Thursday, January 3, 2019

AHHHH.......Steep Gullies

The Steep Gullies opened Wednesday. I had the pleasure of skiing The 2nd SG. The upper quarter was extremely difficult. I had to tip toe through some very challenging and steep snow and rocks. The lower three quarters were absolutely beautiful, steep skiing. To finish it off I had a quiet skin back to the bottom of Pali.

The Steep Gullies are the most difficult terrain at The Basin. Extreme Terrain is defined by the Colorado Ski Safety Act as:

"Extreme Terrain" means any place within the ski area boundary that contains cliffs with a minimum twenty-foot rise over a fifteen-foot run, and slopes with a minimum fifty-degree average pitch over a one-hundred-foot run.

The Steep Gullies definitely meet this definition. Extreme Terrain is not about moguls or trees or rocks. It is about steepness and cliffs.