Skiing

In deep near the Lower 110's at Berthoud Pass.

Skiing

This page is dedicated to backcountry adventures and deep snow in the high peaks and passes of Colorado.

Brian's ski season is officially over. While there is still snow in the high peaks, Brian's focus now shifts from snow to rock. Check back during the 2010/2011 season for updates to this page.

In the meantime, check out this season's backcountry highlights by viewing photos from the two trips below.

Photo Galleries

Skiing Blog

2009/2010 Season Summary

There really isn't a lot to share about my 2009/2010 ski season. We had somewhat of a dry winter in the northern mountains, and as a result, there weren't many deep pow days this year. It was also the first ski season in over 10 years that I didn't make a single turn at Loveland. Instead, I purchased a 4-pak to Copper for my resort skiing fix, while hitting good 'ole Berthoud Pass for my backcountry fix. Despite the marginal snow conditions this year, it didn't stop my ski buds and I from getting in a couple sweet hut trips. See below for the trip reports and our Photo Galleries page for some cool photos from each trip.

Tagert/Friends Huts - April 23-25

This trip was without question the best hut trip I have ever done. Last year, Justin, Ben, and I had made reservations for Tagert and Friends Hut, but a huge storm made the approach to Tagert Hut a bit more sketchy than we would have liked. The route to Tagert Hut is flanked by several ominous avalanche slide paths that have claimed several lives in the past. We just didn't want to risk it seeing as though the avalanche danger was HIGH at the time. As a result, we ended up skipping our night at Tagert Hut and touring directly to Friends Hut from the Crested Butte side via the Brush Creek drainage, rather than coming in from the Aspen side via the Castle Creek drainage. Tagert Hut would have to wait until 2010.

We made our reservations for Tagert and Friends Hut for April 2010. The thinking was that we'd have more stable snow conditions and maybe even get some sweet spring corn skiing in the high peaks of the Elk Mountains. As always seems to be the case on our hut trips, a spring storm struck the night before our trip, but we decided the late season conditions would allow for easy passage to Tagert Hut. We were right. We skinned the 5 miles to Tagert Hut from the Ashcroft trailhead near Aspen in about 3 hours...pretty good time. There was already about 4" of new snow on the ground and it was snowing moderately all day. We were in for some great skiing in and around the hut.

The Tagert Hut is an A-frame style hut that accomodates 7 skiers. Due to the hut's small capacity, we had to reserve the whole hut which meant we'd have the hut to ourselves. The hut is situated in rugged terrain just east of Castle Peak (14,265') and offered up some spectacular views and even more spectacular ski terrain all around the hut. After we grabbed a snack and rested a bit, we headed out towards the saddle of nearby Mace Peak for some turns. The skiing opportunities around the hut are endless. You could spend a lifetime skiing this area and never ski the same line twice...and we had it all to ourselves. We chose to make a few quick laps down this nice, moderate gully. With about 6-10" of snow, the skiing was effortless despite poor visibility. This would also allow us to put in a skin track up the route to the Mace saddle which would make the trip to Friends Hut over Pearl Pass (12,714') a little easier the next morning.

We awoke the next morning to clearing skies and a few more inches of snow, but thankfully, not enough to make the trip over Pearl Pass difficult. We could still make out our skin track in the snow from the previous day's skiing near Mace Peak. We would have a great tour over the Mace saddle and Pearl Pass to Friends Hut. After grabbing some breakfast, packing up our gear, and prepping the hut for the next group of skiers, we headed out. The tour to the Mace saddle was uneventful, although the wind was pretty stiff above treeline. Plumes of snow off the high ridgelines indicated that we would probably have similar conditions on Pearl Pass. That was an understatement. After a few hours of touring, we neared Pearl Pass and the wind whipped up spindrift into our faces. I arrived at the summit of Pearl Pass first. The wind was so strong that I had to lay down in the snow to avoid being knocked over by each gust. We wasted no time de-skinning and descending the pass to Friends Hut. Knowing that the conditions on the south side of the pass would be wind scoured, slabby, or both, we made survival turns down the initial sections of Pearl Mountain. After about 500 feet, the wind eased a bit and the snow conditions improved. Since we had been in this spot just a year earlier, we knew exactly where to go to get to the hut.

We arrived at Friends Hut just after noon on a Saturday. We expected to see another party at the hut (or arriving sometime during the day), but they never showed. Another hut all to ourselves! The first thing we noticed was that there had been some renovations to the hut's interior. The stairs to the loft had been moved to expand the kitchen area. There was also new cookware and an updated stove. After eating lunch and hanging out in the sun on the deck, we decided that more skiing was in order. We slung packs on our backs and began touring north to the flanks of Star Peak (13,521')...the dramatic backdrop of Friends Hut. I really wanted to scope out some coulies on Star's southeast side. As we skinned up the vast basin below Star Peak, we realized that the climb to the best couloirs would be a lot of work given the amount of energy we had left, so we opted to ski a nice line in a bowl on a southwest facing ridge. While we hadn't seen many indications of snow instability, there were a couple large sloughs on Star's south side that gave us pause. After bootpacking up the steep bowl, we dropped in. The snow was phenomenal despite the rocks that grazed my ski bases for the first five or so turns. It would be the line of the year.

