"Baldy One" Couloir - GS Turns in the Mist

Dakota and Kristo were in town for the past two days to finish off the ski season, which we did at Highlands on Sunday, despite the rain. On Monday we went back country skiing just outside of the Snowmass ski resort, using the lifts to gain about 3,500 free verts. Joining us were my friends from ski school, Jemma and Lee. Jemma is a fun-loving Kiwi who works here in the winters, and Lee is an American turned New Zealand resident who also teaches skiing year round. The weather was quite variable throughout the day, but it began with us freezing in low dense clouds on the lifts. Eventually we reached the top of the resort and began climbing up a ridge through a second, higher, cloud layer which oddly enough was sweltering hot and had us all down to our tee shirts. After no more than half an hour we found ourselves on top of a sub-peak of Mt. Baldy at around 13,000ft. The couloirs which dropped off the ridge from beyond this point looked a little less filled in, so we decided we would ski to the west down a huge broad gully coated with about six inches of fresh powder. Here is Lee and Jemma joining us on the top.

After putting on our skis the clouds rolled in thick and we were forced to wait for a quick break to begin our descent. Dakota won a quick game of rock, paper, scissors, and took the first turns with Jemma looking on. The snow was fresh and heavy and the turns were great. Unfortunately we were continually plagued by the mist.

The bottom half of the run turned into a huge gully between cliff bands. It was not too steep, and the thick fresh snow was super supportive for big, fast, GS turns. I had the luck of getting the freshies through here, and ripped it for all I was worth, giggling and whooping the whole way. I stopped to take photos and Lee passed on by, charging down with Kristo and Dakota watching. Moments later he suffered a spectacular wipe-out, and I took the chance to lead through some fun little airs out the bottom of the chute. Our adventure was only beginning, as we now had to ski about three miles down the valley. The rain that began falling contributed to the super weak snow pack, and at times we were sinking to our knees with our skis on! Eventually we reached the melt-out zone, which around here has already risen to about 10,000ft and had to do a bit of walking. From here we were able to curve around and get back on to the trails of Snowmass, where we wasted no time making our way to the bar at the base. A super great day skiing with good friends, both new and old.

Work and Wet Snow

Work: yep, been a lot of that lately. I've logged my all time record of ten days in a row working(heh, its a lot for me), and it felt pretty much like a blur. Which is where the laziness comes in. I haven't been taking any good pictures lately because I've just been working, and I've been too worn out to deal with writing any new blogs. The ski season is almost over, though, (at least for the resorts) but until then I'm just trying to log as many days as possible. The weather has been very warm, and the snow has been, well, variable. Glop, glue, mashed potatoes, sludge, sticky white crap, however you want to describe it "new" or "powder" has not been an oft used adjective lately. But, the sun makes the days pleasant if nothing else.

Speaking of wet snow, the last good ski adventure I had was about two weeks ago, the day after returning from the desert. Danny, Trish, and I met up with Dakota and Kristo at the summit of Vail pass for a day of back country skiing. It was my first day of spring skiing this season, and has yet to be rivaled. The terrain shots I took were a bit lackluster, but there were lots of classic people shots. Here is Danny and Dakota taking in the ludicrous flying pink elephant that we saw. The shot of the elephant turned out blurry.

Here's a shot of Kristo finishing up our best line of the day. The snow was excellent wet corn smeared on top of a nice hard base. It was delicious and creamy. This was Kristo's first ever day of ski touring, and his outfit was totally classic. I was psyched to have his great personality and lively jump turn as part of our team. Overall our day involved a lot of distance for not a ton of downhill, mostly due to some sightseeing, but afterwards it was great to be able to see out tracks glistening like golden trophies for all to see from I-70.

On a more serious note, I talked to my longtime friend Stefan Griebel on the phone this morning and it seems like he will be alright. This is him in the ICU after breaking three vertebrae in his neck in a ski fall at Mary Jane last Sunday. On the last run of the day he was mocking down a groomer and felt his ski "doing something weird." Posed with the split second decision of whether to try and save it or take the dive, he opted to go down, and doesn't remember anything until he was looking up at the sky with his sunglasses broken and blood on his face. He finished the run, but eventually checked into the clinic, feeling dizzy with blurry vision. Many hours later it was determined he had three fractures in his neck vertebrae. Luckily he is alright and was able to go back to work today. Anyway, working at the resort this season I have seen many grizzly wrecks and have seen more friends go down skiing. Just be careful, especially with the sticky snow. peace.

Quandary Peak Ski Descent

It has been a busy week at Snowmass and I have been teaching the kids every day. Luckily the snow and the weather have been fantastic. This morning I was e-mailed some pictures from Dakota and Jason, friends from Boulder, whom I did a ski descent of Quandary Peak with in January. This picture is Quandary, which lies just South of Breckenridge, taken from the Monte Cristo trailhead. Our line follows the ridge coming at the camera straight down from the summit to the cleanest couloir which drops off to the left. This is the same line which Chris Davenport took during his fourteener quest, and formed a really awesome and interesting adventure. The avalanche danger at the time was very low, and it is obvious that the wind had been scouring the peak for weeks.

I met Dakota, who is one of my best friends, and his friend Jason, a tele-er whom I had never met before, at the trailhead at 9:30am. These two have been skiing together a lot this season in the backcountry, but for me this was day one. Needless to say I was excited. All season I have been dreaming of skiing from the tops of peaks, and this day was my first chance. We began skinning up through the trees in spectacular sunny and warm weather, soon gaining the classic East ridge, a route I had climbed once before with my mom when I was about 12 or 14. It was really nice to have such pleasant weather, a far cry from two previous attempts of mine to climb Quandary in the winter, which were both thwarted by heinous storms.

We made short work of the ridge, but as we neared the summit the wind picked up to gale force, making us stagger as if drunk, our skis acting as sails attached to our backs. We had the opportunity to watch many other skiers make turns of varying quality down the East Bowl, but we were psyched on our South facing line. Here is Dakota and I on the summit, where we removed our skins and mounted up as fast as possible, intent on getting out of the wind, and really excited for the 3,400ft. descent that awaited us.

We were able to ski straight off the summit, and headed back down the ridge to the top of the couloir. The coverage was thin and we were forced to take our skis off a couple of times, but usually for no more than about 6 feet. This is me at the wide entrance to the couloir. The snow was extremely hard and compacted windslab; not ideal but pretty much what we expected. The view down as we skied was deceptive, and what looked like a reasonable pitch actually went on forever. Numerous times we switched leads, heading towards the bottleneck, and the unknown, at the bottom.

As the slope pinched down it turned into some fantastic tight turns through cliff bands, shown here. Below is Jason assessing our options through the hidden cliffs below. We went left and made some exposed turns before having to take the skis off to down climb a 15 foot section of rock. From there it was a little bit of willow weaving and then a two mile cruise along the snowed in summer road back to our cars and the beer. All in all this was easily one of the best days I've had this season, great friends, great weather, and a really great run.

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.