The Henry Mountains from the north as we drove past the Maze and Goblin Valley. Surrounded by canyon country in all directions, it feels kind of strange as you approach them with the goal of skiing in mind. “So then what are you guys doing in Utah?” asked our friend after running through the list of typical Utah desert activities, i.e. biking, climbing, boating and hiking. I interrupted and said,”We’re...
Skiing the Hourglass Couloir on the 14er Little Bear Peak in 2008.
Christy schusses the middle gully of Mace Peak’s North Face with late April powder. With plans to be away in the Utah desert for most of next week I thought I’d share some pics from a quick little tour Christy and did up in Ashcroft Sunday. A huge storm blew threw Colorado just before the weekend dumping some twenty inches of snow on the mountains and bringing us back into...
Uninspiring for skiing, it’s uninspiring for blogging too, as the skiing and scenery are just UGLY. You can follow the snirt line as it moves up the mountain day after day. This photo is actually from April 10th, by now it’s showing up on the high peaks in the background. Ross Kribbs photo, click to enlarge. Ross’s email appeared my inbox with the aforementioned title in the subject line. Attached...
Sean leaves his mark, with a slight brown tinge. Down low the dust is everywhere and soon it will be up here as well. Bummer. Just when we thought we finished a season without a dust layer, it arrived. Actually, we never really acknowledged the lack of dust. And how soon we forget. With somewhere north of six dust events around Aspen last season(it was pretty bad, read here), we...
The signs were pointing to an exceptionally busy Saturday at Highlands. So we decided to hit one of our favorite lines on Highlands Ridge and made it a “one and done” day.
A moderate pace up the moderate slope, as an avalanche instructor/forecaster, Josh knows better than to assume the moderate rating is as safe as it sounds. If you haven’t checked the CAIC website as of late, the current avalanche danger rating for the Aspen zone is moderate on all aspects and elevations. With five ratings on the avalanche danger scale– low, moderate, considerable, high and extreme– moderate is just a...
Adam Dennis drops into the “facet farm.” On the plus side– facets are pretty good for getting powder photos. On the plus side, everything we encountered on our lap off of Highlands Ridge was better than we expected. Of course in full disclosure we had all set the bar pretty low. Deeming it an important product research/ snow conditions survey, Dirk checked out of the Aspen Expeditions office on an...
Christy makes her way across the rolling basin to the East Ridge. Route: Yawner Gullies (SW) Team: Ted, Christy We had come off Sneffels the weekend prior, and decided to head back down to the San Juans for a combo ice climbing trip/ San Luis Peak ski. After a couple of days in the Ouray Ice Park, we made our way to Creede for the night. It just so happened...
John Doyle stacks em. Generally speaking, the reports coming in from the Aspen area backcountry are at best, lousy, and at worst, dangerous. Despite the disappointing conditions and eager to get out and do something, Sean Shean, John Doyle and I took a tour to see things firsthand and we actually found everything to be a notch or two better than lousy– the skiing was better described as being ‘pretty...
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
