Route: East Ridge Team: Ted, Christy Christy and I had just started hanging out and I figured why ease into it? Let's cut to the chase. Let's see how she handles this stuff. Closing day on Aspen Mountain brought a big spring storm. We had already made plans for Quandary Peak the morning after, some new snow made it sound more interesting. Still in the early "getting to know each...
Route: West Ridge Team: Ted (solo) Some of the hardest days were the ones I expected to be the easiest. I thought Evans from Guanella Pass would be a gimme. It had snowed a few inches the night before, which made the approach/ski line, when viewed from the car, to look good and snowy. I skinned from the truck up the gradual slope west of Evans and Mt. Spaldings summit....
Route: West Side via American Basin Team: Ted (solo) Handies was more fun that Redcloud and Sunshine the day before. This would be the last 14er I skied this spring, bringing his grand total to eight peaks. American Basin is pretty high, even with a lowered snow closure. The route up is mostly easy skinning, with a few steep switchbacks. Adding five inches or so of new snow from yesterdays...
Route: West Face Team: Ted (solo) I drove solo to Lake City and car camped along the road en route to the Silver Creek trailhead. The next morning I was walking in the early darkness, alpine ski boots racked on my pack with my skis. I hit snow at the junction of Silver Creek and its south fork and switched from hiking boots to ski boots and from carrying skis...
Route: Northwest Face Team: Ted (solo) Having just skied Redcloud Peak, and with the clouds keeping the conditions cool, I put the skins back on and headed for the saddle between the two summits. With some booting required, I gained the ridge and from there it's easy work to Sunshine's summit- just a foot over the 14K mark. The Northwest Face has a great line on it, in a simple...
Route: West Flank Team: Ted (solo) Mount Bierstadt is a quickie. When Guanella Pass is plowed, it's an easy 3 hour drive from Aspen to the trailhead, which puts you at the base of the West Ridge at just under 12,000 ft. You can skin from the car to the summit, and short of losing the trail at the start and getting stymied by willows, the route is straightforward. A...
Route: Moose Gulch Team: Ted (solo) Two weeks after Mt. Democrat and after a recovery from our horrendous sunburns, I decided a solo Bross attempt was in order. It was a pretty uneventful day. I drove near the trailhead we used for Mt. Lincoln two weeks earlier and started skinning up Moose Gulch. I managed to skin all the way to the summit plateau where the heavy winds that the...
Route: West Face Team: Ted, Jared Ettlinger Jared was the next friend I would cajole into skiing with me. We drove to Democrat, on the Fremont Pass side. It had been nice spring weather lately, that is until the night before, we figured four inches of new snow shouldn't slow us down too much. Wrong. The new snow got deeper and deeper the higher we went. Opting for skins at...
Route: Cameron Amphitheater Team: Ted, Dwayne Stein It would be a month after my first day on Quandary that I would get a partner for another peak. Dwayne was a friend from work. He snowshoed with his snowboard on his back-- not be the most practical method but it gets the job done. We drove to the Roberts Road trailhead and headed up between Mount Lincoln and Bross, following some...
Route: Cristo Couloir Team: Ted, Matt Hannon You might say it all started with Quandary. While Mount Sopris was my first official summit skied back in 1997, it was Quandary two years later that really got me inspired. Living in Aspen with my cousin Matt Hannon, I was about fifteen or so summits into my summer 14er tick list. Hearing from a friend about a cool ski day on Quandary...
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
Recent Comments