Skiing Huntsman Ridge

Left slightly bitter about my inability to get work skiing with the kids on Sunday, I resolved that I surely wasn't going to waste my Monday simply by driving to Snowmass and back for nothing. So I decided to go exploring in the back country a bit, and since both of the potential partners I called couldn't go, I was left to travel alone.

I decided to tour up to Huntsman Ridge and do some skiing around Bears Point, which lies just on the north side of the summit of McClure Pass. I had never been here before, but it seemed like a good place to go alone since it is mostly dense aspen forests. I was especially excited to ski some of the fresh powder that had fallen the night before, as we haven't seen much of the new white stuff in what feels like many weeks. Also I was really hoping for some extra inspiration. I have been skiing almost exclusively within the resorts this season because I really don't have any reliable back country partners in the area, and since I just moved to the Western Slope in August, I don't really know much of the skiing in the area, either. I find that inspiration always comes when I go looking for it, and so I figured that just exploring a new area would reveal many lines that I would just have to ski in the future thus fueling my psych.

After driving through the town of Marble just to enjoy the views, I headed up McClure Pass and stopped at the top. The tour up to Bears Point was through a really pretty aspen grove, but the fresh snow was of the wet and sticky variety and I had major problems with snow sticking to my skins. No skin wax, of course, so I just powered through. Eventually I made Bears Point and enjoyed the views of Riley Bowl and Elk Bowl, shown here. I had originally planned to ski in these areas, but due to the problems with my skins and the poorly bonded fresh snow, I decided to ski the "Boyfriend Ridge" back towards my car. This option was low angle and pleasant glade skiing through aspens, one of my favorites.

Although I wish I had a partner in this venture so I could do some higher angled skiing, the peace of traveling in the mountains by myself, and skiing outside of the resort, was more than worth it.