Backcountry

The Most Dangerous Piece of “Avalanche Safety Gear” The World Has EVER KNOW | The “Snow-Be” has NO SEARCH MODE

The “Snow-Be” is an avalanche beacon for the financially strapped, complete with a trasmit mode, but no search mode! Click here to read the article!

Skiing Colorado’s Quandary Peak – 14,265′

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!…

5am, and my alarm clock is screaming at me.  That obnoxious, welching noise that has an awesome way of subconsciously making you think “No..not yet…”  Yet…today, I don’t mind at all.  I’m not heading to work today.  No, I have no chores that I’m taking care of…no responsiblity of any kind on my mind today.  The only thing that can get me out of bed at 5am…the only thing that can get me out of bed on the first try, has got to be skiing.  Today’s the day that I’m skiing Quandary Peak, one of Colorado’s 54 mountains that stand over 14,000′ tall.

The day started off at a slow pace.  Although excited…come on now, its still 5am.  However repetition makes perfect and this isn’t my first rodeo waking up for a day of skiing.  Within a few minutes my bag is packed, skis are tied on, teeth brushed and we’re out the door.

There’s nothing that makes you feel like you’re going on an expedition more than waking up before the sun comes up to begin your adventure.  Everybody is still asleep.  The moon is still shining.  And anybody but a few has called you crazy for the last week for even thinking of opening eye before the sun hits the horizon on a day that the bossman isn’t breathing down your back.  Yet, here you are driving down the highway sipping your coffee and munching on a donut that you bought a couple miles back at the gas station.  Happy as could be.  Excited.

Well, that early morning departure does a great job at giving you a false sense of security every time, and after a bathroom stop here, a McDonald’s stop there, and a couple times pulling off the side of the road for a picture or two, your 7am arrival at the trailhead has now become 8.  But who cares.  Like we said, we’re not trying to feel responsible today.

By 8:30 we’ve got everything secured where we want it.  The skis and ski boots, and any other accessories I’ve decided to bring have been checked and strapped to my pack, and its time to start the almost 4 mile trek up the mountain to the summit.  The plan is to hike the east ridge trail, which starts off a few hundred feet below treeline, and works its way up the mountain.  It seems like the least exhausting route with all this weight on my back, plus, it should give me a good view of some of the more northern facing bowls which I hope to still be holding some snow, being hidden a small bit by the direct sunlight.

By the time we get 45 minutes to an hour into our climb we’re sitting down to grab a drink and rethink the clothing situation.  By this point we were above (and I say “we”, meaning the dog and I) treeline and the wind was picking up.  Up to this point a simple pair of pants and sunglasses would have been enough but we took advantage of using a few last trees for cover and tossed on the snowpants and winter hat and up we went.

About another 30 minutes up the trail you start to come to the base of the false peak (which, did in fact fool me).  I can’t tell you the thoughts going through my head about how in shape I must be… “I can’t believe how fast I had just climbed this!” (A quick look at a map could have also told me)  I was thinking that I’ve climbed this mountain so quickly that I’m gonna get to ski 3 more mountains on the ride home!  But, if it seems too good to be true it usually is too good to be true and as I climbed I quickly started finding out that there was much, much more to this mountain.

As the trip up the mountain went on the nice soft alpine grasses slowly begin to thin out and work their way into the loose gravel and scree beds covering the top of the mountain.  …a trail mix stop here, a picture break there, and plenty of catch-my-breath breaks shoved somewhere in between there are a pretty accurate way to sum up the remainder of the accent from here.  The last hour of the trip is completely above any tree or vegetation levels, which makes it really uncomfortable and difficult to climb.  This day had it’s fair share of gusts at certain points of the mountain and it takes a lot out of you trying to balance your body up these rocks while your skis try and sail you back south to the bottom.  As you can see in the picture above, we weren’t the only ones peak bagging this morning and for a solid 10 minutes we were visited side by side with Mr. Billygoat up there.

But sure enough, 3.5 hours later you realize why you’ve put yourself through the exhaustion and discomfort for the last 4 miles.  The views on top are amazing. You’re the tallest mountain around.  You can see Pike’s Peak from here…the Mosquito Range, Holy Cross…and if you squint you can even see the semi-snow-covered trails on the south sides of A-Basin and Keystone.

You feel your moment of pride, snap some pictures, sit down, and before you know if you’ve been sitting down for 30 minutes on a rock, are half full of dried bananas and cashews, and your fingers are going numb.  This is usually the point where I decide its a good idea to get moving, and switch over to my ski boots before I become a permanent part of the mountain.

