MARK LEWIS'S BACHELOR PARTY (aka GUY'S SKI WEEKEND) - KEYSTONE/A-BASIN (MARCH 2015)

My good buddy, Mark Lewis, celebrated his bachelor party over the weekend up in Keystone. Really, it was a great excuse for a guy's weekend of skiing. Mark's family has an amazing place in Keystone Country Club, equipped with a pool table and outdoor jacuzzi. Perfect pad for the event.

The "first" round of Kings.

On Friday, we had originally intended to ski Vail, but given the unseasonably warm temps and random isolated snowstorm that hit Arapahoe Basin the night before (6" on the mountain, wind-loaded up to 10" in several places), it was a no-brainer to head to A-Basin. The skiing was unexpectedly great. Go figure. Fresh, untracked lines all morning and soft snow on the steeps on Pallavicini (aka. Pally).

On Saturday, we had a beach spot already reserved, so we headed back up the road to A-Basin (~15 min from the Keystone house). Storms in March can be tricky. The day-old snow was a bit skied out, but still soft and silky, even without the addition of late morning March sun that we usually need to soften the snow. My buddy, Dan, from the Bay area and Mark's brother, Brad, and myself, eventually split off from the group for a little hike-to terrain on the East Wall. There was boot deep powder that had wind loaded from the previous day's storm, which skied really well. Unfortunately, Brad took an aggressive line on the north side of the couloir along the spine and made friends with some shallow rocks... twice... double ejected and took a nice header. Luckily nothing broken (skis or body).

Boot deep on Willie's Wide (East Wall).

Dan Portman (left) and Brad Lewis (right) at the top of Willie's Wide.

View from the top of Willie's Wide.

The rest of the Saturday afternoon was spent skiing 4-5 run sessions, punctuated by breaks for keg beers, Baja fog (Corona with a shot of tequila on the top), food from the grill and Frisbee in front of the Pally chair.

On Sunday morning, our reserved day of cat skiing at Keystone was cancelled by the mountain staff do to "unsafe conditions". We went right back to the Basin for day 3. I took two runs and called it day, went back to the truck with a tall boy of PBR and kicked it with the dogs for the rest of the late morning. I was eventually joined by more of the guys around 11am, then nearly everyone by 2pm. Peter put on some 1980s Dynastar racing skiis (about 70 under foot) and demonstrated the proper way to ski the bumps course on lower Pally to cheers from the parking lot.

Killer weekend. Thanks, Mark.

Beaching it at A-Basin. Heath Thompson on the grill.

 

Yep, count 'em... two kegs.

Wilder and I in an enthusiastic discussion about skiing the backcountry in Rocky Mountain National Park.

WINTER FUN WITH VISITING FAMILY - BRECKENRIDGE, CO (MARCH 2015)

We had a great visit from my wife's cousin, Guy, and his girlfriend, Bailey, during the first week of March. Awesome couple and great with our kids. The mountains had just finished a 10-day storm cycle and were loaded with new snow. Given that they weren't used to Colorado winters, the timing of their visit couldn't have been better, as we were just starting a 5-day window of blue sky days and unseasonably warm temps.

We initially toured a bit around Boulder, hiked in the snow at Chautauqua Park, climbed at The Spot for a few hours, then headed home to meet the babysitter and a quick trip into downtown Denver for cocktails followed by dinner reservations at Cholon.

We spent the last half of the weekend and the following Monday skiing at Breckenridge. Bailey spent the first day making excellent progress on skis. Guy and I spent the second day shredding Peak 8 and the hike-to terrain above Imperial Chair. I had a bone to pick with the terrain under Chair 6, as I had a ski accident their last year that ended my season early (me and the mountain are all good now).

  

The line we skied from the cornice above Lake Chutes (Zoot Chute).

 

SNOWPACK UPDATE FOR NORTHEASTERN COLORADO (MARCH 2015)

Despite some early spring conditions in our state, the snowpack is looking above normal for this time of year, especially for Colorado's Front Range where I live. We're currently at 110% of normal, which is awesome. If you compare the first map (snow water equivalent) to the second map (water year, Oct 1 to date), you'll notice that while the Pacific Northwest has received their normal amount of precipitation this winter, nearly all of it fell as rain in the mountains due to very warm storm fronts all winter. Bummer for them.

Unfortunately, the snow forecast for Colorado has erased most hopes for a plethora of March powder days. Plus, the recent lack of storms and unseasonably warm temps have begun an early season corn cycle in the mountains west of Denver. While fun to ski, I get psyched for corn only once our official "winter" is over and March does not constitute an end to winter in Colorado.

I guess things could be worse. You could live in California...

MID-WINTER FLY FISHING ON THE SOUTH PLATTE - DECKERS, CO (FEB 2015)

I co-worker that formerly lived here in Colorado, visited the previous weekend and invited me out for a day of mid-winter fly fishing. It took a little convincing, as I usually put away the fly fishing gear sometime in early October and focus my efforts on skiing all winter. However, with reassurance and promises that I "would be really surprised" with how productive the fishing would be, I committed for a full day and 2 hour drive south to fish the South Platte near Deckers.

