Category: Thrillhead archive- March 2008

Sean Crossen’s 14er skiing video

Posted by Frank – July 21, 2008

Crossen 14er video

Sean put this video together a while back documenting his efforts to ski all the fourteeners. While he ultimately came up a little bit shy, he put in a great effort and skied an awful lot of peaks in winter-like conditions, quite unlike my effort which tended to mostly occur in the spring. Lots of guest appearances from “The Crew”, too- guys like Pete and Jasper and Webster and even the O.G. Lou Dawson on El Diente. It’s well worth checking out, although perhaps with the music muted ;)

Some highlights: Pete and his huge pack unable to mount his bike to get up the Maroon Creek road around 10:30. Faceplant!!! Wendy Fischer shredding Wetterhorn in early season conditions around 17:25

The 14er quest: How much easier is it today?

Posted by Frank – March 30, 2008

I’ve been thinking a lot about the history of ski mountaineering, the different aspects between [i]skiing[/i] and [i]mountaineering[/i], and the accomplishments of those who came before me. One of the results was that I re-read parts of Lou Dawson’s book, “WildSnow”. The part that really struck a chord with me for whatever reason was that Lou took at least two tries for each and every fourteener in the Sangres. I couldn’t help but compare his record to my own, and then realize that while my rate of success has been much higher (out of 46 peaks skied to date, I have only been turned around on 5), it is not due to a greater level of skill, but rather a host of reasons which make the 14er game that much easier to play than today.

One obvious answer is the gear of the late 80′s that Lou was using compared to the gear of today. Everything today performs so much better, and AT gear was barely functional in the late 80′s.

I believe that it’s the information available to me, however, that has thus far made my 14er quest so often successful.

Lou had but one 14er guidebook to work with: The Borneman/Lampert book, which is a terrific book which is high on background information but is light on the number of photos and routes presented. Weather forecasts on Denver TV stations for the mountains: practically worthless. For some of the peaks, he may have been able to call a mountaineering store or friend to try to get info on the snowpack, but that’s about it.

Let’s look at the tools I have to work with today: 2 excellent guidebooks between Gerry Roach’s and Dawson’s. Online guides like 14ers.com I can look at lots of photos on sites like Chris Davenport’s, or Chris Webster’s. I can ask (or just view TR’s) if people have any first-hand recent knowledge of conditions on online sites like TGR, Summitpost, TTips, Davenport’s new skithe14ers.com site, and more. I can check the snowpack levels using the snotel automated snowpack level website. I can check snow and weather conditions on the CAIC’s website. And I can get fairly accurate weather on line as well. Long’s peak is the one peak that I’m not sure currently has enough snow to ski- and I know this because there is a webcam pointed right at the thing.

Was either of us having more fun than the other? I’m not sure. I do like to pick my spots, and avoid bad weather. I’m sure that driving to peaks just to find out that they don’t have enough snow time after time must have been frustrating for Dawson. In the end, I’m not sure if either is better, there are pluses and minuses to each way of getting things done.

This is a topic that I would love to hear other opinions on, so please weigh in and comment.

Teocalli Twofer

Posted by Frank – March 28, 2008

Teocalli mountain (13,209′) was named by the Hayden survey for its’ resemblance to aztec pyramids. Anyone driving from Gunnison to Crested Butte will surely notice this distinctive peak lying to the N about 2/3rds of the way up highway 135. Roughly 25% of the dogs in Gunnison county are named “Teo”. The south face is a local’s classic- both times I’ve skied it before, it had some of the best hero corn I’ve ever skied. But Teocalli is a skier’s mountain, and it is riddled with top-notch skiing possibilities on all aspects in addition to the S face.

People usually ascend the climber’s right ridge. While ascending this ridge, climbers will pass a couple of steep, spectacular chutes that drop to the NE. The only problem is that descending these chutes will drop you into Middle Brush creek, which is difficult to access on a snowmobile due to a really nasty sidehill. So, Pete and I decided to try skiing down and then reascend Teocalli, where we hoped to ski the W couloir and reach our snowmobiles.

