April 26, 2011
There was powder on the slopes
Tell me where were you?
You were sittin’ home cryin’ on the internetz
While we were participating in some face-shots
First spot we hit was the big chute
I finally got all the powder that I could take
Ahh, April. In my mind, it’s the best month of the year, by far. And while I’ve skied plenty of powder in April, I usually think of the bigger alpine lines when I think of April. That generally hasn’t been the case this April. The only trip to 14,000′ this year?- Powder on Mount Democrat. The Irwin cat skiing operation, located just West of Crested Butte, stopped recording their year-to-date snowfall last week at roughly 730″. I’m sure that number is now well over 750″, and it’s snowing heavily outside right now in the midst of a winter storm warning. This is great and all, but I have to admit that I’m ready for some time in the Alpine. It looks like I may get my wish in just a few days. In the meantime, I have to admit that some of the runs I’ve taken in the last week rank at or near the top for the entire season.
Josh Macak on The Quill:
Tom Runcie drops into Axtell’s 2nd bowl:
Sydney Fuller:
Jack Weiss:
Will Dujardin:
A quick video from the Quill and the Playground. I wish the GoPro batteries hadn’t died on my run in the playground, as it may very well have been my favorite run of the year. Vimeo did weird things to this video, but since youtube kills the audio, I’m going back to the vimeo version.
Untitled from 14erskiers on Vimeo.
Italian Mountain is a large massif at the head of both Cement Creek and the Taylor River. Last year, while skiing Taylor Peak, I spotted a number of lines off of Cement’s unnamed sub-peaks. My friends Ben and Luke recently skied one of these lines, so armed with that beta Pete, Josh, Brett and I went up to check it out. The line:
This area of the Elks borders the Sawatch range, and is correspondingly dryer and windier than what we’re used to in the snow-favored areas closer to Crested Butte. Shallower snowpacks tend to slide more, and we observed a number of large slides on generally East-facing terrain on peaks like Hunter Hill, Doubletop, and Italian. The slides didn’t look too recent and we were skiing different aspects, but it was still something to take note of. As always, future lines popped up everywhere. Pete and I have been eying this one for years:
The North face of Teocalli has been on my list for quite some time, ever since Pete Sowar and I traversed under it when we skied the NE and W faces in 2008. Last Friday, things finally worked out to give it a go, along with Brittany, Pete, and Josh Macak. The USGS library has this great photo of Teocalli Mountain from 1973, taken by noone other than the famous William H Jackson. The notes on this photo are interesting: Teocalli Peak, from the Aztec teocalli, or sacrificial mound, that were always built in a pyramidal form, and which this mountain closely resembles. Is situated upon a small tributary of Red Rock Creek, flowing into East River. Its height is 13,274 feet. Gunnison County, Colorado. 1873.
Red Rock Creek is now known as Brush Creek, although I think I like Red Rock Creek better. Today, the official height is a little lower as well, at 13,209′. In any case, we quickly made our way up the south slopes and took a quick break at the start of the rock outcrops.
Nearing the summit:
One option we had in mind is the beautiful splitter couloir that drops off just before the summit:
North of Crested Butte lies the Whiterock massif, a collection of peaks in the mid-13,000′ range. Pete, Jasper, Josh, Howard and I hoped to link several faces together in a big day- the first climb alone, of 13,401′ White Benchmark, is over 4,000′ from the Snodgrass trailhead. We had traveled much of this ground before, linking up White and Whiterock back in 2009. In addition to these two peaks, we were also hoping to ski the Spider Face, a line which has been eluding me for years. Looks like it will have to wait a little longer…
We started off in the dark, skiing down to the East River via headlamp. As much as I hate the alarm clock going off well before dawn, once I’m up it’s hard not to admire the beauty of the early morning hours.
Whetstone:
Ahh, March and April, my favorite time of year. Generally stable enough to ski most of the steeper alpine lines, yet the snow is still powder on the north faces. It just doesn’t get any better in Colorado.
March 18, Anthracites.
Dave Bourassa, visiting from the front range and enjoying his teal birthday suit:
Mel Walker:
Sometimes people ask “How did you learn how to do this stuff?” In my case, I learned to ski at a young age, and started picking up some climbing skills in high school. I wouldn’t say that I ever got very good at climbing, but at least I learned the basics. Skiing at the resorts eventually led to a desire to ski in the backcountry, so I started to learn how to skin, and navigate the mountains, and of course I took an avalanche course. That worked for me, although I certainly haven’t stopped learning.
If I wanted to get into ski mountaineering today, starting from scratch, I think I would want to get a solid foundation via a course. Our friends at Crested Butte Mountain Guides are offering two such courses, on April 7-10 as well as April 22-25. There are still a few spaces available.
