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).