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...
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...
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....
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...
Skiing the Conundrum Couloir on the 4th!
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...
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 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
