So we weren't able to put in as big of a day in Montezuma basin yesterday as we had planned. Time to get out again. After getting into contact with Greg Dumas we set plans on a mission for the day. I am still driving the I70 corridor to Idaho Springs and back 4-5x a week and catch a glimpse of this guy on Kelso daily. Nothing crazy but it looked like we could get some turns in. We were actually able to get in about 1000ft of turns as we dropped in off the ridge and linked our way down. It was only about a 10ft wide chute most of the way but we'll take it!
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So the 2014/2015 season is officially here and along with it comes the never ending itch. I've been able to get out locally a good amount to take advantage of the early season snow but now it was time to drive elsewhere. Last weeks storm brought a good amount of snow and after talking with Joel Paula about a recent waist-deep venture he had last Monday, I had a pretty good idea of where I needed to head. And so the plans set in motion for Joel, Mark Koob, and myself to head up into Montezuma basin just outside of Aspen/Ashcroft. A well known early/late skiing destination I was stoked to get out for my first Elks mission. High hopes were stirred as we were planning on a big day. We were hoping to be able to get in a double-whammy and ski both Conundrum Couloir as well as the North face of Castle Peak. We kept our fingers crossed that the week of high pressure and melt/freeze on the snow would possibly grant us with some fall corn but not quite how it worked out. Mark and I left Summit at about 7pm on Sunday night and drove up to where Joel met us on Castle Creek Rd up towards Montezuma mine nearing about 11k feet. From there we enjoyed about 4 hours of sleep and woke up to our watch and phone alarms a little before 3am. On went the headlamps which we would not turn off again until we were above 14k ft. A clear and warm night we quickly gather our gear and off and up we went. We walked up the road until we reached the lower headwall of the basin at 12.8k ft and from there switched to skin mode. Up the lower headwall and eventually we made it to the base of our couloir where we transitioned into crampons, donned our axes, and commenced booting. I have to admit that it was a blast booting up a 47 degree couloir by headlamp! Conditions seemed to be ok during our ascent of the bottom portion and apron but quickly changed as we neared the bottom choke where we encountered bulletproof snow. Front-pointing and picking our way up we continued encountering a mix of conditions with a lot of hard pack. At this point we figured we were going to definitely have to wait on the saddle/summit for the sun to hopefully do some warming and so up we went hoping for a gorgeous sunrise at 14k ft. Little behold as we near our top-out the clouds roll through and sock us in. So much for a summit sunrise! Within 5 minutes of us topping out we were completely engulfed with clouds. Hoping that the sun would eventually burn off the clouds and warm up our descent we hunkered down behind some rocks to help stay out of the cold wind. Here we waited over 2.5 hours in hopes of a warm up. While the sun did eventually burn off clouds, it did so everywhere else but around us. Eventually we had to make a call, and the call was to bail and find an alternate route down. So eventually we took a stroll up the ridge to scope out a way down from the saddle of Castle/Conundrum. After scoping a line down from the saddle we went back, grabbed our gear, and headed down ridge until we found ourselves on top of our line. The snow ended up being much better than what we had ascended in the couloir and included a short downclimb through the cliff band. From the saddle we enjoyed about 1000ft of skiing back onto the road. The clouds still seemed to never dissipate around the upper basin but once we reached the bottom of the lower headwall the sun was in full blare. Imagine that. So we didn't get to ski either of the lines we wanted but; we had an awesome headlamp couloir booter to 14k ft, it was my first ski in the Elks, and we all made it home safely. Chalk that one up as a successful mission! Oh yea, its only October 20th!!