After a few minutes of switching over footwear and breathing on my fingers to defrost them, it’s finally time to pick up my poles and work my way to the edge.  This time of year is tricky to pick your lines.  You’re not worrying about avalanches and cliffs so much, as you are simply running out of snow!  You can be skiing a great line and all of a sudden 20 feet ahead of you you’re on the rocks.  So, I reach back in my memory of what the mountain looked like when I was climbing up, and decide from there.  Skier’s left seemed like the way to go this time, and off we went!!

The snow on top was hard and crusty.  I’d try and stop and all I would get was the chitter chatter of my skis slapping on the uneven ice below me.  I worked my way through the first 100 or 200 feet of elevation, in and out of rock fields, and then, it was like the seas had parted and we were off!  Nice, soft, loose snow that had been baking in the sun all morning.  The winds and shade hadn’t affected this section and it was like a video game.  Twisting and turning around the obstacles, hearing the wind blow through your ears as I gained speed down the mountain…and, of course…the barking of a 2 year old yellow lab chasing me down the mountain, letting me know not to forget him behind me.

 

Looking up at our first snowfield you can see where we started at skier’s left and worked our way side to side before spilling out in an open bowl.

 

Section by section, we took our time enjoying the scenery and skiing to the next stop point.  A second lunch, some pats on the head for Ranger, and almost too soon the climb that we had spent all morning doing was coming to an end.

We made our way down to the bottom of the last bowl just as the evening storm was blowing in.  And just like that, our time skiing on Quandary Peak was a memory.  I skipped myself across a couple grass fields towards the bottom, hopping from snow pile to snow pile to try and lessen my walk back through treeline as much as I could, until eventually all that lie between me, the dog, and the car was a beaten dirt path through the woods.

Its at this point that you feel fully satisfied about your decision to ski.  You no longer think about the tiring and exhausting hike to the summit.  You’re not worrying about the two hour drive back home, or that you took this morning.  You want a beer and a pizza, and that sounds delicious.  You’re proud that you’ve accomplished something that most people only think about doing, or that others think you’re crazy for doing.  With my hiking boots back on, and my skis strapped once again to my pack, I throw a stick down the trail and follow the yellow lab through the woods and back to the car.  One more 14er down, many more to go.

 

 

May Skiing in Idaho

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/41751188″>Super G TV episode 21–Paddlin’ to Pow</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user1379824″>Super G TV</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Skiing Grays Peak. Colorado With An Attitude!

I’ve spent the greater part of my life attached to some kind of plank on my feet.  Powder, rocks, steeps, traverse…the almighty slackcountry…I’ve ski’d a lot, but I’ve yet to ski a 14er.  …Until this past Friday.

A month ago we set the date, over a drunken conversation leaning halfway over a Golden, Colorado bar.  Underprepared for this trip, we wouldn’t be bringing any fancy crampons with us.  No climbing axes.  No real plans at all….infact, the plan was to BE as uncomfortable as possible!  Start this thing off the hard way and we’ll start making each trip easier on ourselves from there on after.

So, as we promised that night at the bar, we held true to our words and met a few weeks later at 6am ready for whatever the day would throw at us.  Mt Evans, was the plan.  14,264 feet above sea level, and a 45 minute drive from our hometown of Golden.  I’d searched the routes and how to get to the required trailhead.  Kept up on the avalanche reports, watched the weather.  Estimated travel time once on the mountain, and what conditions we could be expecting once we dropped pole on the snow… Little did we realize we wouldn’t be skiing Evans.

Incase anybody else gets the idea during the winter to use the Summit Lake Trailhead.  Guess what.  NOT HAPPENIN!  Its closed.  Yup.  A whole month’s worth of excitement and anxiousness brought to halt with a huge metal gate crossing the road.  Now, you’re probably thinking “duh”.  I guess, and I suppose you’re right.  But, this is Colorado!  I fully expected a “Pass At Your Own Risk” sign in it’s place.

Believe it or not, we still tried.  If you can picture two dummies running around outside in the cold and the wind, trying to determine a 4 wheeling path AROUND the gate, that was us.  And as much as it reminded me of my teenage years, I couldn’t help but keep thinking of the trouble we COULD get in if anybody had seen us off roading around the gate just so we could continue our journey.  Eventually, unlike the teenage years, the common sense portion of my brain won the battle, and we decided that it wasn’t going to be for us today.

