GET YOUR SIGNED COPY! After 2 seasons of research, and one year of a lot of writing and editing, Backcountry Ski & Snowboard Routes: Colorado, was released in October, 2017! Published by Mountaineers Books, a foreward by Chris Davenport, and featuring 102 routes, we think you're sure to enjoy it. Buy your copy here and we'll personally sign it for you!
The desert is the best place to play on a bike during the shoulder seasons in spring and fall, and Colorado is full of desert – some of it high desert, of course. Although Moab seems to come to most rider’s minds when they think of riding in the desert, Colorado can hold it’s own. And every time I look, there’s some other great desert ride I didn’t know about. Here’s our favorite list of best desert rides in Colorado.
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Instead of the epic sandstone slickrock and huge canyon views, 18 Road riding makes you feel like you’re in a barren otherworldly landscape, more reminiscent of a Star Wars movie set than one on planet Earth. Less technical than some of the other areas, 18 Road still has it’s own flavor of flowy fun. I like it more and more each time I ride here.
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As spring approaches, more and more people have biking on the brain. Here’s some fall Fruita riding stoke to fuel your fire as you gear up for mountain bike season!
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One of the nice things about a multi-lap day is that you can keep scoping out the aspects and conditions. Lap #3 had the best conditions of the day, when we found just the right aspect and then skied a couloir that Ben likes to call the Buttcrack. Maybe that needs another pen or pencil name, though. While I’ve skied 4th bowl a few times,
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I looked down at Diamond Lake below. Then I looked ahead. Boy this snow is slippery, I thought to myself. I looked down at the snow that led almost all the way to the lake below. At least if I fall, I have a clean run-out.
One, two, three, maybe four steps later…. Woosh! One foot slipped, then the other. I tried to use my ice axe to self arrest but by the time I even had a chance to think about it I was flying down the snow on my back, with my backpack weighing me down. I could not flip over to use my ice axe to self-arrest.
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Rocky Mountain National Park harbors some great backcountry skiing. Many of the lines are not easily accessible until Trail Ridge Road becomes plowed around Memorial Day weekend. But, thankfully the Bear Lake trailhead remains open all year and offers great skiing for those who are looking. Perhaps the most popular crown jewel of the area is Dragons Tail Couloir.
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Hitting the ridge is the moment of truth. There is only one way off the summit on skis – descending east on 60° snow above an enormous cliff. If you fall anywhere between the summit and the point where we were standing, you go in the ground. That’s really all there is to it. There’s no real escape route – your only options are to downclimb what you came up (arguably more dangerous than just skiing it) or downclimb the NW ridge, where routefinding is tricky especially since it’s not the route you came up. Once you begin the final push to the summit, you are committed.
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ACL recovery is a test of patience. There are leaps forward, and there are set-backs. Recovery progresses a lot at first, and then it slows. It’s not like I’m not still recovering. I still have a long ways to go to complete my road to recovery. But, I haven’t improved by leaps and bounds this month. Of course, this is completely normal, although sometimes frustrating.
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The calendar read that it had recently turned to summer, but there was still some good skiing to be had, especially if you looked in the right places. The Fletcher Mountain Northeast Couloirs are one of those places that hold snow late into the year, along with its neighboring Atlantic Peak. Although I have skied Fletcher from the west side, I had never skied it from the east, though it had been on my list for quite some time. I was able to rally my friend Natalie into joining me, as well as my friend Jess, who invited her friend Chad. We were a foursome that started early in the morning from McCullough Gulch Road.
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