The drive was pleasant and on a state road I'd never driven before, which is always a plus. Most of the drive was forested with Ponderosa Pine in canyon terrain. When we arrived on the South Platte, the sun was shining and the temperature hovering just below freezing. Perfect. We fished the first hole for 30 minutes without much luck, but I quickly learned what subtleties accompany fishing in the winter... iced up guides and frozen reels.

We quickly moved onto to my buddy's "honey pot", but still didn't have any luck and also had to compete for space on the water with a handful of other fisherman. We then got back in the car and drove a few miles back down river to a great looking hole about 1 mile up from Deckers. I immediately starting hooking up with healthy rainbows in the 13-16" range, all on subsurface midges. Over the next 2 hours, I landed about 6 fish and was blown away with that kind of action in mid-winter.

Needless to say, my buddy returned home and my fly fishing gear went back into storage for the remainder of what I hope will be a killer spring skiing season. Bring on the snow.

CHARGING AT STEAMBOAT (FEB 2015)

My buddy, Dan Cichy, organizes an annual ski trip with friends from all over the US. This year, the group headed to Steamboat and it couldn't have landed on a better weekend. The group arrived Saturday when the resort reported 11", followed by another 8" on Sunday and it was still coming down Sunday night.

On Monday morning, my alarm went off at 3:15am. My mind groggy, but stoked for powder turns. Given that I just returned from a week-long trip to the San Juans, I was poised for a single-day, roundtrip, commando run from Boulder. Coffee brewed, music playlist in the queue, I hit the road and travelled up I-70 through light snow. The sun came up somewhere near Kremmling. As I drove up and over Rabbit Ears Pass and descended into Steamboat, clouds hung low in the valley, a site we rarely see in the Colorado Front Range.

 

 

The skiing was good and the group's stoke excellent. Though the runs were mostly skied out from the weekend travelers, the trees just kept on giving all day. Knee deep in places. With those conditions, wasn't a difficult decision to go full throttle through the Shadows aspens or anywhere else for that matter. This trip, I was amazed at the amount of deadfall in the trees that the resort seemingly doesn't mitigate in the summer, which gave me several mini heart attacks as I hit pillowed features, only to be surprised with 10 and 15 foot unexpected drops on the other end. The deep conditions made it all good though.



Gourgeous rime ice on mature alpine spruce.

 

With tired legs, we hit apres-ski at the front side bar, then took the party back to the condo for the usual scotch and cigars. Nice work, gentlemen.



FINALLY A POWDER DAY - ASPEN HIGHLANDS (FEB 2015)

Following an amazing week of near-spring conditions and corn snow in the southern San Juan mountains, Rick, Walter and I headed east to Aspen for a shot at a much-needed powder day. Luckily, the mountain delivered with 6 inches of fresh that fell all day. With tired legs from a solid week of skiing, we hammered out our 6th and final day of the trip. We found fresh lines all morning and soft snow the rest of the afternoon.

My only complaint that afternoon was the tear drop-shaped moguls on this mountain. I can only surmise that the elongated shape of their moguls comes from the speed at which the local skiers hit these things. I saw individual moguls that were 15 feet long, top to bottom. That's just ridiculous. Despite my best efforts, I could never seem to find the right fall line.

View looking south at Pyramid Peak (14,026 ft), part of the Maroon Bells massif.

SOUTHERN SAN JUANS - TELLURIDE AND OPHIR (FEB 2015)

After several days at the Aladdin's Lamp Hut and Silverton Mountain, we packed up our gear and drove north over Red Mountain Pass through Ouray and west over to Telluride. We planned a day of backcountry and a day of resort skiing, before heading further east to Aspen. Given the unseasonably warm spring conditions, we expected Telluride to be a mess. However, the snow was surprisingly good and the resort was able to maintain chalky conditions on north-facing aspects and corn on south facing aspects, following almost 6 weeks of no new snow and balmy temps. (Note: Telluride received nearly 50 inches of snow the following week... after our trip.)

We spent a good part of the morning skiing bumps up high in Revelation Bowl, which was in great shape. Good bumps and recrystallized powder kept the turns nice and soft. We made our way over into Prospect Bowl and couldn't believe that we found boot deep powder in the trees just below the south ridge. Amazing after over a month without a significant storm.

View of the backside of Palmyra Peak (13,320 ft).

View of Mt. Wilson (14,252 ft) from top of Revelation Bowl.

 

We also spent a day skiing the backcountry in the canyons east of Ophir, CO, just south of Telluride. We visited this place a couple of years ago under amazing snowpack conditions, super stable, dry and light. However, this trip was a different story. While having high hopes for spring corn conditions, we either started too late in the morning or it didn't freeze hard enough the night before. Regardless, it was a slosh pit back there, but Herbie joined me for the tour anyway. We skinned up into the far south end of Swamp Canyon before deciding it was time to tuck our tails and get out of there.

