I skied there today with a friend who was on the ski patrol there for about 5 or 6 years. He's a great skier and obviously knows his way around the mountain. I've skied there for over 30 years now, and we still found a couple places I'd never been before. The last run of the day, we dipped through the gate to North Glades and kept going straight into the trees instead of banking right into the Glade runs themselves. A few turns through the trees brought us under the Pali lift line. Then it was back into the trees for steeper, tighter turns. The snow was great and most (but not all) of the rocks and stumps were covered. There had been some traffic through these trees, and as a result, lots of the trees had troughs around them for making turns. It was just like a toboggan run, just put your skis in the slot and swoop around the tree (and hope there's not a big rock in the middle).

We did another run neither of us had done for years that was in similar condition. The Third Alley was prime, with soft snow, primo bumps, and toboggan troughs around the trees, where the run turned into more of a glade. My Chute was another seldom-skied run that we did that also had great snow, a great pitch, and great bumps.

The amount of acreage doesn't hold a candle to places like Vail, but the pitch is the thing. Turning over those bumps is like jumping out of an airplane, a second or two of weightlessness, then zoom, around the bottom of the bump and up over the next one. Like Ajax, all the little hidden slots, glades, and chutes keep you coming back for more, even if you don't see any celebrities on the mountain.

So how was the skiing?!

Keep in mind if you're in Summit County in the winter, A-Basin offers the steepest, most technically challenging runs in the area. It gets little sun and it's HIGH up (the highest place to ski in North America). It's a hardcore ski and board place. No beginners here. In the summer, only the blue runs are open (and they normally close by July).

On our day out there was one main run available to us with six other tributary-like paths that paraded as runs. There was a cool ledge for jumping, and there's nothing like slishing down the snow and gliding through a mud (!!) puddle!

Would I recommend this experience? Keep in mind the snow is of the consistancy of a slushy left for a half hour in a car in Georgia. If you bite it on the ground, you might get grass in your mouth. But if you're in love with making tracks and you've never done this before, absolutely. Spend a half day on the mountain. You won't soon forget the experience . . .