Route: South Couloirs

Team: Ted, Chris Davenport

Sometime in the fall of 2005, I first heard of Chris Davenport’s plan to ski all the 14ers in a year. Opinions on the subject ranged from incredibly ambitious and cool to completely impossible. Having some knowledge of what his plans required, my opinion fell somewhere in the middle, although I knew Chris and felt that someone like him could pull it off. But it wouldn’t be easy.

It was cool to be involved early on. Many people don’t understand ski mountaineering and what it is all about. So, at this point in 2006, after forty or so ski descents and nearly 200 14er summits, I had another partner besides Christy with whom I could share ideas about this relatively obscure game. Chris had lots of questions in the beginning about trailheads and access, ski lines, both proven and otherwise, strategy for meeting the year’s goals, etc. It was fun to talk.

We met up for Quandary Peak first. On an awesome day by any standard, especially for Summit County in January, we hiked the East Ridge w/ Horton (like my prior trip here in 2005) and made good time to the summit. As usual, the skiing was fun. We chose a couloir on the south face east of the Cristo Couloir. It was easy to ski from the top, and while the snow showed signs of wind effect, it skied fine and with no crust. With Horton in tow, we were back at the trucks quickly.

On the drive home, I realized Chris’s whole project could be really cool, and I immediately started looking forward to the next peak with the new partner. It would be two months before we hooked up again for Mount Sherman.