My name is Justin and I am an addict. It's August and I have 2 days off from work. What should I do? Well that's a stupid question, ski of course. Where do I find snow in August? The Gore! I talked to Frank who did some scrambling in the area not too long ago and got some beta on a line he scoped. Having a 2 day window I wanted to do an overnighter but after asking all my ski buddies I wasn't able to find a partner and make it happen. Well, if I can't go for the route as an overnighter then I may as well try and find somebody to do it in a single push for a big day. Mark Koob was available and being a stong partner fit the bill. Due to the monsoon and thunderstorm season we opted to start stupid early to try and mitigate our risk of getting caught in one. And so we met in Frisco at 2am and headed west in route to Piney Ranch. So the original plan was to ski both Mount Powell and Eagles Nest. The main objective was a couloir on the East face of Eagles Nest while as a bonus to the approach of this we would be able to ski about 800ft vert off the North face of Powell dropping into Black Creek. So the route was to hike over kneeknocker pass and up Mount Powell where we would then drop the north face of Powell into Black Creek. From there we would then hike a little ways towards Cliff Lake and to the base of our couloir. Boot and ski the couloir and then climb up and over the saddle between Powell and Eagles Nest into Cataract Creek. Then over Game Pass and back down Piney Creek. Total distance of about 13 miles and 8000ft vert. The forecast called for 60% chance of thunderstorms after noon. As we drove into Vail light rain started to fall and we could see a few bouts of lightning in the distance. We both agreed to at least still try for the mission in hopes that the early sun would burn off the clouds. We then donned our headlamps and were on the trail at about 3:15. A quick hour and some later we were at our trail junction where we headed up towards the Powell-Peak C basin. Our headlamps went off just as we approached the meadow below kneeknocker and we hiked our way up to the saddle as low lying clouds wrapped the peaks around us. From here we headed up to the Southeast slopes of Powell while enjoying breathtaking views of the Gore. Once we reached the top the clouds and mist kept on rolling in and out. We could still get a pretty good look at Eagles Nest and our couloir and so we hiked down a little ways where we found our snow descent into Black Creek. We rode all the way to the scree and from there had to assess our situation. The time at that point was about 9 o'clock. We had told ourselves that we needed to be in the Cataract Creek drainage not long past noon as so we wouldn't get caught in the thunderstorm. It had been a funky weather day with clouds and rain in and out but it seemed as the clouds were building and getting a bit darker. We figured that from where we were it would take at least another 4 hours to ski the line off Eagles Nest and safely get back down in elevation in time. Considering the thunderstorm that passed by the day prior, it wasn't a hard decision to bail on Eagles Nest. And so we then decided from there to have a little lunch and find a backup plan. From our little rock seat where we ate we looked around for any potential when BAM, right in front of our eyes sat a beautiful inset couloir. It took about one sentence before we decided that it seemed to fit the bill for a quicker ski option. We decided that instead of booting the couloir we would set a booter up the snowfield to the climbers left. This was the line that we had originally skied down and so then we would already have a bootpack set on our exit back up and over Powell. From there we could also assess the clouds and weather before we dropped into the couloir. And so up we went.. We reached the top and got a look over the ridge. It still looked like we had time and so down the couloir we went... not knowing what conditions lie below us. The first few sets of turns above the rollover were great. Then things got a bit spicier really fast. It turns out that below our little rollover lied a slope of 50+ degree runnels and ice. This funneling into shear ice and rock. I reached the choke, rode through, lost my edge and bounced down a few feet before sinking my axe in behind me and my heel edge into the rocks to my left and hard snow to my right. I look in between my legs and notice shear ice. Well alright, now I was in a bit of a predicament. I wanted to just ride off to the right on my heel edge but the conditions being what they were and the angle funneling back into the rock/ice I kept telling myself not too. What to do now. As my heel edge slips out a bit I sink and plunge my axe in as far as I can. I regain my position again and finally have Mark carefully ride his toe edge and downclimb to the side of me where he gave me his whippet. I then plunged in the whippet and used both it and the axe to hold onto while I spun my board around and onto my toe edge. I wipe the sweat off my brow. Now at least I was in a position to use my axe efficiently. I was also then able to spin my pack around and pull out my whippet. From here we both decided to carefully climb our way off of the snow/ice to skiers right where there was a good 4ft deep by 3 foot wide gap caused by melt from the cliff wall. From there we downclimbed about 50 ft or so to where we found a spot that we "thought" was in better conditions. We fandangled on our snowboards as Mark dropped first and neared another little rollover. I then here "Shit!" as I see snow pillow up and hear the sound of Mark and his board sliding down and smacking into the left wall. "Fuck! Dude, are you ok?!?" A couple seconds go by. "Yea, i'm good. I think." Mark ended up finding some more ice and was able to luckily eventually self arrest himself. From there I stayed on my toe edge and hand-over-hand "downclimbed" the couloir by continuously plunging my axe picks in over and over until I was eventually able to link a few turns out of the apron. I will have to admit that this was definitely one of my sketchiest moments of the season! With a few sighs of relief and still with smiles on our faces, it was time to head home. And so we headed back up the bootback and up and over Powell as it seemed the clouds were starting to burst all around us. Luckily, somehow the weather decided to cooperate with us today and we ended up barely getting rained on and believe it or not found sun back in Piney River. And about 12 miles, over 6,000ft vert, and 13 hours later we found ourselves back at the car where enjoyed a semi-warm Tecate and basked in the warm August afternoon sun. Thanks for the August ski Powell!
