Back from Jackal

I'm back from the 8th Annual Frozelap Hut trip but have a bit to go before i post a movie of the trip. In the meantime the link below is to some of the better pictures of the trip. Lots of new snow and good people made it yet another great hut trip!

Also, please check out a couple of new sites i've linked. It's funny the small world it is up here and how when you see "Spinny" woman (she is always in granny gear it seems because of back problems) riding on the trails in the winter up here with her funny dog "K" and then you find her blog documenting her rides and experiences in the very places you spend your days...well it's just weird and cool.

http://picasaweb.google.com/whitcj/JackalHutTrip#

Tour-o-Rama!

Sunday, I headed out on a solo tour up Friendly Ghost Creek. Today I had the Karhu Guides. It was another hot day here, nearly 50 degrees in Ned for a high. I didn't feel like trying to wax for that or deal with clumping snow on skins and skin wax...so the Guides were a perfect ski for the day. They are the perfect exploration setup.

Buddha's Pecker is an amazing peak. I've never been up here when it was this clear out...and not windy. The other two times I've been up this way were whiteout conditions and breaking trail in deep powder. Not today. After getting past the first 2 or 3 miles which are posthole and snowshoe critical mass, I hit my intersection. No tracks. Again, I break trail up this secluded mountain drainage that has to be one of the most remote places in this Wilderness Areas. It takes a hell of a long time to get there, but it's so worth it. I saw more animal tracks in the last mile than in the entire previous 6 miles. Pine marten, weasel, coyote and maybe a bobcat showed their paths to me, wandering around unaffected by any disturbance.

Buddha's Pecker overshadows my gear

Today wasn't about the turns, but the Guides always enable that possibility on the way down. I actually think they have a mind of their own and lead me to these places. There were some nice short low angle shots that had so much surface hoar on top that it felt like a few inches of new snow had fallen in the last 24 hours. I now know where to go for turns when everything else is tracked out and a week as passed since the last snowfall. But the biggest reason to come here is the complete solitude this valley provides.

It's only you and the animals. And the only way you know they are there is because of their tracks. So like them, I left only my tracks as evidence.

The most dangerous thing I do...

Isn't going over the Divide at dusk in white out conditions

Isn't going backcountry skiing with high avalanche danger

Certainly wasn't Montezuma's Revenge and isn't going to be the Grand Traverse.

The most dangerous thing I do is ride my bike on the road because I'm not in full control of my fate.

Be careful out there everyone...we're not on the winning end of that bumper.

The Thumb

the author. photo by the Pilot

Yep, another tour...how did you guess? I guess if you don't like skiing and seeing beautiful alpine scenery, this blog could get a bit boring...but it's your choice to read. Somewhere around April I'll start cycling a lot again, but for now it's just the regular commutes in the cold and as much skiing as I can afford!

Dubba skinning up the east face of the Thumb with James, OH JAMES! in the background.

Saturday was a highlight, with the welcomed addition of a newbie to our group - MK Eurosport - the Pilot, Dubba and I all headed out to do a favorite tour of mine on "the Thumb" previously known as "the Rib" as it looks more like a thumb on the topo than a rib. None of them had been on the thumb in this area, and since NOAA was calling for almost 40degrees with hardly any wind...spring skiing in January! So we went a bit higher than usually allows and scored some softish snow above treeline in the protected areas on the lee side of scree fields. Then upon skinning back up, we noticed some very good shots of pretty good powder in the dense northeast trees! These were the famed trees that I have been searching for since the Avy2 course three years ago. My route finding just came together today (relatively guys, I know finding Quicky Couloir wasn't as quick as it could've been!). I think it was the lack of wind and good visibility that helped out my navigation.

The Pilot on the shady side carving some turns looking east.

It was one of those days where you don't expect to find anything good to turn on, so we were just heading out for the tour. The reason being, it's been warm. Very warm here since Wednesday with no snow in the forecast for another week, at least. So sad. Highs in the low 50s in Ned made for some crusty south-facing slopes so we benched around north from Quicky to the run above Secret Trees. Cutting across the open windscoured treeline slopes on the thumb is usually a bad idea in January but today it was solid. Rock solid in fact. Secret trees did not disappoint, as usual, and the traverse to more northerly terrain proved to be highly successful. Eurosport and the Pilot deemed one area "Nugget" and nearby area "Jibpark" for the untracked powder stash with bumps, rocks, and downed trees that these areas provided. It was nearly impossible to go down these tree runs without getting at least a little air!

