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I noticed a difference in crowd levels starting last year, but at that time they had some of the best snow in the state which could help explain higher crowds.
This year it hasn't been noticeably more crowded than I remember it usually except the weekends and yesterday the big powder day. Yesterday was crazy especially early on--as the day went on crowds did go down a bit.
This weekend is Winter Carnival as well and that always brings extra people and I think the kids are out of school on Friday (they have a casual U10 race that runs on Friday morning) as part of the carnival.

Since Mardi Gras is Feb 25 this year, I suppose there is a chance that people will start coming in for that on President's weekend if they want to take in a whole week+ of skiing. I'm not sure if it's like this at other resorts, but Steamboat always gets an influx of people from Louisiana trying to escape the Mardi Gras festivities in their state. I don't think the bulk of the people will probably come President's weekend though--I think they often just come for a few days surrounding Fat Tuesday so I doubt you will see much difference from them while you're there.
 

NewEnglandSkier

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Day 11, Sat Feb 8
Today was my last ski day of the trip.:frown: There was an inch or so overnight but not much. The snow we got yesterday was heavier and it got windblown so it was sort of slab like in places to start out.
I had my final lesson and once again, it was great to be able to skip the long lift lines!
The day started out cloudy/overcast as the weather blew out but soon got sunny and it warmed up quite a bit and the snow ended up sort of springlike in the afternoon. It had the lumpy bumpy moist quality that makes for a less smooth ride.

We started over on the Sunshine area where I wanted to do something easy like a nice groomer to get my groove back after yesterday.
Below is a classic Steamboat snowy tree shot
IMGP0090 copy.jpg
The groomers were nice early on. I then wanted something more challenging so we did Hotcakes into Morningside. Morningside was crazy busy since it was closed the day prior.
After a one and done ride on the Morningside lift we did part of Crowtrack and then traversed to Buddy's which was not yet busy for some reason.
Below are 2 views from the top of Crowtrack
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IMG_1644 copy.jpg

After lunch at the base at the Paramount and dropping layers (it got hot) we went back up and did a couple runs on Sunnyside which is not usually busy, but it seemed like everyone wanted to take it today. It had fun bumps on it though. We finished the day with some runs through some of the glades I like and focusing on a groomer drill.

It was very crowded today and the ski down at the end was a bit hair-raising. I also have never seen the line for the parking lot shuttle as long as it was today. I used the Ikon app tracking stats for the first time and I liked it. It keeps track of which runs you do by name, speeds, how much vertical, miles skied etc.

I had an early dinner at Three Peaks Grill tonight. This is more of a fine dining type place with a nice atmosphere. They have a fireplace, large picture windows that look out at the mountain and a live piano player on certain nights of the week.
Below was the view from my table
IMG_1649 copy.jpg

Next it was getting on the crowded bus to get downtown to the Winter Carnival night show. They have the WinterSports Club athletes doing torchlight parades, ski jumping, etc and fireworks show among other things. They were going for the world record for largest firework; they tried last year but it failed, so I hope this year worked out. At least this year it launched and exploded.
Below is a fireworks photo (not the really big one)
IMG_1662 copy.jpg
 

NewEnglandSkier

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Well getting home has turned into an adventure— after a weather delay in Hayden I missed my connection in denver even though it left late and then they had a hard time finding me another flight and now I’m on route to Dulles and won’t get back to Boston until midnight. :frusty:
 

Christy

Angel Diva
Winter travel. Ugh. Last month we were sitting on the tarmac after a week at Sun Valley; there was a monster winter storm bearing down on the area and it was generally acknowledged that ours would be the last flight out or in at that little airport for at least four days. And one thing after another delays us, and it's snowing harder and harder, and I'm just sitting there thinking, why in the world do we do this. (I think our pilot might have actually defied air traffic control which was not letting us take off due to traffic at SeaTac. That flight crew didn't want to be stuck there for the next four days either).

Of course once back at home and with the dog picked up from the kennel and lots of great memories from the week I remember why. Hopefully @NewEnglandSkier you'll get home safely and eventually forget all about the travel pain.
 

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