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.
Sound like fun? It all depends on your perspective, literally. From it’s top, it’s a fast, steep descent towards Snowmass, and on nordic skis it can almost be scary. When tackling this stretch of the Owl Creek Trail from the opposite direction(pictured), the only thing ‘flying’ is your heartrate, into the red that is. Participants in next Saturday’s 22nd Annual Owl Creek Chase , the 21 km skate race from Snowmass to Aspen, will...
So what’s this all about? Joel Gratz, an enthusiastic skier and amateur meteorologist out of Boulder, Colorado, has launched his Colorado Powder Forecast, with the singular goal of helping powder lovers stay abreast of incoming weather news of the ‘cold smoke’ variety. Distributed via email, his discussion includes day-to-day predictions for snowfall in the various mountain zones of Colorado, sometimes going so far as to predict actual powder quality as a function of the snow’s...
It’s official. We don’t need the certificate as proof, but we do think it’s pretty cute that the government of Nepal takes the time to issue these. I’m sure they’ll be cool to have somewhere down the road. Maybe the Colorado Mountain Club should issue certificates for 14er & 13er summits. I’m sure the employees of the CMC are happy they don’t. Happy New Year!
Who said Christmas is just for kids? Not Amy and Neal. With a little supervisory help from the grandparents, and with a few hours free before starting Christmas dinner, they left Reed and Nina to play with presents and snuck out in seek of their own. It looks like Amy got what she wanted. Having just wrapped up a casual-paced morning of gifts and coffee, Christy and I headed to Highlands...
What a shame. There was too much snow for Christy to effectively show off her new green ski pants at Aspen Highlands the other day. Were it not so much fun, she might have actually cared that her ’08-’09 ski season fashion debut went largely unnoticed. The twenty inches that fell by Sunday was augmented by another storm that came through Tuesday, with yet a third walllop expected Thursday. Things are looking good. Most of Aspen Mountain...
We met in Aspen in 2000 and have been happily stuck in the rockies ever since, getting out in the mountains every day we can, in every season and by all means possible. Read More