 

 

Below are some winter photos of Swamp Canyon under "good" conditions from the 2012-13 season. This place is such a gem (shhh... don't tell anyone).

 

 

SOUTHERN SAN JUANS - SILVERTON MOUNTAIN (FEB 2015)

After 12 years of living in Colorado, I finally skied Silverton Mountain. This mountain experience stands apart from other ski areas in the state for the simple reason that they have one lift, world class terrain and a shoestring budget. The "office" consists of a canvas-wrapped Quonset hut, which also doubles as the après-ski bar.

After a quick orientation with your guide, you're chair lifted up to the main ridge, where you have two options... (1) boot pack up the ridge passed Hollywood Rock toward the Billboard or (2) boot pack down the ridge toward the north-facing cornices that empty into the avy runs through the spruce forest. Our first turns of the day... Ropey Dee Dope 1... a cornice huck into a tight, steep (>45 degree) couloir. Yup, that's exactly how our guide, Dorian, initially sussed out our group's abilities, right out of the gates. That's just badass. Despite no new snow in a month, the snowpack was recrystallized powder and super chalky, which made turns in the tight couloir much more, dare I say, "comfortable".

 

 

 

Our second run took us north, down the ridge, into Riff, an initially cliff-banded entry into a classic wide open and heavily-featured couloir. Our third run took us again down the ridge further north to Cabin, an open cirque that emptied lower into an avalanche path called Sugarhill. We hit boot-deep powder on the entry into Cabin, which Dorian indicated was the best snow on the mountain and that they were "managing" it very carefully in light of the lack of recent storm snow. All of the runs down the east side of the ridge drop you onto the Exit Road, where the bus picks you up for a 1-minute shuttle back to the base of the double-chair lift.

Oh, and yes, Silverton serves up single-drop heli access to the far east ridge. I love this mountain.

Silverton's Aster B3, which spends late spring to early summer at their heli operations in the Chugach Mountains, AK.

 

 

Our fourth and final run of the day, found us boot packing up the hill to the base of the Billboard in the later afternoon sun. We dropped into Gene Simmons, which joined Tiger Main about 1,000 feet below the ridge. Tiger Main is one of the two prominent avalanche paths below the main ridge on the west side. Skiing Tiger Main eventually took us down a ~2,500 ft descent through a tight gully. For the record, I hate gullies... like loathe them with a passion. However, this particular gully was pure enjoyment. It was perfect corn snow in the late afternoon, alpine sun. Mildly moguled in sections with super cool features to pop off the entire run. The gully spilled out onto the main road, where our bus driver, Ari (lovingly nicknamed "Speedwagon") at first passed us on the road, not even noticing us waiting there to be picked up. When Speedwagon circled back to get us, Dorian hopped into the driver seat, as we later found out, because Ari was a bit too stoned to drive. Heeheee.

 

A little après-ski in the parking lot, followed by more après-ski in the Quonset hut made for a wonderful closing to a fun day.

Apres-ski in the Quanset hut.

 

SOUTHERN SAN JUANS - ALADIN'S LAMP HUT (FEB 2015)

Finally returned to the southern San Juans for a hut trip with the usual suspects and a couple of new faces. We stayed at the Aladdin's Lamp Hut located 4 miles south of Silverton along the Animas River. The approach to the hut was a tortuous 200 yards from the car, which made it convenient for the day trip to Silverton Mountain. The A-frame hut was quaint and included a roomy upstairs room that slept 8 comfortably and a main floor equipped with a full kitchen, dining area, wood-burning stove and even a corner nook with two sofa chairs for lounging. The front deck was surprisingly huge and the outhouse was conveniently attached via a mud room-hallway accessed from the back door.

 

The meals were great. I made fajitas one night with Spanish rice, fresh limes and two choices of Mexican beer. Not the usual hut trip given the proximity to the car, but that only meant we could live it up a bit more. In fact, I think between the 6 of us, we had 5 bottles of aged single malt Scotch and enough cigars to last any one person at least a year. That said, scotch and cigars were depleted by the end of the trip.





 

 

Unfortunately, the timing of our trip couldn't have come at a worse time. The southern San Juans hadn't seen any new snow in more than a month and we were in the in-between stage of mid-winter and spring conditions (even though it was mid-February). Temps soared into the upper 30s and low 40s and the snowpack was transitioning into spring corn, but not quite there yet. The day and night temps were perfect for a corn cycle, but I think the low sun angle kept it from just quite making it there. Needless to say, we toured around the hut, found some really fun tree skiing and eye balled some stellar hourglass couloirs on the south and east faces of Grand Turk, which I'll visit on another trip.

EVER HAVE THAT MOMENT AND THINK, 'WAIT A MINUTE..."?