Route: East Couloir

Team: Ted, Chris Carmichael

After a full down day in camp due to weather, the next morning was just perfect. Since our day on Sunlight and Windom, about six inches of snow had fallen.

Chris and I headed up towards South Eolus, Dave would sit this one out. It was easy skinning to the base of the East Couloir, the type of snow skins just love. We then racked our skis and booted up the steep, narrow couloir.

We left our skis at the top of the couloir— back in 2000 I had no plans to ski all the 14ers, I was just working on my summer list so skiing from here was good. We walked the remaining 200-300 vertical feet to the airy summit.

Chris and I were psyched for the trip we had put together, it was a great feeling to plan a five day trip and have it go well. Plus, it’s such a wild place, the views from these summits are some of the greatest around, to this day I find the Weminuche Wilderness to be my favorite place in the state to visit. As we looked to the north we could see Pigeon and Turret, and the impressive Grenadiers, and got all excited talking about future trips.

We probably should have gotten moving sooner, by the time made it back to the skis, the May sun had turned the snow in the East Couloir to mashed potatoes. It was a real sloppy.

Still, it was fun, and we were back at camp in good time, left to hang out one more night and catch the train back to Durango the next day. Christy and I returned here in 2007 to get Eolus done right, that is, from the top.