Gary Fondl hit me up asking if I were interested in a sunset tour at the tunnel. Of course i was down and it sounded like a great idea to me and so we met in the west side of the tunnel at about 6:30, gathered out gear and set off up the mountain. Enjoy the iphone pics! About 20 minutes into the hike Gary's buddy Kihm Beyer came strolling up the hillside. Great minds must think alike! After a quick safety briefing we all three found ourselves eventually on top of our intended line, soaking in the beauty that surrounds us... We decided to hang out for about 10-15 minutes until about 8PM to let the sun drop a little lower for some great sunset lighting. We then found ourselves skiing great corn turns all the way back to the trucks for a most excellent sunset ski tour! Great meeting you and hope to get out with you again Kihm!!
I was in need of a good day of skiing in light of recent events that myself and co-workers had experienced. I call up Joe Otremba and Mark Koelker and they were on board for a good ski tour. We tossed around ideas and eventually landed on the idea of skiing Grizzly Couloir and then re-ascend and ski SFB back to the cars. And so we met across from the CDOT building and were on trail by about 6:30. We were able to skin until about 100yds from the ridge near the saddle and from there hiked up to Grizzly D summit. A quick ascent we were on summit by 8am. From there we hung out for about an hour before we started on down to the entrance of Grizzly Couloir. Once we reached the top of the couloir we were able to get a good look down. There wasn't much of a cornice anymore but I decided to down-climb in from skiers right so that I could get in and assess the snowpack. Sure enough we were still a little bit too early and the snow was firm. I slowly made my way down and Joe followed. We then hung out for another 10min or so and then finally decided to drop to try and have time to still link in SFB. Mark dropped in just skiers right of the belly at about 60 degrees or so and we all proceeded to shred. The snow wasn't the greatest with a mixture of firm, sun-cupped, and runnel but as always still good to get out and get some turns on in a sweet line!We then started to wrap back around to gain the ridge again at the saddle below Daves' Wave.Upon reaching the saddle Mark and Joe realized that they wouldn't have time to link up SFB and so they opted to ride Dave's Wave back to the car. I was really wanting to link the two lines so I decided to head off towards Black Mountain solo-dolo. It's always a different experience doing things in solo that's forsure!Once on the Black Mountain ridge I started to traverse my way over to SFB. I have done this traverse already a few times but for some reason this time I decided to take a different route. This in return made my traverse unintentionally a lot spicier of a climb and at one point I almost turned around. I ended up having to down-climb some sketchiness and then climb up a couple of steep FIRM snow pitches without my crampons or ice axe. Perseverance finally paid through and I eventually found myself on top of my intended line. *sigh* -Lesson learned...always bring your crampons and axe for spring/summer ski mountaineering!Once strapped in I dropped in at about 12:30 into great corn snow all the way down. This time of year the line seemed to be a bit skinnier than usual??Back to the car a little after 1pm. A great 6 hour ski tour especially for June 10th! This ski season has rocked!! |
Justin Ibarra
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