Editor Watts finds powder 16/12/09

5th January 2010, by Editor Watts

The Daily Mail Ski and Snowboard magazine reader trip was held on a snowy Sunday in Breckenridge

December 2009: Editor Dave Watts reports on his last couple of days in Colorado:

Light snow fell for most of Sunday and Monday enabling Vail to open more terrain. Virtually the whole width of the upper front face of the mountain (but by no means all the runs) were open on Monday. Open trails included some great black diamond terrain in the trees where the powder was deep enough to make me put my powder ribbons on in case I lost a ski. The patrollers were running one of the Back Bowl lifts, so hopefully the Bowls will be open soon.

Race winner Gwenda McDonald being presented with her prize by Martin Bell, with Editor Watts in the background.

Sunday saw myself and our group of 25 Daily Mail Ski and Snowboard readers skiing at Breckenridge. Again the terrain open there was limited – only the green and blue runs on the lower slopes of Peaks 7,8 and 9 were open; all the black diamond terrain and tree skiing and the whole of Peak 10 were closed. One of Breck’s ‘challenges’ is that it tends to be windy and new snow blows off the upper slopes – and it was certainly windy on Sunday. But we still had a good time cruising the open runs and taking part in the reader group’s fun race in the afternoon. Former Olympic downhiller and now Daily Mail magazine Equipment Editor Martin Bell flew down the course in a little over 21 seconds – almost 5 seconds faster than our race winner, Gwenda McDonald who beat all the men, much to their chagrin.

Tuesday morning dawned to clear blue skies as we headed off to Denver airport. If you are going to Colorado soon you can expect good snow, especially in the southern resorts such as Telluride, but still only limited terrain in the northern resorts such as Vail and Breckenridge. But only another good dump of snow should mean the majority of the terrain being open.

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