At the bottom it was asked... "should we do another?"

"Um, yeah...I think so!"

...and so it was a few more times.

Dubba (photo by the Pilot)

me, not as smooth on the AT's (photo by the Pilot)

MK looking very EuroRando (photo by the Pilot)

Here's a very short video

6k trees on Tuesday

We had a "surprise" snowstorm Monday morning. NOAA didn't see it coming, therefore the plows didn't either. It must've started at 5am and by 10am there was 6" on the ground...then it stopped at the house but continued up high for the entire day. Berthoud reported 10" and so did Eldora (lies). But either way, it was the biggest storm of the season I think, or at least that I can remember. (Here in the Rockies, a foot in one day is pretty big unlike the western states' 2feet per day.) So after finally getting to work (the plows didn't come by my house until after 9am) I realized I should've just stayed home and gone skiing.

Smrp had driven our rottie/pit mix Freddy to the vet Monday early Monday morning to get surgery on a large liver tumor. He wasn't to come home until Tuesday afternoon. She had a 5 hour round trip - should've only taken 3 at the most on a dry day. Freddy's doing really well today (Saturday) and seems to have broken out of the significant pain he was in the last few days. We hope this will be the last we see of this liver cancer!

Tuesday morning I was determined to pay tribute to the snow that had fallen by hitting my favorite dawn patrol site - 6k bowl. (I rename things every few years just to keep it fresh.) The last time I was here it was the windiest day in the history of the world. Today didn't disappoint and seemed to be trying to compete with the last time i was there. Except today there was a fresh 10" of snow that had fallen the previous day. The trees were therefore PLASTERED with snow. Literally. It looked like someone had just sprayed drywall compound on these poor trees.

The skin in past the snowplastered trees

the opening into the bowl shows the trees are carrying most the snow

I took the normal route in and enjoyed breaking trail for the 45 minute approach from the parking area. Upon reaching the bowl, I took these two pictures and then quickly turned around and skinned up through the trees. Hardslab with 60mph gusts plastering my face in the bowl, or hidden from the wind and deep soft powder in the trees?...hmm. It's amazing to me how the wind can f*%$ he snow up so quickly after a storm.

Sunrise at 10,000ft

The one run I took was pretty good, having linked all the open pockets this run had to offer (and that i don't always find). Not a bad way to start the workday if I do say so myself! Makes sitting at my desk for those 8 hours somewhat more tolerable.

The Hill Route

DV8 riding one of the old trestles up on Rollins Pass a few summers ago.

The historic Moffat Road: http://www.phantomranch.net/images/ghost/moffatrdmap.gif A tunnel now replaces this old train "Hill Route," but the road is still open to use. The 4wd road travels up 3800ft on either side of the Divide from East Portal to Winter Park. The tunnel is just over 6 miles long and takes about 15 minutes to get through on the train. On skis in the winter the road takes a bit longer. Training for the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse (GT) can make you do some cool things. Things you've wanted to do for a long, long time - such as take the train to Winter Park with your skis and ski home over the Continental Divide. The Redneck and I did just that Saturday. (This will be a long story, so get ready...)

The forecast was for a clear day of 27 degrees and breezy at East Portal. We were taking the "Hill Road" though so we prepared for it to be a bit breezier and cooler. Packs had everything from food and water to the huge Das Parka and pants, emergency blanket, shovel/beacon/probe, Spot Tracker, GPS, extra baselayer, mini-medical kit, etc. We had mostly what we'll have in our packs for the GT.

Redneck at the Amtrak ticketing booth.

Reserve online, scan and print tickets in a matter of seconds at the Station. Better, MUCH better than air travel. Especially since you can carry on everything from sharp edged ski to a leatherman to a whisky flask or whatever! The route we chose was the most straightforward and safe route we knew. Follow up the Corona Pass/Rollins Pass road over the pass and jump over to the gas pipeline trail that leads into the back of the Eldora Ski Area. Then head down the ski runs for some sweet full-moon night turns at the end of the day. On Topo, it's about twenty miles, the longer uphill section from Winter Park to the top of the pass is about 14 miles. There aren't many safe - as far as avalanche danger - passages over the divide. The west side is severely wind scoured so it's pretty safe from avalanches, but most of the east side of the divide is composed of much steeper cliff bands with only a few spots that roll over into gentle terrain. Rollins Pass, in my mind, is the only safe winter passage. Rodgers, Pawnee, and Arapahoe all have much steeper terrain that make them much more dangerous in winter. Because it's an old railroad route, Rollins Pass is nearly flat on both sides and usually easy to navigate.

