Curiosity got the best of me this past weekend. I figured joining Christy for her 5th go at the 5th Annual Coureur Du Bois, a 90km skate race from Steamboat to the Wyoming border and back, sounded like good fun. It wasn’t– it crushed me. Who was I to think I could show up with only a single 40km training day and a few shorter races under my belt and...
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...
If the set goal for the day was to ski good snow we would have been let down. Instead, Christy, Tim and I went to Hayden on Sunday and filed it under the category of “getting out for some adventure” rather than “epic backcountry day”– and that small label change made it appealing. After all, when I was up here last Tuesday the snow left much to be desired and...
Timing is everything. Sometime last Saturday I noticed Bob Perlmutter peering through the telescope at the Sundeck on Aspen Mountain, following the progress of a skier on Ski Hayden (Hayden Peak’s north summit). I had been tracking the solo skier as well and after noting Bob’s interest, knew exactly who to recruit as a partner. After a half dozen more skiers followed suit up there on Sunday and Monday and...
A mid winter ski descent of the 14er Mount Sherman.
I think the photo annual is my favorite issue of a magazine. So it was pretty cool when Christy thumbed through the latest Rock & Ice – The Photo Issue, and stumbled across a familiar image in the ‘Everyman’s Exposed’ section. After a quick doubletake, she tossed the magazine over to me and there was the shot, of Camp 2.7 and the mushroom ridge on Ama Dablam. I had totally forgotten submitting the...
Locate this sign and you’ll feel a bit less lost out there With six weeks to go before the Grand Traverse, team Lucky No. 9, a.k.a Christy and I, went out to log some miles, skiing a classic interconnect between the two founding huts of the 10th Mountain Hut System, Margy’s and McNamara. Starting at the Lenado trailhead (8640 ft.), we made our way to McNamara Hut (10,360 ft.), via a linkup of...
We love the Ouray Ice Park. Once a season, in an effort to change things up, we make a trip down to the San Juans, to the town of Ouray, Colorado and its one-of-a-kind playground for big kids. This trip was a reunion of sorts, Christy and I were meeting Adrian, Lissa, Joe and Larry from our Ama Dablam trip. Saturday we spent playing around in the South Park area,...
Christy and I are happy to report we both set personal records at the Owl Creek Chase this year, and by more than twenty minutes! Congrats, right? Well, not so fast (pun intended). For as much as we’d like to take credit for this, being a result of hard work, training, ski prep, or whatever, there was a more obvious reason. The course was 4 km shorter than usual, reduced from...
A windy day skiing the 13er Mount Buckskin, in the Kite Lake group of peaks near Alma, CO.