Epic Steeps on Opening Day

Arapahoe Basin Opens Montezuma Bowl

By Carson Bennett, 12-31-08

	Lining up at "Zuma"

At 10:50am on December 30, cheering crowds of skiers and snowboarders strained against the ropes at Arapahoe Basin’s famed Montezuma Bowl. Folks lined up at the 12,472-foot entrance to “Zuma” starting half an hour before the ropes dropped, leaning into the fierce wind whipping up and over the Black Bear and Larkspur runs.

Patrollers dropped the ropes on the west side of Zuma lift, above the Columbine run, but I was with a group of friends – among them an insider, an A-Bain employee – and he told us to wait. “We’re going to hike. The good stuff is out there,” he said, pointing into the wind. A few moments later patrollers let those of us huddled on the east side of Zuma lift go, and we raced (as fast as people carrying skis over their shoulders in deep snow at nearly 13,000 feet can race) up the ridge toward the Zuma cornice.

Picking our way over a spine of exposed rock and down to the snow-packed cornice, my friends and I strapped on our skis and shot down to the Groswold entrance. Groswold, like every run on the Zuma Cornice, is gorgeous, steep, deep, and double-black extreme. Amen.

A few other skiers had hiked faster and beaten us to the entrance. They stood with their tips hanging over the cornice edge, scouting their lines. My insider friend wasted no time. He led the charge as we approached and shouted to us over his shoulder, “It’s good! Go! Go! Go!” before he took a little hop…and dropped out of sight. We all followed, one after the other, launching past the guys on the cornice, dropping into deep snow, making the first tracks of the season on the steeps of Groswold.

As the A-Basin website reports, the Montezuma bowl opened for the first time last season, increasing the mountain’s skiable terrain by 80%. Most of the terrain is expert-level, full of steeps and glade runs galore, but two beautiful top-to-bottom blue runs, as well as a few short blues in the trees, attract intermediate skiers as well. The quad Zuma lift keeps powder hounds moving with a ride time of 9 minutes and a capacity of 1,900 skiers per hour.

The next time you’re visiting Colorado’s famous summit county area resorts you may want to rethink Vail, Breckenridge, or Keystone as destinations. Arapahoe Basin was an incredible mountain before it opened Montezuma bowl, but now “the Basin” is nothing short of epic.

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