The morning started out at A-Basin where I met up with Becky and Bru to ride for the day. We expected that A-Basin would be less crowded than the openings of Breck and Keystone. It is a bummer that Vail Resorts only allowed their employees to ride at A-basin when Breck and Keystone were open.
However we were wrong, it was very busy and with the 2nd chair not open yet by 10am…lines were bad on the 1st chair.
Becky and Bru riding down A-Basin
After one run on the lower half (not even second chair open yet), waiting in line for a good 45 minutes we decided to head over to Keystone to see what was up there.
Keystone is less than 10 minutes from A-Basin to easy quick drive over and find parking. We walked to the new Gondola in River Run and as we came around the corner, we had to laugh at how long the line was for the gondola.
Here’s us at the end of the line, it went around the corner to the right in front of the gondola.
The new gondola location
While the bottom of the Keystone gondola was bare and dry, the top was snow covered with white trees and cloudy skies for the day.
Keystone made sure to have a terrain park for opening weekend with a ton of features. It was jam packed each time riding by.
Unfortunately, the runs were quite crowded and I am surprised I made it out alive without having any collisions.
Bru riding down
A look from the parking lot at the traffic coming down Keystone to the gondola
We headed back to A-Basin to finish up the day after two runs took a long time of waiting and very few time riding.
Looking forward to riding Loveland tomorrow with great terrain open and barely any lines. Never Summer will also be there demo’ing snowboards!
Steve
November 8, 2008 at 8:29 pmWish I would have gone to loveland as Copper was packed today too. The rail park was in full force and lines werent too bad, but dodging beginners is not my idea of fun. Still, a day on snowboard is a good day!
AKLisa
November 9, 2008 at 2:28 amYou have an open invitation to stay at my house if you can make it to S.E. AK and I’ll introduce you to “The Land of No Lines”
You gotta experience it. Lifts on your own private mountain and most of the time puking so bring AK outerwear. E.C.
razzi
November 9, 2008 at 10:19 amDAMN GIRL!!!!!!!! Adrian and I came and left Keystone at a good time…. that line is freakin ridiculous!
martinboards
November 9, 2008 at 6:15 pmIts nice to see snow on top of mountains. Mt Spokane in washington state got rocked by rain all weekend… the webcam view is pretty depressing
Shayboarder
November 10, 2008 at 1:05 pmSteve, Yeah I figured Copper would have packed. I might try to make it there this weekend since there are demos.
Thanks AKLisa, might take you up on that sometime! I got a free flight somewhere I can use…just gotta have time and money to use it.
Yeah razz…it was madness.
martin, hopefully snow soon for you guys…saw the stevens cam had some good stuff.