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..."?

ONE OF THOSE DAYS 2 - CANDIDE THOVEX

Check out this edit from pro skier Candide Thovex at his home resort in Val Blanc, France. Absolutely gnarly skiing with an insane amount of air time. What did this guy do to this poor mountain? I guess this could be categorized as a freeskier's version of satire.

BACKCOUNTRY DAY IN BUTLER GULCH, CLEAR CREEK COUNTY, CO (JANUARY 2015)

Great weather yesterday on a mid-week day off backcountry skiing in Butler Gulch, Clear Creek County, CO. Blue sky, no wind. Our visit followed a mild winter storm the previous evening, where 4-5" of the snow fell straight to the ground (a rarity in Colorado's notoriously windy Front Range). I skied with Henry Gibb, who dragged me all over the basin. Impressive fitness level on his part, if I might add.