Living the high life! We're at the Cloud Nine Bistro atop Aspen Highlands. That's the second mountain we've skied here at Aspen. When I heard "Aspen" I used to think some bunny hill for celebrities who don't know how to ski. Boy was I wrong. "Aspen" means four hills, three of them with very good, challenging terrain. The order we happened to have selected keeps giving us a better mountain to explore. Aspen Mountain was good, if not a little limited in area. Aspen Highlands was excellent—very reminiscent of Whistler, but with better snow.
This is the Highlands Bowl. To get there we hopped on a snow cat that drove us up a ways along a ridge. It was pretty exciting, reminded me somewhat of getting on a plane to sky dive. I was half expecting someone to yell out "door!". The chute down into the bowl was pretty tough, with chunky snow and a steep incline. Once in the bowl, the funnel you go down was similar to Whistler's Harmony Bowl. The lift also reminded me of the venerable Blue Chair.
I preferred the Highlands over Ajax (Aspen Mountain), and today we're off to Snowmass, which looks even better than the previous two. The trail map shows a really large selection of trails. We met a trio of Italians from New Jersey at lunch who gave us some suggestions on how to ski Snowmass: start with these long cruisers on its east slope, then "follow the sun" all the way across the slope. Sounds like a plan! Cheers!
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