Route: Silver Creek Cirque

Team: Ted (solo)

After a warmup on Quandary a few days earlier, I started a push to get some peaks skied without having to recruit partners too heavily. I generally don’t like solo days but sometimes you just have to go out on your own or risk using your available days waiting on others. I knew Sean was available in a couple of weeks so I mapped out some peaks we would hit together, and then headed out to do some easier ones on my own beforehand.

From the highway you can see the big Silver Creek Bowl on Yale’s east side and get a great picture of the snow coverage— it looked good. Also nice was the fact that the snow closure was right at the trailhead, that being the Colorado/Main Range Trail that runs north/south through the Sawatch Range.

After camping at the truck, I was up and out early. The snow covered trail was tough to follow at times and after extensive consultations with the map I broke off from the trail as planned and headed up into the bowl. It’s a pretty nice route although the snow was very hard, and for a short section in the middle the crampons were needed. Today wasn’t the day, but I’d love to get this with good snow.

After some self timer shots at the top I was skiing back down just as I came up. With the firm snow that day I was comfortable with the avy risk, though I still took it slow. I was back at the truck in good time.

I figured while I’m here skiing I should keep at it, maybe a summit in the Sangres that could melt out early before spring really arrives. Let’s check out Humboldt Peak.