The camps are designed to cover basic ski mountaineering skills: crampon, ice axe, basic rope work, navigation, and pertinent avy conditions. Last year’s camps they skied:
1) Redwell – via a technical rappel entrance off Scarp cliffs. (to teach rope/anchor skills)
2) Gothic Spoon
3) Carbon Spoon
4) Wolverine/Coon/Climax Chutes link up
Other options include White and Whiterock:
…Or Axtell. Or some of the peaks in the Ruby Range. Generally, this includes many of the peaks shown here on 14erskiers. Speaking of 14ers, CBMG also has permits to guide the following 14ers: Crestone Area 14ers; Sawatch/Collegiate Range, Gray’s & Torrey’s; Evans; Pike’s Peak.
Cost for the Crested Butte Ski Mountaineering Camps is $525/person for 4 days including all technical gear (crampons, harness, axe, rope), and good lodging deals at Elk Mtn & Purple Mtn Lodges ($70/night or so). I think that’s a pretty good deal, all things considered, and the guides at CBMG are top notch. Check it out, and if you do call CBMG, please let them know you heard about their camps for 14erskiers.com.
Looking forward to spring ski mountaineering season myself…
March 7th was looking like the final bluebird day before at least a week of storms were forecast to pound the Coast mountains of British Columbia. So, it was with both a tinge of sadness and anticipation that I decided I would starting heading back to Colorado as soon as the clouds came back. Though neither Jon nor Susan could ski with me, they set me up with their friends Lisa, Chris, and Lon so we had a good group and we made our way back to Dope Creek, since there was already a track and plenty of room for more turns on the face.
The only change that had occurred in the previous two days was a bunch of ski tracks on the 20 degree “drag race hill”- apparently left by heli skiers. I can’t imagine getting dropped off a heli to ski flat terrain with snowmobile tracks on it while being surrounded by steep spines and faces everywhere. Maybe some day I’ll have top secret information and I’ll be tortured in this manner- I’ll give up my secrets pretty quickly to get on the good stuff.
The only regret of my trip? That the stars never quite aligned in a way for me to get on the big lines like this one:
Next time. I wasn’t exactly crying about the lines we were about to ski. I don’t think my photos (and certainly not my POV) do it much justice, but it qualifies as “steep n deep”. Lisa:
Lon:
Chris, straight killing it off the top:
We got 3 runs on this spine wall before we decided to switch it up and ski a nearby steep face. I only got a couple of runs in on the helmet cam, but that’s probably enough anyway. I used “Back in Black” by AC/DC because to this day every time I hear that song, I think of Jack Hannan and a competition run he had at Kirkwood 10 years ago. He was way back in about 20th place and had the best comp run I’ve ever seen to move all the way into 2nd place. This video also features “Jackass Pass”, a crazy snowmobile line between a wind drift and the mountain which somehow goes cleanly:
Dope Creek Spines 3-7-11 from 14erskiers on Vimeo.
The last line we skied in this zone was one I had looked at a lot on a poster made for Jack after the avalanche last year. We got to the top and clicked in, and at that moment a bald eagle flew by, maybe twenty feet away. Lisa was the first to yell out “Yeah Jack!” as we watched him fly across the valley. I came to Pemberton to ski, but I also came to feel some connection to Jack, and this moment was one of many that qualified. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since he passed away. I know the eagle is hard to see, but he’s on the left in front of the cliffs.
I guess that’s about it. The skiing in Crested Butte has been pretty amazing for the past 3 weeks, so I haven’t felt like I was missing out on too much since getting back. Tomorrow, March 31st, will be the one-year anniversary of Jack’s accident on Mount Currie, so I hope everyone shreds a line or tips a glass in his honor. “Jack’s got My Back”
Other PNW/ Pemberton Reports:
Steven’s Pass
No Sleep Spines
O Face
Trandem Trees
Down Days and Thoughts on Snowmobile Skiing
Dope Creek Part 1
Pemberton Icecap
Dope Creek Part 2
After about a week of down days characterized by wind, poor visibility, and cold temps, winter returned to the Coast Mountains and a small window of good light that Jon thought we could jump through. I knew before I left Colorado that I would probably have some days that challenged my snowmobiling skills. This ended up being the day. It wasn’t all that difficult, really, but the combination of my lack of confidence on the sled and not knowing where I was going really got my heart rate going. On one particularly intimidating looking climb, one that even had a sidehill after it, Jon said something like “That was SO worth making you do, just to watch you soil your shorts.” Thanks man. No seriously, thanks Jon- there’s nothing like the feeling of pulling something off that you didn’t think you could do.
“Follow me.”
“Uh, OK.”
Then we got a view of the spiny goodness that was available to us, still partially hidden in clouds, but definitely there.