However not far away from us was another hike I’d been reading about.  Gray’s and Torrey’s Peaks.  Both 14ers, and connected by a single saddle.  Lets do it!  2 peaks, one trip, and I KNOW we can access them this time of year.  So we turned the truck around and had at it.

An hour later we get to the top of the access road for Gray’s/Torrey’s Peak.  This old truck wasn’t making it any further and it was time to hike it in from here.

Turned out the old truck didn’t do too bad!  Within minutes of starting our hike we were at the obvious trailhead and starting our way to the mountain.

The hike ended up being brutal.  I’ve had my fair share of poor weather both on the slopes, and in the backcountry, and this by far was a lift-closing type of day.  The weather channel was reporting gusts of over 80 mph!  The pictures may look calm and peaceful.  But I can assure you that if I could attach a soundtrack to this it would be loaded with howling winds and 2 screaming backcountry folk trying to hear one another speak.

The hike to the top of the bowl we were looking for took us 6 hours.  We were cold, and exhausted, and halfway defeated.  The original idea was to climb Gray’s, then Torrey’s, and ski down Torrey’s.  We never even made the summit of Grays.  Two different times the wind was so strong and abrupt that I had gotten knocked clean off my feet.  6 hours of walking forward 10 feet, being blown back 2, and holding a head-down, aggressive stance for another 15 seconds as the wind tries it’s hardest to blow us off the mountain.  Let the gust die down, and repeat again.  I had brought plenty of food for the day, and I was still exhausted and weak.  At the rate we were going, with maybe 600 feet of vertical left to the summit, we finally had to make the decision to turn around.  It was 3:00 by now.  With the rate we were able to climb, we were still another hour away from the summit.  And, with the way the climb up was, if we have to hike a fair distance back to the truck, this is starting to look like an all nighter.

A couple hundred feet below us we had left our skis.  There was no skiing to be done where we were headed if we summited, seeing how it was all blown off, so we left the weight behind.  We made it back to our skis, crossed our final rock patch, and started to strap in.

The biggest fear I always have when backcountry skiing is watching my ski go plummeting to the bottom of the mountain…WITHOUT me attached to it.  When we finally started strapping in this was all I could picture.  My fingers are frozen, and I’m going to drop this ski.  The wind was howling and every move I made was slippery and uncoordinated.  Yet, finally, one after the other, I was able to make my little ski shelf, strap a boot into it’s binding, and the best feeling of it all….clip that leash onto my boot.

The moment we had both waited for came at us just like that.  My partner took a look over at me and let me know, “I’m nervous”…haha.  I made sure to laugh back reassuringly and let him know, “I’m excited…”  And just like that we were gone!  Parker first, me second.  There’s a whole new ballgame that you’re a part of when you’re backcountry skiing.  Nobody designed this terrain.  No machine came over last night and made it nice and smooth for you.  There’s no even base to assure you make steady, even turns.  If there IS powder, there’s no telling what could be hiding underneath it.  Everything is natural.  The way it’s been for thousands of years.

The first couple turns were shaky, feeling out the snowpack under my feet.  But by turn 3 that was it.  I had it.  The flow of the mountain, the weightlessness…leaning into every turn and feeling the whip of your skis as you change your footing underneath you.  This is why we do it.  This is the only thing that can get me 6 hours away from my car in the miserable weather below a 14,000 foot peak.  The rush of cruising down a mountain and hearing the snow cut to the sides as you slice through it.  The wind blowing past your ears as you pick up your speed.  Huge rock walls all around you and open high country meadows 3,000 feet blow you…We were backcountry skiing.

One by one we took our turns down the mountain.  Stopping in safety spots as the other passed and waiting for our turns to tear up the ground he just got to devirginize.  Its funny how you can tell yourself to go home for half a day, yet after 5 minutes of an experience like this, you can forget about ALL of that, and your day just became worth it.

With the wind behind us and fresh tracks left behind, it seemed as if the whole day had changed.  No longer did we feel the wind blowing around us.  I didn’t hear any howling gusts, and my body seemed to warm back up to where it was when I rolled out of bed that morning.  The clouds all seemed to part and the only thing that you could feel anymore was accomplishment and peacefulness.  We took the frozen drainage back to the truck.  A half hour of smooth sailing, slowly feeling the snow loosen to that spring corn texture as we continued to drop in elevation.  A couple times I hit the shallow spots in the snow over the stream and poked through, looking down at the water running around my now semi-submerged ski boot…but at this point it only added to the fun of the day.