All i need is my skis, and my thermos....and a pack full of everything one needs to survive a night out at 12,000ft. Walking thru Union Station in Denver to the train.

The train heads up to the grassland/forest boundary south of Boulder.

The train flows up the Tolland valley towards East Portal

The train arrives in Fraser. Redneck's girl left her Subaru at the station for us to shuttle to the trailhead. (Thanks for the cookies and car shuttle AP!)

The train left Denver at 8am, got to Fraser around 10:30 - a half hour past schedule due to a few freight trains slowing us down. We stopped at the Roasters for another coffee and some grub, and finally headed to the trail head. We were on the trail leaving the car at 11:15am. Not the earliest of starts, but it was the earliest Amtrak we could've taken, and we wanted to do the second leg - the leg we were most familiar with - in the dark. After all, the Grand Traverse starts at midnight.

Here's the Redneck heading up the groomed road. As you can see, I'm not joking - the road was groomed with a cat. That's because it's a popular snowmobile tour destination. So we had many 'bilers waving as they passed, offering to tow us up the rest of the way. Thanks, but I'm not getting on that thing with you! Because it was groomed, it was a pretty mellow approach to treeline. The grade was never over 4% and it was freaking corduroy for much of the way. We could've skated the first 10 miles. As soon as we got off the trail, there was about 3-4" of new snow atop unconsolidated early winter snow - difficult trail breaking to say the least. It would've taken us twice as long if we had to break trail. Our ski setup: Asnes Holemkollen XC skis (3/4 edge, non fish-scaled) with Rottefella NNN BC bindings, Rossingnol X3 BC Boots...in short, a superlightweight touring setup. My boots don't like my feet so I had to stop 2 times to set up some moleskin to prevent blisters. I've worn these boots nearly daily for a month, at the nordic center and at work hoping to break them in with no luck. I think they're just not meant for my feet.

Wait...what side of the divide are we on? Corona Bowl this way? Huh?

Riflesight Notch. A remnant old trestle bridge around mile 10.

The first 12 miles were cake, other than my feet getting bruised and blistered by my boots. We got some good kick and glide on the skis. It was a blue kick wax day, and the snow was perfect...we hit it just right. We averaged 3 miles per hour for the first 12 miles so made it to treeline - and where the snowmobile tours ended - by 3pm. And then it began. The tour. A jouney similar in nature to the Niwot Traverse I wrote about a couple of weeks back. The type of beat down that only this type of trip provides. Winds spitting needle-like snow pellets at us from the west on our northwest traverse up to the pass. The last 2 miles up and over the pass, above the old hotel site to the parking area, then up to the high road to avoid the railroad trestles, took us nearly 2 hours. One third the pace of the previous four hours. The road bed was nearly un-noticeable in the white-out conditions. We alternated trading pulls at the front to break trail on the knee deep wind-drifted snow and alternating rock-hard sastrugi.

This is quintessential above-treeline Colorado in January - and on a day they said wasn't going to be snowing, or windy. Imagine it in a blizzard. I can't imagine it'd be much different except with higher winds and even less visibility. The thermometer said 18 and the winds were easily gusting to over 40mph. The only way we knew which way to go was from the Redneck's memory of the trail, and my failing GPS unit telling us where the road was in relation to our location. And it wasn't even dark yet. I just am thankful we got up and over the pass before nightfall.

This is the crest of the Pass, and the last picture I took of the tour.

