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Honest snow reports for Keystone and Breck
I'm hoping to get to Breck and Keystone the end of next week for about
9 days of skiing, first use of this seasons 3-mountain pass. The Keystone and Breck web sites are pitiful in their non-descriptions of amount of terrain and lifts that are open. I sent them (Vail Resorts) a nasty gram complaining about this, but that won't help me get accurate info in the meantime. Does anyone have a Chester Bullock-like report on Breck and/or Keystone conditions. Vail Resorts should take lessons from the A-basin web site. H. R.(Bob) Hofmann |
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#2
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Honest snow reports for Keystone and Breck
On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 at 16:31 GMT, H. R. Bob Hofmann penned:
I'm hoping to get to Breck and Keystone the end of next week for about 9 days of skiing, first use of this seasons 3-mountain pass. The Keystone and Breck web sites are pitiful in their non-descriptions of amount of terrain and lifts that are open. I sent them (Vail Resorts) a nasty gram complaining about this, but that won't help me get accurate info in the meantime. Does anyone have a Chester Bullock-like report on Breck and/or Keystone conditions. Vail Resorts should take lessons from the A-basin web site. H. R.(Bob) Hofmann I made the same complaint by email and also in person yesterday at Keystone. I was told that they're working on it, and that I wasn't the first person to point them to the A-Basin website. Anyway, Keystone yesterday. I'd never been to Keystone before, and my previous two ski days this season have been at A-Basin, so those are the grains of salt with which to take my report. Keystone has some greens and blues open; I didn't ask about how many greens were open, but I believe they said that Peru lift was open and servicing greens. Summit Express, the first lift from the huge parking lot (afaict), serviced three blues and a green. The green was Schoolmarm and leads to the Montezuma lift. Two blues, Flying Dutchman and Spring Dipper, were packed powder, developing moguls along the right side throughout the day. I believe they opened up Bachelor just yesterday, so it was fluffy, with treetops, bark, and loose rocks with which to contend. To be honest, I don't think I'd ever skied anything quite like that, since this is the first year I've ever gone anywhere early-season. A lot of blue runs looked like they were on the verge of being opened. My fiance and I *both* got chunks torn out of our new skis. That would probably qualify as "our own damn fault for taking new skis early-season." It wasn't just Bachelor; there seemed to be a lot more rocks lurking in wait at Keystone than at A-Basin. Okay, maybe they're not chunks, but my brand-new skis' bases now look worse than those of my five year old pair ... My only real complaint was River Run, the run you have to take to get to the base chairlift. It's icy, somewhat steep, and, as it's the only game in town right now to *get* to that lift and the base area, it is absolutely covered in people, many of whom are prone to falling. It's a mess. Apparently, it's not unusual for that run to get icy, but the sheer volume of people who have to use it right now is making it worse than usual. Too many people always make me nervous; too many people skidding out on ice make me worry about being able to stop in time. My fiance, who's a much stronger skier than I am, didn't find it quite as disconcerting, but he managed that by bouncing along the very edge of the trail. At A-Basin, I was wondering why they haven't installed high-speed quads; at Keystone, I see why. Sure, at A-Basin, you stand in line at the lift, but once you get to the top, you have room to maneuver. At Keystone, there are no lines to speak of, but once you get to the top, the crowds are a major pain. -- monique |
#3
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Honest snow reports for Keystone and Breck
H. R. Bob Hofmann wrote:
I'm hoping to get to Breck and Keystone the end of next week for about 9 days of skiing, first use of this seasons 3-mountain pass. The Keystone and Breck web sites are pitiful in their non-descriptions of amount of terrain and lifts that are open. I sent them (Vail Resorts) a nasty gram complaining about this, but that won't help me get accurate info in the meantime. Does anyone have a Chester Bullock-like report on Breck and/or Keystone conditions. Vail Resorts should take lessons from the A-basin web site. As of last Thursday and Friday, Breck had the Peak 9 lifts open, only. I heard that Peak 8 was to open something like the 13th. Where they have made snow, the coverage is 100% but gets scraped to icy spots in just a couple of hours. Pretty dang crowded, too. Hit it early and fast. Mike... -- Littleton, Colorado (reply to msaemisch at yahoo dot com) See my ski photography at: http://PowderDay.us Carpe powder-diem |
#4
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Honest snow reports for Keystone and Breck
"Let Mikey Ski It!" wrote in message ...
H. R. Bob Hofmann wrote: I'm hoping to get to Breck and Keystone the end of next week for about 9 days of skiing, first use of this seasons 3-mountain pass. The Keystone and Breck web sites are pitiful in their non-descriptions of amount of terrain and lifts that are open. I sent them (Vail Resorts) a nasty gram complaining about this, but that won't help me get accurate info in the meantime. Does anyone have a Chester Bullock-like report on Breck and/or Keystone conditions. Vail Resorts should take lessons from the A-basin web site. As of last Thursday and Friday, Breck had the Peak 9 lifts open, only. I heard that Peak 8 was to open something like the 13th. Where they have made snow, the coverage is 100% but gets scraped to icy spots in just a couple of hours. Pretty dang crowded, too. Hit it early and fast. Mike... I talked to a patroler on Thursday and asked about them opening trails and he said they are not going to open anything else until the 15th. Don't know how true that is but it certinaly looks like Peak 8 and 10 are ready to go. I've talked to a couple of people who have hiked up and skied Peak 10 and had some thin spots on the main run but the snowcats could take care of it. Spitfire and Cosair are both ok on the west half of the trail but rocky on the other half. I think their decisions on when to open Peak 8 and 10 are more monetary than conditions. snoig |
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Honest snow reports for Keystone and Breck
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#7
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Honest snow reports for Keystone and Breck
(snoig) wrote in message . com...