Pete on the skin:

and booting:

I’ve always liked the view of Crested Butte from here, with the North Face terrain front and center. Uncompahgre is visible in the far distance.

[URL=http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92006]Star Pass[/URL] is in this photo. Last night, starting at midnight, competitors in the 10th annual [url=http://www.elkmountaintraverse.org/index.html]Elk Mountain Grand Traverse[/url] had to make their way over the pass on their way to Aspen (~40mi)

We had a great view of the S face of Castle. Pete made the first descent of this face a few years ago, trending skier’s right, then skier’s left on the super-exposed ramp and into the central couloir. The two couloirs on the looker’s right can be linked up with the East face. Jasper and Geo may have been the first to do this route a couple of years ago.

A little short of the summit, we arrived at our couloir:

The entrance was not as simple as most, and we took some time checking it out. We started on the right and then weaved our way through the rock bands until we could enter the couloir proper.

Pete drops in:

Wait, where am I going again?

Woohoo, Pete’s in!

Then I made my way through.

The couloir wasn’t as powdery as we had been hoping for, but it was still plenty carveable. Pete:

Me:

Pete enjoying the best snow of the day down in the apron. Our chute is the improbable looking one in the center, while another one is off looker’s left and there is a nice, straightforward one off the summit.

The route:

Our original plan was to ski down valley a little ways and then come up Teo ridge and rejoin our route from the morning. But the col between Teocalli and UN 12,934′ seemed like a better and more interesting option, so we headed the way.

This way was indeed fun, as it brought us deeper into the wilderness and farther from our sleds. We passed right under the N face of Teocalli, which has even more high-quality lines.

Once on the N ridge, we admired the surrounding mountains and their possible lines. Unfortunately, our bluebird day was turning gray, so the photo quality goes down from here on out.

A unique view of Snowmass, Capital, and Maroon:

Our route up the N ridge of Teocalli looked daunting from the col.

Pete cruised right up the snowy chossy exposed mess, while I struggled and cursed my way up. Pete:

Anyway, we made it up and by then, the skies had really gotten cloudy. This prevented our hoped for run #2 from ever softening up, so I guess the W couloir will have to wait for another day. Not a great picture of it, but it’s here:

We skied down the S face, which had softened up a little bit in the morning when there was sun, but it was far from being hero corn. We took a couple of shots despite the poor lighting conditions. Pete:

Sometimes mountains make me feel small:

Yesterday was one of the better days I’ve had in a while, despite the turn for the worse in terms of weather. I should be out skiing right now, since we’re getting some snow, but yesterday kicked my butt, especially since I got to carry the rope which we never used (but was glad to have)

Cascade

Posted by Frank – March 25, 2008

Due to a lack of time, Luke and I skied this shot on Cascade mountain. The hike was brutal:

The skiing was not (Luke):

The line:

The last part of the 2,500′+ lap was still good (Luke):

Right about now, Luke was probably wishing that I had a sled as nice as his. Mine came up about 100′ short, so Luke had a HUGE climb to retrieve his snowmobile ;)

Springtime rules.

Mt. Massive

Posted by Frank – March 23, 2008

Mt Massive 14,421′
3-24-08
Jon, Jordan, Joe, Frank

As much fun as the local skiing has been, I was itching to do another 14er. The plan was to meet at the trailhead at 6am, so I left at 3:30am. Unfortunately, I forgot just how much slower it is to tow a snowmobile, plus all the road signs to the trailhead were buried, so I was late (sorry guys), and we didn’t start until after 7am. At least by then the sun had come out:

We used snowmobiles to cover the 8 miles to the summer trailhead. My sled overheated (not surprising, given the flat slow road that was well frozen, plus towing someone) and blew antifreeze all over the place a hundred yards before the end, but thankfully seems to be OK. This part of the sawatch atypically looked like it might be worth a return visit:

One of the cool things for me skiing all these 14ers is that I have already climbed them all, so each trip stirs up some fond memories. For Massive, that meant memories of not putting on any sunscreen when my buddy and I climbed it a couple of days after our last day of high school. Needless to say,we both got burned to the point of blistering. Oops.

