Dropping into the Minturn Mile after the climb up from Lionshead.
With the Grand Traverse only a month away Dylan and I knew it was time to go for a bigger training day. We’ve both been logging a lot of vert skinning but nothing all that sustained or in the same vicinity as the actual race stats. Vail, Beaver Creek, and Arrowhead have been our most frequented training grounds all winter long, so we figured why not go for a challenge and try to link up all three in one push?
Above Eagle’s Nest and heading for the top of Vail’s Game Creek bowl. Photo by Dylan.
The route actually makes a lot of sense – Lionshead base up Simba to the top of Game Creek, the Minturn Mile down to Minturn and up Line Shack, traverse into Beaver Creek’s Rose Bowl and ascend to the top of Cinch, down to Talon’s and up Larkspur, capped off by traversing over and down to Arrowhead’s base. All of those were segments we’d done before, just never all together in one shot. When we took a pit stop at the Game Creek ski patrol shack to grab some tape, one of the guys mentioned the route is known around town as the “Head to Head”. Well OK then, it already has a name…
Getting from the bottom of the Minturn Mile over to the Grouse Creek Trailhead was the most dangerous part of the day.
All in all the day went well for both of us and it was encouraging to see that we’re pretty evenly matched. We certainly pushed through some physical and mental low-points, one of them being the climb up Line Shack in the noon heat. I’d also be lying if I didn’t admit that portions of the route got boring at times. But we just tried to keep moving and take it one section at a time. Traversing from Line Shack into Rose Bowl was the only part of the route that required any trail breaking.
Line Shack, which I had never been to before, sits at just below 10,000 ft between Minturn and Beaver Creek.
After traversing into the Stone Creek Chutes we skied down to the base of Rose Bowl and took the familiar route up to the top of Cinch. Then on down to Talon’s and from there it was just one last climb to the top of Strawberry Park before we could click in for the final traverse out Arrowhead.
On the final climb of the day up to Strawberry Park.
We coasted on down to the base of Arrowhead, arriving just before 4pm and capping off the 21 mile, 8,300 ft effort in just over 7 hours. Since neither of us had ever eaten at the base area restaurant, we decided to stick around for a beer, a pulled-pork sandwich and some fries. A rendering of the route generated by my GPX track:
Overall this was a cool linkup and a fun way to combine all of our local ski areas together in one human-powered push. I’d recommend checking it out sometime if you’re looking for a big day with lots of scenery and don’t mind setting up a car shuttle.
And now we’re onto the Grand Traverse in about 3 and a half weeks with spring not too far behind after that. Should be a fun time…
Note: As of the start of the 2020/2021 ski season, Vail and Beaver Creek no longer allow uphill access/skinning during resort operating hours, thus rendering this linkup virtually impossible unless you go after it in the middle of the night or after the ski areas close in April.