At 13,988 ft., Grizzly Peak is the tallest 13er in the state and a regular on many ski mountaineers spring tick list. Dirk and I found it in pretty good shape last Thursday. [singlepic=13,361,500,,center] Technically, Grizzly falls in the Sawatch Range and not in the Elks but with popular access beginning a short way up Independence Pass on the Aspen side, it feels pretty local. If you put together a list...
So it was a record breaking ski season and snow year in most of Colorado. That’s good, right? Well it was way back in January that Christy, Richard Betts and I made plans to run this race. The mountainous course touches 13,300 ft., has more than 12,000 feet of elevation gain and spends the majority of miles well above 10K(with a huge stretch above 12K). Last June Christy had ideal conditions and a...
A late spring (June 1) ski descent of South Maroon Peak.
Route: North Face Team: Christy, Ted, Dirk Bockelmann [Christy here} While there has been a lot of great skiing this spring, nothing would mean more to me than getting North Maroon Peak. For a while now Dirk and I have both pondered whether we were ready for the North Face or not. Ted has skied it a couple of times… Turns out we were ready! We got started on the trail at 4:15 after...
Memorial Day Weekend – The Official Summer Kickoff Someone needs to let Snowmass Lake know it’s Memorial Day weekend and not midwinter. It’s still totally frozen up there. Christy, Josh Hirshberg and I headed that way last Saturday for a few days. Getting up the 8 mile trail is adventure enough for most. We had two peaks to ski– Snowmass Mountain and Hagerman Peak. Christy was happy that what in...
A spring climb and ski descent in 2008 of Hagerman Peak, near Snowmass Mountain and Snowmass Lake. We don’t hear much about Hagerman Peak. Even being one of the tallest (top-ten) local peaks in the Aspen area, it seems to garner little attention.
We hooked up with a gang of friends from town and headed up to Cathedral Lake. Our goal was the Pearl Couloir of Cathedral, an area classic and sweet objective by itself. At the top of the couloir however, Christy and I would continue on up and over to Cathedral’s true summit, and ski it’s Southeast Face.
An epic Type II fun day on a remote 13er in the San Juans. There were definitely some lesson learned.
San Juan Ski Weekend – Day 2 We were up early. The forecast called for a beautiful spring day and with a goal to ski Handies Peak(14,048 ft.) from the east we knew we had to stay ahead of the sun. In 1999 I skied here from the American Basin/west side of the mountain and was eager to return, trying for the more exciting east side. There’s a great couloir(NE)...
Redcloud and Sunshine peaks, a great pair of 14ers outside of Lake City that you can ski in a single day.
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