Jon wasn’t feeling the flow or doing the bull dance, so he decided to stop workin’ it, workin’ it, and headed home around treeline. We wished him well and continued upwards. Joe with (L-R) Castle, Pyramid, and the Bells behind:

Meanwhile, the winds which were forecasted to be light continued to be a little bit more than light:

Eventually we started bootpacking towards what we hoped was the summit:

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the summit. Here I am, posing it up and looking at the long summit ridge.

We made it eventually and checked out the views. Holy Cross:

Sopris, pretty noticeable for not even being 13,000′:

L-R Bells, Snowmass, Capital.

Elbert, La Plata, the rest of the Sawatch range:

Joe and I at the summit.

Jordan was coughing up a couple of lungs every other step, so we waited for as long as we could and then started down to get out of the relentless wind. Jordan persevered and made it a little while later.

We traversed the ridge until we were able to start heading down the SW slopes. The snow was wind affected, but somewhat powdery.
Joe:

jcwhiteroom:

A couple of me:

Generally speaking, our route went up the trees on the left, then up the bowl:

The sun sets on another day and another 14er:

46 down, 8 to go!!!

The Goods.

Posted by Frank – March 22, 2008

Rob and Sydney came down from Golden, so I decided to show them an area my buddy Luke and I have doing our best to track out over the last few days. I think they were OK with it :D

The day started off badly for me. I started gunning my snowmobile across some flats below a good sized hill, but forgot that this year’s huge snowfall hasn’t covered ALL the creeks. I saw it at the last minute, braked as hard as I could, then jumped ship as my sled went airborne into the opposite side of the creekbed. I should have jumped a second earlier:

At least I didn’t break my leg, I know people who have gotten really hurt doing the same thing. Here’s the zone we headed to:

We tandem-highmarked as far as we could under the “poop chute” on the left, then the passenger would dive off, and the driver would steer the sled back down, hit the kill switch, and let the sled ghostride back down. Unless you’re Rob, in which case you forget to kill the engine and you have to ski back down and do it again.

Rob’s sled was hungry for some tree, so it grabbed a bite on its’ way down:

We booted up the rest of the way:

Luke loves skiing the Triangle, since the view from his house looks right at it (cliffed-out face on the left):

He even called up his girlfriend and had her shoot some video from their bedroom window. Too funny. Here’s Luke a little closer-up:

Wait, where did he go?

Oh, there he is:

Sydney, enjoying some exposure…

…and the apron:

Rob, laying down an arc up top…

… and making some slough to play in (he’s between the trees):

OK, enough of that, let’s go back up the bootpack and hit the other side. This line is right next to the bootpack, so I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to ski it:

One thing Colorado lacks is spines. So I slashed into this one as hard as I could :)

Fun exit of the spine and into the chute:

My run looked so fun, Rob decided to follow:

Meanwhile, Luke went higher and dropped into his line (look for the snow spray up top):

Blazing out the bottom:

We went back up for another lap. I decided to check something else out, thought better of it, and by the time I made it back to the line that Luke hit on lap #2, everyone had dropped it already, so no more pics, other than the carnage afterwards:

On our way out, we couldn’t help but admire these tracks on the Wang Chung face:

The skiing has been so good, I decided to ski some crappy wind-affected snow on a fourteener in the Sawatch, because I’m demented like that, more on that later…

Steep turns

Posted by Frank – March 21, 2008

Yesterday, I skied the farthest east on Axtel that I have ever skied. Today, Luke and I skied the skier’s left handrail of 1st bowl, making it the farthest west I have yet skied on Axtel (and I ski Axtel a lot, it’s an awesome ski mountain). The line:

