Mount Buckskin, 13,865 ft.
A windy day skiing the 13er Mount Buckskin, in the Kite Lake group of peaks near Alma, CO.
The Flying Kilometer
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...
The Colorado Powder Forecast
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...
Santa Delivers
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...
Christy’s New Ski Pants
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...
Hunter Mountain Memories
The Little Nell, yesterday. (the Little Nell, yesterday) Resembling a scene out of the early season playbook from upstate New York’s Hunter Mountain, a.k.a. “The Snowmaking Capitol of the World”, the recent low temperatures have allowed the still primitive-by-east-coast-standards snowmaking system of Aspen Mountain to crank out the fake stuff. An anonymous Aspen Ski Company insider, identified only as ‘M. Blakeslee’, confirmed that, if temperatures stay low and snowmaking continues, top-to-bottom...
Ama Dablam Rewind – The Camps: Pros & Cons
Dirk, Christy and I agreed- if we didn’t see a sleeping bag for a few weeks, we’d be just fine. I say that because when you consider the different camps on the mountain, and their varying levels of comfort (or lack thereof), well, it’s just great to be home. Having a toilet is nice, too. Let’s review. Basecamp ~15,000 ft. Pros- Flat, grassy and dry with direct sun from 7:30am to 5:30pm....
Well Done Art
As part of getting all caught up after our trip, we’ve been chipping away at the Himalayan-like pile of mail that awaited us at home. That means flipping through a glossy ski or climbing magazine faster than Christy can cover a fluffy fashion mag while waiting to check out at the supermarket. So we almost missed the ad. Last June, Art Burrows asked if we’d be interested in taking part...
Conundrum Couloir & a “mini” Ellingwood Ridge
Skiing the Conundrum Couloir on the 4th!
Grizzly & the local ‘Big 10’ Wrap-up
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...
About Christy & Ted
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
