Video: East Vail

For all the complaining I did this year about the ski season, I actually had several great days of skiing.  I caught the upslope storm at Eldora, a few powder days at Vail, and an awesome day at Telluride, which is probably better than most people this year in CO.

The biggest frustration this year was the backcountry skiing.  The snow pack was horribly unstable and shallow for most of the season.  There have been 29 avalanche related deaths nationwide this year.  Consequently, I stayed very conservative for most of the season.  I skied some mellow, crusty snow in RMNP, dropped the trees in Loveland Pass,  found great snow in East Vail on Water-tower, but never made it to Berthoud Pass or Jones Pass.

The instability seems to be carrying into the spring, which is unusual.  It looks like there might not be much of  a ski mountaineering season.  I read an article about entire mogul fields ripping up in Montana.  You can read about it here: http://unofficialnetworks.com/massive-avalanches-close-bridger-bowls-upper-mountain-mogul-fields-ripping-ground-86882/
Scary Stuff!

February in East Vail was the highlight of the season.  Unfortunately it was only good back there for that short month.  Conservative lines were all I skied, due to the avy danger.  I constantly found my self looking into Benchmark Bowl drooling over the exciting but higher risk lines.  Next year I guess... I hope you enjoy the footage I got from this year's skiing.  Nothing crazy, but a lot of fun anyway. 

East Vail on Dwellable