The clouds kept teasing us with windows of good visibility, followed shortly thereafter by socking in. We decided a quick tree run was in order to see which way the weather was turning. This was yet another treerun that rivaled anything I usually ski in the trees of Colorado, but seemed pretty commonplace up here. This is a really short video of that run- when I came up on the gully, I knew I should just ski it as fast as I could- so much fun!
Dope Creek Trees from 14erskiers on Vimeo.
Jon had a gully of his own:
The clouds were still hanging there, but we decided to give it a shot anyway. One thing I can say for sure is that steep spines get steeper when they’re in the middle of a cloud. My video from this run is kind of humorous, since you can’t even tell what’s going on, but I won’t bore you with that. The photos came out pretty decent with the help of Photoshop. Jon (notice how his hand is on the snow, yes it really is steep):
Jon, run #2. That’s what I like to see:
That’s about all I’ve got from this day, but stay tuned for Part 2. Meanwhile, on another note, the snowmobilers that followed our tracks had been keeping us entertained all day. Snowmobilers have a bad rap in avie circles, a reputation which is largely undeserved around Crested Butte, where they generally seem pretty prepared and knowledgeable. But this day in Dope Creek?
These guys were great. “Backpacks?”
“Nah, who needs em.”
“A good spot to eat lunch?”
“Right under that steep face those skiers are eying- let’s just chill there for a half hour.”
“Hey, let’s highmark at the same time!”
“Good idea!”
“Let’s skip this nice North facing stuff and see if the snow bonded to South facing suncrusts!”
“Yay!”
Anyway, we made our way down the Gauntlet, another terrifying but ultimately satisfying snowmobile mission. Amazing light made for a fitting end to a beautiful day:
Other PNW/ Pemberton Reports:
Steven’s Pass
No Sleep Spines
O Face
Trandem Trees
Down Days and Thoughts on Snowmobile Skiing
Dope Creek Part 1
Pemberton Icecap
Dope Creek Part 2
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By the end of February, ski conditions in Pemberton, BC had taken a bit of a turn for the worse and I briefly contemplated pulling the plug and heading back to Colorado. Sustained winds, cold temperatures, and no new snow had conspired to create poor conditions, especially in the alpine which is where I really wanted to be. Still, if there is one thing I know about the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, it’s that they can go from “zero to hero” faster than just about anywhere else I know. So I stuck it out.
Susan and I tried to find some good snow in a heavily trafficked area that we hoped was sheltered enough. The views were nice. It’s hard to see, but there were some really rowdy and exposed spines in the alpine above Susan.
We found a mixed bag of conditions on our ski descent. I’ll include this photo, since it speaks volumes. Susan loves to ski, and with an infant at home, skiing is no longer an everyday event like it once was. So despite the non-perfect terrain or conditions, she was still pretty darn stoked just to be out there, making some turns. I should probably try to remember that the next time I’m out on a mediocre day.
In any case, I found myself at Blackcomb a lot over the next few days, since skiing hardpack is better than not skiing at all. One fine day, the winds hit nearly 150km/hr and shut down most of the mountain. Regardless, one day I met up with my friend Gavin, who had shown me around Whitewater last year. He and his new bride Veronica asked me about the snowmobile skiing I had been doing and whether they should get into it or not. I’ve thought a lot about that lately, so here are my thoughts.
Here in Crested Butte, I consider it a no-brainer. $1,000 gets you something that can get you up a groomed road and a lot more options in areas that get a lot more snow. A little more money will get you an older-style mountain sled that can access most everything else. Most of the trailheads are pretty simple, so just about any trailer and vehicle will take care of things.
Up in Pemberton, things are bigger, harder, and ultimately, better. But the costs are way bigger. First off, the trailheads are tough to get to without a big truck and a sled bed, so that’s the first cost my friend Gavin needs to consider. A cheap sled won’t cut it, so I think at least a few grand per snowmobile is a place to start. We’re already off to a big investment here, but there’s more: the time investment learning how to ride. Sure, the really popular areas like Brandywine or the Pemberton Icecap might get enough tracks to simply follow, but what’s the fun in that? I’ve been riding snowmobiles for a while, but I still felt pretty helpless at times up there without a better rider (usually Jon) with me. So add in a lot of miles dedicated to snowmobiling, not skiing, to the investment. Meanwhile, the Whistler area has a lot of good skiing available from the lifts as well as on the Duffey road. No snowmobile is required for classics like Joffre and Fissile. So in the end, my advice to Gavin is to ski everything he can without a snowmobile first, and then consider getting one down the road. What do you guys think? good advice or bad?
Other PNW/ Pemberton Reports:
Steven’s Pass
No Sleep Spines
O Face
Trandem Trees
Down Days and Thoughts on Snowmobile Skiing
Dope Creek Part 1
Pemberton Icecap
Dope Creek Part 2
