Almost every Memorial Day weekend, Brittany and I try to get out of town to ski some peaks. Even last year, as dry as it was, we had one of the best days of the year near Silverton. In fact, the first weekend we ever skied together was a Memorial Day weekend, so we got up early on Monday and headed to the upper Arkansas valley to ski Mount Hope, a high centennial thirteener near La Plata. The Hopeful Couloir is an obvious line when heading South from Leadville- in fact I’ve often mistaken it for La Plata, so it’s been on my list for quite some time.