Mt. Baker, 3 Days ago, POW POW VIDEO!

aaand heres one more, just because we all love watching powder.  and notice, 18 seconds in…is he skiing pow under and EMPTY (yet moving) chairlift?  must be some kind of dream…

HEY WASHINGTON!! How’s About Sharing?

THE SNOW IS COMING DOWN!!!  GET YOUR FAT SKIS OUT!!! FIND YOUR SKINS!!!  BEACON, PROBE AND SHOVEL!!!  ABS PACKS, UNITE!!!  ITS PILLOW BOUNCIN, POWDER PUMPIN, DEEP LOVIN FUN TIME OUT THERE!!!

Check it out!!!!

Conditions are awesome!  Check out the snowfalls!  Every mountain is reporting powder!  Makes me so bummed out when I’m stuck in a bathroom grouting tiles all morning and touching up paint jobs.  Its like my dad used to say: “Hey, I could be fishing right now…”  …except…I’m not really wishing I was fishing right now…

Well, unfortunately for me, I had to work, and I didn’t get to ski all of that powder today.  And, unfortunately as well, non of those mountain are even in Colorado.  …They’re not even close.  Not even a day’s drive away.  Hey Washington, good job on hogging all the snow.  Share?  Over a foot at most mountains each day, and you can’t spare an inch or two?? …is it a hipster thing?…

I’m gonna tell you something.  I’ll be straight up.  I’ll be honest.  I won’t bull…..and I won’t even get emotional.  Here is it: Colorado is hurtin’ right now.

Spending the day at Keystone yesterday was an eye opener for just how poor this season’s snowfall has been this year.  Its funny how you look up at a mountain covered in snow and picture this 30 foot deep pile of powder and start drooling all over the steering wheel.  I can tell you it gets me all hot and heavy for sure, but unfortunately I think yesterday was more about the complete opposite.

I had my doubts for a few days now when I’ve been keeping my eyes on Mt. Evans from a distance, and a couple of the other 14′ers popping their heads above the Rocky Mountain skyline.  (I’ve been hoping to get up there this spring for some backcountry skiing and shenanigans).  Usually this time of year they’re easy to point out.  “The tall white ones”, is usually a decent enough description of what peaks you’re talking about.  Being above treeline, that’s exactly what they are.  But, as the weather’s been climbing into the 70′s each day on the front range, and a severe enough lack of snow as it is, I find myself pointing out, “The white…brownish..muddy looking kinda summery tear-jerking prematurely melted…sad ones…”.  It’s had me nervous, but still, no reason not to go skiing!  So, we jumped on I70 and made our way up to 9280′

I took the exit at Loveland Ski Area and took a peek at the brown dirt showing through the snow towards the top of the mountain …directly above where we all plow headfirst through the granite and out the other side.  As I turned the corner to start climbing the pass I could’ve cried.  Where’d the snow go?!  Wet slides everywhere.  And to make it worse, DIRT.  I could’ve sworn I’d even seen the grasses mocking me as I drove by with their stupid little tint of green.  Thats a summer color grass, take it the f*ck off for a couple more months…

Incase you’re not from the Colorado area, this is the time of year people thrive out here.  Feet of snow, awesome DEEP avalanches to get caught in, hippies on both sides of the road with their skis in one hand and a raised thumb in the other….maybe something green in one hand and a thumb in the other…either way…  Right now?  Nothing.  Exposed grasses laughing at every car driving by.  Get back to sleep grass, its not your time yet.

And, incase you didn’t know what THIS picture was, (Non-Coloradian), this is the southeast side of the pass.  Just 3 weeks ago I had some friends in town and wanted to show them the joys of “backcountry skiing”.  Since getting in the car and letting gravity pull them down a mountain on their skis is usually the most amount of physical exertion they’re willing to put into getting their fix, this was the only way I could think of.  Regardless, this is still a mountain that was full of waist deep powder, and fully corniced less than a month ago, with 3 perfect sets of tracks compressing the snow into the grass that’s laughing at us in this picture right above.

Aaaannnnd there’s your view looking south at A-Basin’s “East wall”.  The spot boot trackers and powder hounds wait all summer, fall, and winter long to see open up.  Complete boner-pants material this time of year, haha.  But, this year, not so much.  I think my spandex will do just fine.