We had passed the "actual" pass at this point but had to still climb up and away from the trestles. This is the Rollins Pass high road...with the Trestles below to the left. This is the only "blue sky" we saw today...and it was getting dark. This shot was taken at 4:30pm...we were just getting to the top of the pass and had another 7 or so miles to go. I had a feeling of elation at the top of the pass, but also a bit of nervousness for what was to come. We "knew" the second section of trail in the summertime, but it was the dead of winter and we were at least an hour behind schedule. The top of the pass was unskiable. Exposed rock and soil, winds so brutal they knocked us sideways each step of the way. It was now dusk as we dropped into the drainage that led into Yankee Doodle Lake and then Jenny Creek but was too steep and breakable to safely attempt on skinny skis. We took out our headlamps as we took a short break at the bottom of the drainage to put on our skis. We were finally out of the wind for the first time in over 2 hours. Not for long though. As we climbed up to the pipeline trail, the clouds were turning pink and red, the sun had set and it was going to get dark soon. This is one of those times where you get that chill down your spine, this time for a few different reasons. One being that you are outside in this amazingly beautiful place, actualizing an adventure you've wanted to do for years. The light of the sunset "clicked" that in for me. The other reason being something that I thought the next second: "Holy shit, it's getting dark, and we have 6 miles of trail to go." If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know I have the tendency to get lost....or occasionally a little turned around at least. This apparently gets magnified in the dark. I took the lead up the hill and followed what I thought was the pipeline trail, but up there in the dark, the ridge line leading more southeast looked very similar to how i remembered the pipeline trail to look. Snowdrifts covered any trail markings - the pipeline signs - so the Redneck didn't notice my error either until we came out in an open meadow that looked to be pretty far off the mark. The snow ended in grass and any pipeline trail was unrecognizable. We didn't need our headlamps yet as it was still somewhat light out - around 5:20pm at this time. I took out my GPS to see where we went off course. The batteries were dying so I had to load and unload the batteries a couple of times to make it turn on. It crashed a third time and I decided to put new batteries in. I heard the Redneck say, "I think we passed the turn, we took a right instead of a left back there somewhere..." and I replied with something like, "I'm going to change the batteries in my GPS to see where we are." My head was down, he was behind me, we could barely hear eachother as the wind was still howling. After I replaced my batteries and got a position I found we were a bit to the right of the trail. As I turned around, I said aloud, "we should head left to find the trail." He wasn't there.

I looked around in disbelief. Where'd he go? The wind had since covered any tracks we created on the way in. It was now almost "officially" dark at 5:30. I turned on my headlamp and blew my whistle as I walked increasing radius circles around the area expecting that he'd just gone behind a tree to take a leak. I couldn't find him, none of my yells or whistles brought back a response. What the fok!? However, these were the conditions where you could be 30 feet away and not hear a bomb go off. It gives me chills just writing about it. Needless to say, I got scared. We
were separated right as it got dark and we were lost. I had a Spot and the GPS, so I felt I could get home safely (eventually), and I was pretty certain we could both bivy out there safely and start back up in the morning when we could see the route better. But not knowing what happened to him was a very distressing feeling to say the least.

What does one do in this situation? Stand around and wait until they hopefully return? I wasn't sure where he went so I imagined he didn't know where I was. I was pretty sure he went to go find the trail but as it was dark, I didn't think he'd be able to find his way back to where I was. He must have expected that I followed him after we stopped in the meadow but with the wind and our hoods over our heads communication was challenging. I didn't feel staying put was an option. I was in a very exposed location with the wind and snow, i was getting cold just standing around. I looked at my revived GPS unit and saw that I was too far left. But then I thought I saw a light ahead in the distance, straight ahead, and not to the left. Didn't matter, I went that way, continuing on the ridgeline that we had came out on. Was that light him? Maybe he passed around and to the left of me and this was the hill on the trail that I remembered...? I didn't know, I just went towards the light.

After 15 minutes of traversing scoured wind drifted snow and krumholtz, I decided that I was not going to find the trail on this route and that I had seen a ghost - not really a ghost - but it was snowing pretty hard so I must have seen the reflection of a larger snowflake in my headlamp's path. I stopped behind a big drift to regroup. After checking my GPS, I decided to contour back and to the left - north west - in the hopes of finding the Hut...where we said we may stop in depending on timing and weather. It seemed a great time to make that our safety stop, i just hoped he was thinking the same thing. However, I had already made my usual mistake - I didn't
backtrack. I expected that he found the trail and decided to head to the hut after not finding me. I thought that i was BEHIND him. I realized through this experience that I commonly make the mistake of forging ahead into unknown terrain because I can't see why I should backtrack to find where I went wrong. (No, this isn't a significant existential realization, just the facts.) And in doing so, I get (got) more lost instead of finding the trail turnoff and my skiing partner. Maybe it's GPS-inspired confidence or just stupidity, I don't know. But I truly believe, I just know, that I can find my way out eventually. So that's what I did.