(H. R. Bob Hofmann) wrote in message om... I'm hoping to get to Breck and Keystone the end of next week for about 9 days of skiing, first use of this seasons 3-mountain pass. The Keystone and Breck web sites are pitiful in their non-descriptions of amount of terrain and lifts that are open. I sent them (Vail Resorts) a nasty gram complaining about this, but that won't help me get accurate info in the meantime. Does anyone have a Chester Bullock-like report on Breck and/or Keystone conditions. Vail Resorts should take lessons from the A-basin web site. H. R.(Bob) Hofmann Well, conditions are fairly mediocre. We're supposed to get some snow in the next day or two so check back after that. I think Breck and Keystone are delibrately keeping terrian closed to get Front Rangers to go to Vail where there is more terrian open with more snow. snoig Just got back from Breck yesterday. I'll second the mediocre conditions. Peaks 8 and 9 were somewhat open. 7 and 10 had no lifts/runs open. When we left there were ~10 lifts open. On 8 & 9 most of the green, and a good portion of the blue runs were open. Only one blue-black run was open that we found and I could not find a single open black. Snow condition was good, but thin. Foliage was showing through in many spots. About half the open trails were being groomed daily. A number of the blue runs (briar rose for example) had some bumps where I didn't remember bumps from previous trips. This might be becuase of the lack of regular bump/advanced runs. My wife and I spent three days skiing and hit every open run multiple times. Temps were around 20 degree highs each day. Not bad but it was pretty windy at the tops. Crowds were not bad dispite the limited amount of open terrain. Lift lines at peak 8 were much worse than 9. I was pretty bummed about the lack of advanced terrain open, and was iching to try the new blue runs at the base of peak 7. They were not open however. -danko |
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Honest snow reports for Keystone and Breck
(David Leach) wrote in message . com...
(H. R. Bob Hofmann) wrote in message . com... I blasted both web sites again today when I called their 800 number. If you want to give them some grief, the phone number for all of Vail resorts is 1-800-842-8062. I think you have to wait for prompt 6 to speak to a human. Tell them their web sites for Breck and Keystone need to give open trail and lift information, and for Keystone, to put up a simple trail map like the one that is on the Breck web site. Maybe if they get enough complaints they will do something before closing next Spring. Don't know if you've seen this Keystone site. It's hidden under the '3 mountain' link. I far prefer it to the interactive maps that many of the resorts have gone to. http://keystone.snow.com/info/trailmaps.asp David David - Thanx - Even the Keystone/Vail Resorts PR folks don't seem to know about that site and the availability of the non-interactive map. Shows what happens when a place gets too big. Bob Hofmann |
#9
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Honest snow reports for Keystone and Breck
On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 at 17:05 GMT, danko penned:
Just got back from Breck yesterday. I'll second the mediocre conditions. Peaks 8 and 9 were somewhat open. 7 and 10 had no lifts/runs open. When we left there were ~10 lifts open. On 8 & 9 most of the green, and a good portion of the blue runs were open. Only one blue-black run was open that we found and I could not find a single open black. Snow condition was good, but thin. Foliage was showing through in many spots. About half the open trails were being groomed daily. A number of the blue runs (briar rose for example) had some bumps where I didn't remember bumps from previous trips. This might be becuase of the lack of regular bump/advanced runs. My wife and I spent three days skiing and hit every open run multiple times. Temps were around 20 degree highs each day. Not bad but it was pretty windy at the tops. Crowds were not bad dispite the limited amount of open terrain. Lift lines at peak 8 were much worse than 9. I was pretty bummed about the lack of advanced terrain open, and was iching to try the new blue runs at the base of peak 7. They were not open however. -danko Huh. I skied down Callie's Corner?, which is a short black, yesterday. It had a warning sign about exposed terrain but was open, with better snow than just about any other run. There was one tiny brown spot, but the rest was fluffy, and since it had a warning sign, it was empty. Yum! We took a lift over what looked like a nice little jump park, too. I didn't check it out, but that seems like it might have provided a little zest. Briar Rose sucked yesterday. The moguls didn't upset me, but I hit a rock just about every other turn. My s.o. saw a sign at Breck that greens and blues are groomed daily, which he took to mean that blue-blacks are "blue steepness but not necessarily groomed." Certainly the blue-blacks did not seem very challenging from a steepness perspective. Anyone have thoughts on that? -- monique |
#10
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Honest snow reports for Keystone and Breck
danko wrote:
(snoig) wrote in message . com... Well, conditions are fairly mediocre. We're supposed to get some snow in the next day or two so check back after that. I think Breck and Keystone are delibrately keeping terrian closed to get Front Rangers to go to Vail where there is more terrian open with more snow. Just got back from Breck yesterday. I'll second the mediocre conditions. Peaks 8 and 9 were somewhat open. 7 and 10 had no lifts/runs open. When we left there were ~10 lifts open. On 8 & 9 most of the green, and a good portion of the blue runs were open. Given the limited amount of snow this year so far, they are saving the other trails for the Xmas crowds. Have to show them a good product you know, so they might come back next year. Speaking of which, good article in yesterday's Denver Post about why Colorado ski visits are down, and how it could be worse without season pass wars. http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,...?search=filter -- Chester Bullock, Ethical, custom website hosting, design and programming Tenxible Solutions, http://www.tenxible.com Web Based Autoresponder and DRIP system, http://www.toolsre.com AIM: tenxible YahooIM: ccb247 |
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