How To Ski Fire Break And Not Look Like A Gaper

     The two best things about Heavenly are not even part of Heavenly. Confused? Well, the BC access gates that are accessible from various points around Heavenly's perimeter. The one I am going to talk about today is Fire Break. Check back later for "How To Ski Minden And Not Die". 

Fire Break is Nearly 3000 vertical feet of sidecountry. Yes sidecountry. In the day it was once called Slackcountry, because you get the back country turns with out the up hill, as it is accessible by lift. 

To successfully ski this area you will need a little bit of direction unless you take the gape train under the gondola. There are 3 main BC gates that access Fire break and its little bro to the west Raley's Gulch.

The first is Firebreak gate at the top of olympic, If you can't find this one you should not be out of bounds. The second is the new Stateline gate at the top of the handle tow near the Big Easy. Last is Raley's Gulch gate, Pictured above. This one is the hardest to get to. It is located skiers left of the gondola. To get here you are going to need to traverse as high as you can for quite some time or hike just behind Martin Hollay peak(The peak skiers left of the midway station). To hike you will need to exit left out of stateline gate and head to the gondola midway station. Stay on the cat track until you see the peak,  travel west just south of the peak down into the gulch.  The Red Stars are the Gates and the Green Train is the hike and traverse. If you do the traverse stay as high right as you can. It looks flat on the map where raley's is, but it is one of the steepest part of the front side. 

The way out. To get out you are going to need to work towards the gondola as you go down. If you leave from Firebreak gate off olympic you will need to traverse quite a bit. 

This is a trail map and is not accurate topography but this is the idea. Watch out for the river in the low Burn area. 

I hope this helps you out a bit.