The ridge had a lot of really fun and playful features, nothing really scary, but more than just a blank powder slope to be sure. With my broken orbital bone, I have been doing my best to wear a full-face, although they totally annoy me:

Near the end of the ridge came the really fun part: a bunch of really steep flutes that exit the ridge and lead down into 1st bowl proper. The photos don’t do it justice, but it was easily 50 degrees- I was catching air every time I turned, and they weren’t jump turns :)

Yet another really fun day, as much as I love 2nd bowl, it’s always a good thing to check out other lines on a mountain as good as Axtel.

More Sled Laps

Posted by Frank – March 20, 2008

Luke and I headed out to his favorite sled accessed area today before yet another storm hit the area. Unfortunately, Luke ended up needing to leave after a lap after a work-related crisis, but we still got in some nice turns.

G.L. chutes. We booted right up the couloir on the looker’s left, reaching the high point of the knob and dropping off on the oposite side. This side is great, too, but the gray skies made us choose the trees on the opposite side.

4th bowl and the tongue:

Ghostrider:

A fin in the bootpack:

Luke drops in:

Our tracks:

If we had done another run, I was feeling pretty good about things and was contemplating one of these lines with mandatory air. Next time…

Thoughts on Berthoud Pass

Posted by Frank – March 19, 2008

I spent the last couple of days hanging out on the front range and skied Berthoud pass a couple of those days.

Berthoud is where I first learned to backcountry ski, like a lot of other people. Back in the mid 90′s, however, there weren’t quite as many people out there doing that kind of thing. I remember my friend Greg and I skiing pretty straightforward runs many days after a storm.

On Sunday, just 2 days after a pretty good sized storm (15″ reported at Winter Park), there were tracks EVERYWHERE. Not only that, but the CAIC had an avalanche danger rating of considerable, meaning that it is PROBABLE for slides to be triggered. And yet people were bootpacking up steep, windloaded slopes and skiing high consequence lines as if there was no danger at all. While there were no major slides that I am aware of, it still made me thankful to live in Crested Butte.

We don’t have the same competition for tracks that Berthoud skiers do. At Berthoud, you better do it now, or someone will beat you to it. In Crested Butte, we can follow one of the most important tenets of safe backcountry skiing and let storm snow settle out before venturing out. Even at the most popular locations like the Anthracites, fresh tracks can still be found. Berthoud is hardly unique- other places where a dangerous race for first tracks include much of the wasatch outside Salt Lake City, or backcountry access gates at resorts like Jackson Hole.

Anyway, for those of you dealing with the race for first tracks, hopefully safety continues to come first, rather than the race to get it first.

These guys didn’t start the obvious fracture line, but they didn’t seem overly concerned by it, either:

Crested Butte Sled Laps

Posted by Frank – March 11, 2008

Headed up to a nice sled zone today before the weather moved back in for the week. Didn’t even bring skins or anything- everything was accessed from the sleds or a short bootpack. There is a heavy price to pay if you don’t stick it on the sidehill that leads to the zone (somebody last week):

Destination for lap #1:

The 20 minute bootpack:

Yielded this:

Luke:

Danny and Ben caught up with us on lap #2 in another area. Danny:

Ben:

3rd lap. Luke thinking, “Yeah, this will work”

Ben, dropping another line:

It’s good!

Danny was nice enough to take a few shots of me on the last lap:

The last lap was actually 3 pitches totaling 2500′, but the last 2 pitches were so shaded, and the clouds were already moving in, that I stopped taking photos. Lots of possibilities for the next time we head that way- Here’s a big face I wished I had a wider angle lens to capture in one photo:

Someone over on tgr was nice enough to stitch those photos together real quick-like:

More future projects:

Hopefully the weather for the next week either dumps or goes blue. Because I’m way way too spoiled to deal with gray days with just a little snow right now ;) :D