On our way back down to the hut, we encountered more great snow. Exhausted at this point, we decided to climb again for one final descent in moderate terrain above the hut. The sun was bright and the snow was softening up nicely. We made big, high-speed turns all the way down to the hut, capping off an unbelievable day of touring and skiing in some of the most spectacular mountains in Colorado.

The next day, we would complete our trip with a tour back up to Pearl Pass and then back down towards the Mace saddle. We found more great snow off the lower flanks of Mace Peak. We were near Tagert Hut at this point. From there, we would rejoin our skin track from two days prior for an easy ski out to the Ashcroft trailhead.

Betty Bear/Skinner Huts - February 26-28

Although Justin and I had visited the Betty Bear Hut back in 2003, we had always wanted to tour to the Skinner Hut on the other side of Hagerman Pass from Betty Bear. The trip from Betty Bear to Skinner and back is considered one of the best 10th Mountain Division hut-to-hut tours in the state. In poor weather conditions, it can also be the sketchiest as most of the route over Hagerman Pass is above treeline. This year, we would have 4 of us...myself, Justin, Ben, and his buddy Pete.

We began the approach to Betty Bear from the Road 505 trailhead located in the Upper Fryingpan River drainage. The day would dawn beautifully with a few inches of fresh snow. Of course, this meant that, once again, we would be breaking trail to the hut. Well, Pete would be breaking trail to the hut. Pete was on super light 3-pins and leathers and he just tore up the approach, breaking trail through ever deepening snow all the way to the hut. As a Forest Service ranger, he was clearly accustomed to traveling fast and light in the mountains, and he made the entire weekend much easier for all of us.

After about 5 miles of slogging up Road 505, the trail abruptly cuts east and the switchbacks begin. Back in 2003, Justin and I got our asses kicked on these switchbacks because we had severly overpacked for our first hut trip. Our huge, heavy packs made the switchbacks quite difficult. Since that time we have learned quite a bit about traveling light in the backcountry and the switchbacks seemed rather benign this time. We made good time to Betty Bear hut...7 miles in just over 5 hours.

The hut was exactly as we had remembered it, except this year, we would have the hut all to ourselves. Once again, it seems the small storm had kept other groups away. The next morning, we awoke and ate breakfast, packed up our gear, prepped the hut, and were off towards Hagerman Pass and Skinner hut by about 8:00am. The weather was a bit overcast, but conditions seemed good for easy travel over the pass. It would be roughly 4 miles from Betty Bear to Skinner...an easy day by ski touring standards. Even with good conditions, routefinding is important when traveling over Hagerman Pass. Drop too low over the pass and you have to climb steeply back to the hut. Ben's map and compass skills along with my GPS coordinates to confirm proper direction saw us skiing into Skinner hut by around 11:30am. After unloading our packs, grabbing some food, and taking a quick siesta, we decided that some turns off the pass were in order, so we headed out into the flat light. We found a nice area close to the hut to ski a few laps. The snow wasn't the best, but it wasn't terrible either.

Upon returning to the hut, we introduced ourselves to the members of the two other groups that were sharing the hut for the night. We all quickly noticed that one of the members of the party of 4 had brought what looked like the contents of a Kwik-E-Mart to the hut. They had bags of chips, 2-liters of soda, a 12-pack of shitty beer, and all kinds of other snack foods that you just don't see people (that know better) bring to a backcountry hut. Usually, hut-goers looking to schlep extra weight into a hut will use snowmobile support for most of the approach and carry the heavy stuff only a short distance. This allows them to bring bottles of wine, steaks, salad fixings, fancy breads, etc, but these jokers were clearly inexperienced hut-goers. They were also extremely obnoxious. In fact, of all the hut trips I have been on so far, these clowns were by far the worst people to share a hut with. By around 8pm, two of them were well on their way to being shit-faced and they began talking like high school kids...whispering to eachother during their conversations so the rest of us wouldn't hear them. Then these morons began quoting from the Bible! Now I don't have any problem with people of faith...that's their business. But at a hut with others there? That's when the "we're afraid of girls" talk began. Seriously. One of them actually said, and I quote, "Blah blah blah...my penis belongs to Jesus." Are you freakin' kidding me?!?! We were playing poker at the time and when the dude said that we all looked up from our cards and looked at eachother like, "Did he just say what I thought he said?" By 10pm (the start of quiet hours in the huts) they were officially plastered and the banter continued until after 2am, at which time the last one of them finally passed out after puking into one of the cook pots. Classy!

The next morning, we did the morning routine and prepared for our departure back over Hagerman Pass and down towards Betty Bear Hut, and out to Road 505 and the trailhead. On our descent down the west side of the pass, we got some good turns through the trees and even better turns down the steep switchbacks. The perfectly spaced tress skied beautifully and we were down to Road 505 in no time. From there, it would be an easy kick and glide with the occassional skin up to return to the trailhead.