Route: East Face

Team: Ted, John Morrison, Glen Poulsen

All Chris Davenport said was that two of his friends, who get after it around Tahoe and the Sierras, were coming to town and looking to ski, and that they were going to call Neal and me. Oh and one more thing, they crushed him (Chris) on Mount Williamson, a 14er in California, last month. Hmm, that’s something you never hear. Who are these guys? Chris sold them on the idea of heading to Aspen to ski some of the local classics, and knowing Chris we can all guess what made up the list.

First they put together what they considered a casual warmup day. They skied Hayden’s Northwest Couloir and pushed out of Conundrum Creek, hitching a ride to then catch a lift at Highlands and get an afternoon Five Fingers run and still get back in time for some beers at apres. That’s  pretty big push for two guys from out of town. The next morning (while we were on Willow) they executed a four-hour round trip assault on nearby North Maroon Peak, declaring it the “easiest 14er they had ever done,” and decided Pyramid was next. We met the next morning around four.

It turns out local Jim Funsten and friends skied up here earlier in the week (his 2nd descent) and left us a booter to the top. It’s amazing how much easier it is that way. And after skiing out East Maroon Creek, we had to skin back up the road in order to get the snowmobile we rode in the morning. It was eight hours from car-to-car and we were at the J-Bar for burgers at 12:30 where they declared their desire to ski Castle the next day, which  we did. They had quite the four day stretch, and afterwards, I decided to dub them the “Sierra Slayers.”