If you are going to Colorado skiing, and your typical ski experience happens anywhere in Michigan, I would highly recommend not doing four days in a row. On the other hand, if you’re from Michigan and you’ve bothered to get to and stay in Colorado, the cost of the actual day of skiing is pretty low so maybe you should go. We chose the latter. We went for half a day at A-Basin, so it was kind of a rest day.
I started on the snowboard again, thinking that we might find some remaining powder. There wasn’t much powder left, and without that, the snowboard boots were killing my ankles, so I had to switch over. The best feature of the place was the bowl off to the left which was accessible only by a rather long traverse. This was unfortunate, because the snow there would have been much better on the board. I did a few runs there intermixed with some cruiser runs.
A couple down sides to A-Basin: First, they have only one high speed lift and it doesn’t serve the peak. Second, they are quite small and you really could ski the entire place in one day. Third, though this is uncertain, it was windy. I’m not sure if this was just the weather or if it’s normal for the place. Given these, I’m not sure I would put it on my list of places to go, given the readily available alternatives.
It is possible that they had the best view though.
This shows the lift over to the right and most of the traverse that we had to take across to get to the relatively unskied area.
Doug telling us just how awesome his fire is.
This shows maybe 1/3 of the A-Basin ski area - there is some terrain off the back side and some beyond the furthest lift visible.
Looking off the front of the mountain.