My GPS is loaded with all the waypoints I've compiled over the years and the Hut was on there. I set it to navigate to the hut and benched over in that direction. It took another 30 minutes first through the scoured krumholtz and then through the powder in dense trees, breaking trail in a much more significant amount of snow than I had expected, but I finally arrived at the hut. There was a group of snowshoers there already but before going in I tried calling from my cell phone to see if I got coverage. I had one bar, but there was no answer, it didn't even ring.

I knocked on the door of the hut and some warm and friendly faces welcomed me into the hut to sit by the fire. There were two couples that had snowshoe'd up for the night, and a cute golden retriever passed out next to the fire, tired from the big hike up. I first asked if my friend had been by the hut looking for me. They said no. I then relayed the story to them and my uncertainty of what to do. Two of them offered to go out with me and try and find him. I declined, saying that would only possibly get us lost and make the situation even worse. I knew i had to go back out with the GPS and find the trail and backtrack, hoping to run into him on the way to the hut. The turnoff to the hut is not obvious, especially in these conditions. I'd at least be able to go to the turnoff and wait. I fueled up and looked at the GPS of where I was headed. Just then, my cell phone let out the "Voicemail received" tone! What?! I checked and it was a voicemail from the Redneck! I was able to listen to it - it was sent 40 minutes previous at 5:36, about 15 minutes after us getting separated. The voicemail said something like, "Meriwether, where are you? I found the trail, it's back towards the pass aways!" I called back instantly, it rang, and rang...and he picked up! He was still back at the trail intersection trying to find me. He had gone back and forth from the meadow to the intersection looking for me and wasn't sure what to do either. I relayed that i was at the hut. "YOU'RE AT THE HUT?!" in almost an accusatory manner. "Yep, head down the trail and i'll meet you at the turnoff!" I had no idea how long it'd take for him to get to the turnoff, maybe a half hour? So I casually got ready to go and suited up. 15 minutes passed and there was a knock at the door. The whole hut erupted in joyus greetings. It was funny because at first I thought they were welcoming another one of their own party as they were so glad to see this hooded character! Then I slowly said his name....? Yep, it was him. I was kinda in disbelief at it all. We had reconnected and were safe in a warm hut. Life was again good.

After much talk about what happened, we realized that the trying conditions created very poor communication pathways and we'll have to work on that in the future. He didn't know that I was stopping to put new batteries in my GPS and that I didn't hear him say, "Let's head back and find the trail intersection" after us both realizing that we were off trail. It happens, but I never want it to happen again, especially in the dark. I was inches away from calling for help on the Spot tracker, and i would have had I gone back to the trail looking for him and not finding him
within a half hour. The cell phone signal saved us. Technology in the backcountry has its place, no doubt in my mind.

I then tried to call my wife to let her know we were safe at the hut but the phone suddenly said "No Service." Then I tried to send a text message with the same result. No dice. The phone signal only worked for me receiving his voicemail, and me calling him back, then it died. That was a bit odd. The Redneck and I warmed up by the fire, discussed exit strategies, took a couple of swigs out of the flask of whisky, and the suited up to go. We decided to head down the singletrack ski trail - the safer and easier to navigate option of the two. It's a bit longer because you can't ski down the ski hill, but there was no chance of getting lost again and it'd be out of the wind which we were very sick of by now. We said our thanks and goodbye's to the friendly hut-dwellers and walked out of the hut to return home. Once on the trail, I was able to try and try again to send a text message to my wife to let her know we're on our way to the parking lot and were about 45
minutes out from pickup. It FINALLY went through and all was finally coming together again. The trail down is a toboggan run in the day and at night with Petzl's it was even sketchier! But fun with the new 4" of snow to make psuedo-tele turns in the fray. A 20 minute downhill, then the 20 minute uphill out of the drainage took us to the top of the nordic center where we had our first real turns of the day down the baby-slopes of Eldora. Those turns topped a truly epic day - one like I've never had before. Scraping down frozen corduroy with skinny skis, headlamps and huge packs to the warmth of a big van with my girl waiting with pizza, beer and puppies...well that's as a good an ending if i've ever heard.

All said and done, it was 9 hours, on the nose. Approximately 1 hour at the hut, so 8 hours of moving on the "Hill Route" over the divide. Of course we didn't do the actual Hill Route on the east side to East Portal, and instead chose a more interesting, "shorter" option...that could have ended much worse. But it all ended perfectly and I'm almost glad we got separated as I learned a ton about night-time travel and team dynamics under stressful weather conditions. Lessons that will undoubtedly help us in the Grand Traverse.

