Lovers Leap. It is visible from the chair as one ascends the Blue Sky Basin area at Vail, and ever since Blue Sky opened in 2000, it gnaws at my total being when I gaze upon it for the first time each season. It must have something to do with being a man, or perhaps in more recent years it is a test of the aging process. A ridge runs along the top edge of a bowl just beneath the chairlift, and the wind whips across the high flat surface and deposits snow in a fifty yard long cornice. In big snow years such as 2014, the snow curls around the rock ledge that forms a rim on the bowl, and that creates a beautiful curved overhang and beneath the curling lip lies the steep face of the bowl which looks nearly vertical as one gazes over the edge. The best comparison to a cross sectional view of the overgrown 2014 cornice would be the overhang of a muffin top; the type where too much batter was poured into the pan and the top spills over the muffin paper by a half inch or so.
There we stood on Friday, January 17, 2014. Fred Young was with me, and we contemplated taking the plunge. It was a rite of passage each season, but could I generate enough courage to do it again on this my third day of skiing in the new season? We worked our way down along the ridge and bypassed the upper portion where not only is the bowl steep, but also populated with numerous large boulders to make the adventure even more dicey. Fred and I did display a smattering of good judgement as we slowly skied further down along the ridge to a slight trough ahead of where the flat edge rose slightly.
I stopped a couple times before this point, but I couldn’t even look over the edge to inspect the bowl beneath because the cornice was very wide and curved, and I could envision myself breaking off the snowy lip and tumbling down the concave half pipe in a ridiculous display of bad judgement, so I followed Fred to the obvious entry point. There were numerous ski tracks at the low point of the rim, so it was now a matter of summoning the courage to point my skis down and taking the plunge. Fred was just above me, and as is typically the case, he dropped off the lip first and streaked down the bowl while kicking up a plume of snow.
My heart raced and my breathing quickened. It was now or never. I couldn’t summon the nerve to actually jump and catch air so I simply dropped off the lip and instantly gravity sucked me down the hard-packed and wind-blown surface. It was an exhilarating five seconds as I made a quick series of jump turns and controlled my speed as I zig zagged down the steep slope just above Fred. We continued on our way creating tiny snowball avalanches until we gathered our bodies and senses thirty yards below the rim. I’d done it! Once again the prospect of the thrill and exhilaration overcame the inner fear, and I conquered Lovers Leap.
Jane, Fred and Douggie at Mountain Top