» REPEAT AFTER ME….REALLLLLLLY DEEEEEP! «
Today I broke open my piggy bank and threw down the necessary $300 bones to buy my place on a snowcat to the backside. Now you are probably in front of your computer right now trying to figure out if a tour like this is worth it.
The answer is an unequivocal YES!
There is no maybe, possibly or even a perhaps for a trip like this. Since I won’t possibly be able to put today’s events into words without it growing into a dissertation, I’ll let some photos do my work for me.
A powder tour day starts out just after 8am with a sign up and waiver followed by getting on the gondola to the top about a quarter to 9am. Once at the top, it’s time to get in our respective snowcat for a short trip back to Richmond Ridge. Today we were treated to a few runs on the west facing slopes of Little Annie Basin. This side typically gets the worst of the wind-blown snow and since the pitch is a little steeper than the east side, it doesn’t get skied as much. We got to go in there for 3 runs today before progressing to the eastern facing slopes. The eastern facing stuff today held the most snow and for most of the day, we were ensconced in knee to waist deep snow that was untouched for nearly 1000 vertical feet every run. It was snowing so hard today, it was nearly impossible to see previous tracks from just a few runs earlier. After 6 runs, it was time to stop for lunch. Now keep in mind this lunch comes from the private Aspen Mountain Club directly to the lunch cabin on the backside. Today’s menu included Asparagus soup, New York style cut meat served with purple potatoes and peas. For desert, brownies and my fav, M&M’s. After lunch, we didn’t have time for naps, so we were forced to ski some more. We actually had time for 6 more runs totaling 12 in all getting nearly 12,000 vertical feet in the process. All in all, a great day and I even had enough juice to ski down the front of Aspen Mountain. I can’t wait to get up there tomorrow because it looked like no one was skiing today. I found uncut freshies in the trees at 4PM! I’ll probably have photos of that as well. If you are at least an intermediate skier with aspirations of skiing the untracked, unload some of that hard earned dough you can’t take with you and sign up for the best time you’ll ever have with your clothes on! I’m out!