With the big snow that fell Monday and Tuesday came the text from Chris Davenport– Sievers Mountain on Wednesday, who’s in?

As testimony to both the classic status of the Sievers tour and Chris’s ability to rally the troops, nine of us assembled at Snowmass under bluebird skies and began. Nine is definitely on the large side for a backcountry ski group and with three climbs and ski descents that typically take all day, Adam Moszynski and I had to confront unfortunate reality of working later that afternoon.  A group of this size rarely moves fast and with the large amount of ground we planned to cover we were forced to make a decision. So along with Matt Ross we formed our own party of three, breaking from the group to forge our own way along a more direct route in hopes of finishing earlier. Yes, that meant we would be doing most of the heavy lifting of the day, breaking the trail to the Sievers summit, but we thought it might keep us from getting fired. And as we climbed we could watch the others–  Art Burrows, Pat Doyle, Patrick Sewell, Neal Beidleman, Frank Shine and Dav, ski their line across the valley.

The pics that I came home with, mostly of Adam and Matt, tell the rest of the story. The drop off of Sievers comes in at a hair over 4000 vertical feet down to the Maroon Creek road and it skied good the whole way.

After some desperate snow conditions recently we were all totally pumped to have gotten this done. And later, after barely making it to work on time and when everyone was rehashing their own inbounds skiing that day, someone asked if I had gotten out.  I just smiled and said yes. Sometimes it’s easier to just say yes and not go into it.