We eventually made it to our destination at the thriving metropolis of Keystone, Colorado.  Now, I knew that it would be bad, but I didn’t know it would be THIS bad.  And when I say bad I don’t mean that conditions were horrible and that I core shotted the world under my skis.  In fact, the groomers were kinda fun!  Soft, slushy in spots, and the lines weren’t half bad at all.  …but when I said bad I mean this:

A BEAUTIFUL SHOT OF INDEPENDENCE MOUNTAIN, AND INDEPENDENCE BOWL!  I brought my skins, you comin’ with?  I couldn’t believe it!  Now, I know this has been a poor year out here, but this all goes back to my 30 foot deep/steering wheel drooling/boner pant material dream I have each time that I see a mountain covered in snow.  I see these peaks at Keystone and am like a little kid thinking if I dive deep enough I’m gonna end up in China.  Feet and feet of powder, living my dream, and nobody’s stopping me…and today, I’m all grown up with the realization that snow CAN melt.  China’s not there after all…and, theres probably some grass up there too, trying to turn green just for me…

I was reading an article stating that this year’s drought has been the worst since the early 80′s.  I didn’t get much into the rest of it because it was talking about farmers and yudda yudda…well, I don’t farm and can’t control the town’s water supply so I guess I don’t worry enough to read about it.  It DID go on to talk about the beetle epidemic happening the last few years, and how its going to make matters worse, and to expect more fires and rapid spreading of the carnage this summer because of it.  (Just kind of interesting to me, that whole beetle destroying entire forests thing).  I lived in Morrison, CO in 2009-2010.  I started noticing the beetles then and took a curious interest in it.  I then, moved to Seattle in August, 2010, and didn’t move back to Golden, CO until November of 2011.  Basically a year…but I drove down I70, and that forest the used to be on the south side of the highway, was almost completely GONE!  One year, a whole mountain’s worth of trees, done.  So, if you’re not interested in that, I don’t know what does interest you.  If you ask me, its interesting.

Anyways back on track here.  But I guess this whole topic goes to express how sad this spring’s backcountry experience will be.  I’m sure, there will be some good days.  1 or 2..but having ski’d almost every month of the year last year in Washington, I was surely hoping to have another endless year of skiing.  The powder isn’t falling, the snowpack is gone, and its looking like this season is almost over come the middle of March.  Time to head to the northwest?  Well, actually I’ll be there on a remodel job next week!  Look at that, this whole conversation and I’ve forgot to mention (or remember, actually) that I’ll be able to have my share of the goods next week!  Pack the important parts…tool belt (check), saw (check), measuring tape (check), ski boots (first thing I packed), boner pants (check).   I’ll let you know how it goes!!

Oh! One more thing, then I’m done.  Curious about the resorts and how they fared this season?  Apparently last year’s record snowfall booked everything up almost completely this winter before the season was underway.  And, most people didn’t cancel once they realized the snow was non-existent.  Thats all!  Very, very, detailed and informative paragraph.  And yes, I do autographs.

Not A Bad Way To Get Paid To Ski

The thought’s been going through my head a lot this past winter about sucking it up and heading for the certifications needed to guide for a living.  Sound sweet?  F yeah it does!  Heres some video shot from the 2010 AMGA certification exam.

Powder Powder Powder…JACKSON STYLE

Well, at least SOMEPLACE out there is getting some snow!  70s and sunny here in Golden and according to our buddy Joel Gratz doesn’t seem like Summit and Eagle County are gonna be bringing us anything anytime soon.  How much of a letdown is THAT, to see that big ol’ goose egg on the powder prediction!  Hey, aside from Colorado AND Jackson, how ’bout we jump over to Mt Baker!  26″ in 24 hrs, yep.  I’ll take it. 

Backcountry Skiing Yellowstone…Jealous

The KGB boys are at it again, taking over Yellowstone.  Man, what I would do for some of that powder this winter.  Unfortunately, at this rate, by the time the pack is safe enough out here for that, I won’t be telling you how sweet my turns were until spring 2013.  ::sigh::  Guess I’ll just keep living vicariously through the video.

2 More Die In Avalanche, Jackson Hole

Another sad day in the world of the mountains.  Steve Romeo, and Chris Onufer, of Jackson Hole were found by search and rescue crews inside a slide outside of Jackson Hole.  Both dedicated to the Jackson Hole community, another large dent has been left in the skiing community today.

Halfprice “Heli-Skiing”?