Tracking up the passport

Christy leaves her mark on, among other places, page 12.

Off season’s here, and now that Aspen has effectively shut down, anyone with free time enough to get away has been packing up and leaving town.

This spring, that ever-present drive to hit the road has us heading to Canada to keep the ski season rolling for a little while longer. I’ll head up to Calgary on Monday to meet Sean who will be coming out from the Battle Abbey Hut with a group of friends from around here, and we will hit a laundry list of ski spots in the greater Banff and Jasper area.

After a week with Sean, he’ll head home and I’ll hook up with Christy, Dirk, Art Burrows and Art’s friend and local guide, Greg Franson in Golden, BC, and we’ll head out on an 80 mile ski traverse from the Bugaboos to Roger Pass. It’s pretty safe to say it’ll be a good time.

Part of getting ready required me to replace my expired passport and after getting my hands on it the other day, a quick glance confirmed that, as it’s been for some time now, one of the prominent mountain scenes in the little navy blue book is still that of a fairly obscure 12,700+ foot peak about an hour from Aspen called Chair Mountain.

The most current U.S. Passport. Chair’s summit is center.

Identifying background peaks on postcards, automobile commercials and magazine ads has always been an obscure skill of mine, and betting fellow friends that Chair Mountain actually graces the U.S. Passport has actually won me several gentleman’s bets through the years. Better yet, Christy and I recently got to ski up on Chair, spending a weekend at Al and Ruthies new cabin there. It’s quite the spot.

Christy and Al atop a subpeak with Chair’s summit behind.

Al drops into a run which heads down for what seems like forever, right to his cabin.

Christy in some glades.

Al, pictured here, skied third this run. There were only three of us around all day so it hardly mattered. He’s been up here so much this winter, he hardly feels the need to go first.

Ruthie showed up that night and skied with us the next day, and despite this line not being featured in the passport, the snow was still world class.

Christy, Al and Ruthie (L to R), below the Chair headwall. For reference, it’s below the giant flying eagle and above the buffalo, something yet to be seen on the drive along Highway 133.