January 16, 2005: Snowmass is an old-school mountain stepping it up into the new school in the 21 century. They are already off to a great start with the Pipeline terrain park! There was a USASA contest on the day we visited, but still I managed to get some shots before the contest began. The superpipe was open, and we smeared some of the purple flatlight paint around with everyone else for a few minutes. Their pipe was really nice, but I didn't care for the dual starting mounds they had - there wasn't alot of room on them and it was a pain and the ass to have to hop up, honestly. Sorry to whine, but this chubby buck prefers the old standard single mound design.

Snowmass's lift system by design is a bit frustrating. The mountain is really wide, so its many chairlifts zig-zag up and down the width of the hill, which means multiple lift rides to get to the goods. It took us four chairs and a ride on the poma to get one run througn the park and a second run from the Cirque (after starting from Fanny Hill at the very bottom). But fear not, fellow liftline haters, there's a gondola in the planning stages, which will make most of what I just wrote here irrelevant. But for now, it's worth the wait to get to the Cirque.

From the poma, The Cirque is a horseshoe bowl full of cliffs, steep chutes, and bowls that filter into some sweet gullies and thick stands of trees. There was even a bit of leftover pow from a number of recent storms to blanket Aspen. Once we got up to the Cirque, we stayed there, running the same lines over and over until the end of the day! Go to Snowmass...and rip the Cirque!