But that's for the next post - lessons learned and the behind the scenes action that took place without our knowledge. Let's just say that I'm just really glad to know I have good friends willing to boot up and come look for me in the middle of the night.

The Neva fire from my office window. The fire started from a downed
power line from the insane winds. Burned somewhere around 3600 acres
of Open Space land along with some private property and a couple of
houses. It could of been a lot worse...it skirted hundreds of other
homes in north Boulder.

Go West young tourer

This picture exudes solitude. Mouse tracks on open snow going off into the distance. This mouse wouldn't hop along on top of the snow like this in a madhouse of people...would he or she? I really like this picture. I always take pictures of my own or friend's ski tracks, or singletrack trails in the non-winter months, so when I find a lil mouse getting fresh tracks I gotta take a photo!

The Birthday Pilot and I headed up to Berthoud Pass Sunday. Recommended by the male side of the Dynamic Duo (I must come up with a better nickname for him...any suggestions Pilots?) who claimed "Knee deep powder" on a certain tree run. I suggested rather drastic measures for this young pilot when we realized it was not to be (see above photo). To his credit though, we skied the wrong aspect on this hill. Details...

Anyways, the car thermometer said -8...but it felt much warmer the higher we got because there wasn't a breath of wind. Yep, i just said that. NO wind. NONE! I was in shock! After being blown all over the place the last two days in the BC, this was such an amazing feeling to be above treeline with no wind. And yes, i said Berthoud. We strayed from our normal EastDivide digs and went west. I used to come here often in college, 15 years ago (crap, that's a long time ago!) and do the hitchhike thing with my snowboard, but haven't skied here more than once or twice in the ensuing years. I know, I know...I usually don't name places by their real name to "save" them from being overrun, but it's a bit late for that. This place is a madhouse of Backcountry skiers and boarders - from the hitchhikers thumbing rides up the pass to the hoards of skiers hiking in for their turns. It's the West Mongolia of the BC - great terrain and conditions for the most part, but just too many people for this Kazinsky (yes, that's one of my older less flattering nicknames). However, I wasn't alone in thinking that - the Pilot himself was a bit overwhelmed at the number of people we ran into and of the absolute dumbassity of many of them. We witnessed several people skiing down avy-prone slopes alone that no one should have been on that day with Considerable danger - and with no pack (and therefore no safety equipment like a beacon-shovel-probe). It always makes me wonder why more idiots don't get caught in avalanches each year. This place would be a prime study for that - "Idiots that do stupid things and get away with it." (Until they don't get away with it...)

The Pilot skinning above treeline on the opposite side of the drainage as the first photos.

After the first run down a southeast slope with 4" of dust on crust, we headed around the bowl to find the softer snow. Most everything was windslab with 3-4" of new snow on top (not the 7.5" that Winter Park had claimed...) but we found some soft snow and great turns after much touring. But it was one of those days where if you didn't hurry, someone was going to snake your line. Things got tracked up incredibly fast and people were on steep avy prone slopes above you making you want to get out of the way fast in case the slope went. I got the feeling that there were many "kids" out there - inexperienced riders that had no idea what they're doing in terms of avalanche awareness. A bit unsettling.

The cruiser last run of the day. This is the one area we found only two people - one of which who we knew randomly! BadCopp himself digging pits and studying up on the snow! Not the steepest pitch, but super nice fun snow on the northerly aspect that led into a steeper treed gully with plenty of the soft stuff. All in all, a beautiful day out there. Not sure we'll come back often, but maybe on a weekday after a storm to grab the goods while no one is looking.

The fun of the tour

A tour with two Pilots. This is a great picture because it shows nearly two generations of Pilots skinning up the trail, arriving first at the trail head this fine day. I put a short slideshow movie together with all the Mr. Pilot pictures I could find for his birthday gathering last night. The old IGSSC's were just classics - the Salad Days of singlespeeds in these parts. They weren't that long ago - 10 years - but long enough that they seem like a different time period - a different era. But seeing us still as friends and now exploring on skis together just warms the heart. Awww. Ok, enough of that sappy banter....on to skiing!

This area always trips me out: look at the trees - we don't have many places in the Front Range that have this much 'grandfather' lichen (that's my name, not theirs) and this much moisture. This place is truly a gem for many reasons.

