Skiing for vertical

Today was definitely a day for high speed cruising on perfectly groomed runs so I set out to get in as much vertical as I could. In the end I still skied quite a few bumps (but no trees) and still managed nearly 24,000 ft in 3.5 hours, my biggest day of vertical for the season.

I started off around 9 am and there was no line at all at the Gondola. For the first hour the mountain was deserted so I really let it rip with high speed runs down Storm Peak North to Cyclone, upper Buddy's to Rainbow to Mooonlight and then High Noon to Two O'Clock to lower High Noon.

After that I headed over to Pioneer Ridge (which I wanted to try without powder for a change) via Storm Peak South and Tornado. The bumps on the Pony Express Liftline were a little firm in places but I still skied them pretty well, not something I could have said three months ago.

From Storm Peak Express I traversed across to the Sundown Liftline and lower Three O'Clock (hoping that they'd groomed this one last night but no such luck) where the bumps were more forgiving. From the Elkhead Chair via Norther and upper Vagabond I came unstuck about half way down Mother Nature. I skied it better than I expected but it's best not to leave the really tough runs until your legs are tired. My final ride was on the Thunderhead Express and my favourite run on the lower mountain, Vertigo, which was groomed and so nice!

That's day 58 of my 2005-06 season. I'm heading off to Australia on Sunday so I'm hoping to get in two more days and finish the season on a nice round 60 days which should also bring me within a whisker of 750,000 vertical ft.