So there we are, a plan to "just tour around" and see if we can find anything fun to ski down. I was in the upper more western cirque the day before, and now we were going to go knock out the next one with an idea I had while skiing down the previous day's route. I saw a skin track going up as I was going down. It veered right where I veered left. Now, it's not always a good idea to follow someone else's skin track (they could be a perpetually lost individual like me after all!) but I just had a feeling about this track - they just seemed to know where they were going.

After about a half hour we questioned that thought. On a more stable day, there were some pretty significant turns to be had above our skin track on the SE slope of 11837 - quite dramatic ones at that! But not today. So we benched around to the cirque sans turns and had our first obligatory hike of the day (above pic - Pilot below with skis on shoulder). Our contoured path basically cliffed out and we thought we'd have to turn around and ski down and around the cliffband, but the Pilot claimed that it was an easy downclimb so we shouldered the skis down a 20 foot rock wall and hiked out across some scree to a spot for lunch in the sun. None of us had ever been in this lake valley, cirque, or whatever it's called, and the blue skies against the white snow-covered cliffs..well, truly inspiring. This will deserve a trip back in the spring when those chutes can be skied safely.

Pilot resisting the magnetic attraction of what lies above.
Yes, it was that windy...it's the east side of the Divide!

This is a place where the parking lot is full on most days, but you never (OK, hardly ever) see a soul on the tour. A pretty stark contrast to our tour at Berthoud today (post to come tomorrow). The conditions were tough to ski up or down. Punchy in the trees and the South and East slopes had a baked suncrust with a melt-freeze layer on top so hard to get skins to stick. The north aspects were better, but were not much better than the other aspects except in the trees. So that's where we headed...into the woods for the return home. The downhill from the lake was a bit like Donkey Kong - a stair-steppy obstacle course. Steep dense trees with lots of rock outcrops and snow-covered logs, opening up every so often to open shelfy glades (like you see below) where you could get several awesome turns in before getting funneled into another set of dense trees that flattened out before it dropped off again.

One of the several short shots of turns we got this day.

Papa Pilot making it look easy

Check out the clouds above the Pilots in this picture

After all was said and done, we skied a bit over 5 miles from the trail head, around the cirque, and back. All below treeline today, so to not get blown to Kansas. We never seem to go farther than 6 miles on my tours, not sure why, but 1 mph is pretty standard. This will HAVE to change if I plan on finishing the Elk Mountains Grand Traverse in March with the Redneck!! Baby steps...baby steps. For now, I will just enjoy the fun of the tour.

Happy New Year!!The Monkey

The 31st I took the Monkey out on a solo hike in an area I've wanted to take her for a long time now. She's 12, and amazingly fit and strong for that age, but won't be able to do hikes like this for that much longer (but that's what I said last year). So, a resolution for the new year is to do more of this - take the Monkey exploring because she thrives off of hikes like this. Just look at that smile!

New Years Day I sent myself out on a ski tour to the Tunnel and up to the right of the pass. The wind was whipping, but in the trees it was pleasant. "Any day above treeline is a good day" as CosmicPete claims, and I would agree. I'd add: any turns are good turns. My mom always said, "expect nothing and you'll always be surprised." Not a great outlook on life, but it kinda works!

Onto the ski. Headed up the trail on the Stelvios inspired by those crazy Swiss dudes and mountains I'd love to ski one day. I'm still having blister issues with these new boots, but nothing some duct tape can't handle. Inspired, I made the 2K climb to the lake in less than an hour twenty, then turned right to get the hell off the hollow snow wind tunnel near the alpine lake you see in the above shot. Survival turns on the way down and around, certainly a learning experience for me trying to learn the alpine turn again. This day was part of my new found exploration bug - to find more places to grab turns and a great tour. The tour part is the "easy" part - you can always go anywhere on skis, but finding those rare places to get turns is always a struggle. They have to be covered in soft snow - good aspect and sheltered from the wind, safe slope angle, no hangfire (big avy-prone slopes above), and no terrain traps below. Up at the train tunnel it's like finding a needle in a haystack sometimes. I've spent hours upon hours only to find a few good short runs. Here, it's rare to find a 600ft vertical run that is safe to ski in the winter.

But today was a good day, like any day in the mountains is...but today i found the above run, and three or four more lil chutes and alleys to come back to when the snow is softer. Only 400ft vertical at the most, but there are multiple of them located right in one small area that is protected from the wind (relatively, of course). Mission successful, and tomorrow possibly the next cirque with some co-pilots. I would not be bored as unemployed.

Happy sleepy Monkey back at the Ranch.