Kastle Skis
Athleta
HoneyStinger

Archives

Categories

Subscribe


 

REI.com Camping Gear
Moosejaw Free Shipping
Altrec Outdoors Free Shipping over $45

Easter Bunny Peak

Easter eggs on the summit?

On Easter Sunday, we skied a line off of a local unnamed summit that neither Christy nor I have been to before. Like a lot of 13ers in the state, this 13,500+ foot summit has never been given an official name. Since we were looking to do something novel and fun on Easter Sunday, we decided the mountain deserved a more proper designation. We took the liberty of renaming the peak for the day in honor of the holiday and enjoyed the Southeast Face of Easter Bunny Peak. read more>>>

April 13th, 2012 8 comments

The Pearl Couloir

Cathedral-Peak---Pearl-Couloir09

Sean skiing the Pearl Couloir.

Earlier this week, a group of us went out for our first real backcountry ski day of the season. Better late than never.

Sure, we’ve been in the backcountry on mellow tours through moderate terrain, but conditions and snowfall haven’t been suitable for taking on anything more. Now that we’re into spring and the instabilities that existed through the winter have been nullified somewhat by the melt-freeze cycle, it was time to go skiing.

Sean, Pierre, John, and I went up to ski the Pearl Couloir on Cathedral Peak. The coverage was thin and the approach was dry, but we had a great day. Not surprisingly, most of us agreed it was our best backcountry ski day of the year.

Hopefully there will be at least a few more days to come. From the looks of things up high and with temperatures nearing the 60′s most days, the whole season in the high country here could be wrapping up very soon. We’ll see.

Here are some more photos from the best day of the season. read more>>>

April 7th, 2012 10 comments

Grand Traverse 2012

Good morning Grand Traversers!

Put another Grand Traverse in the books. Having had a few days to think about the whole experience, the short answer is that it was a really good race. The weather was mild, there was no wind, and the sunrise was amazing. We got ourselves on the podium as the 3rd place in the co-ed category, Christy was the 3rd female overall to cross the finish line, and our time of 10 hours and 15 minutes was our fastest in five years of trying as a team. (full results can be seen here)

So it was all good. But as I wrote in a prior post (read here), this race, unlike almost any other we’ve done, is almost never a routine outing. And this year was no different. read more>>>

April 3rd, 2012 11 comments

Peaks & Valleys

east snowmass creek

Making our way up the East Snowmass Creek Valley.

[Christy here] It’s been a different kind of winter this year. Not bad, just different.

The little snow we’ve received so far has left us with a pretty unstable snow pack, and not-so-desirable ski lines in the backcountry. We haven’t skied any of the peaks were thinking about earlier this fall, have yet to ski with some of our closest ski buddies, and definitely don’t have our powder legs under us. However, there are good things hidden in times like these! It just takes getting out the map and looking between the peaks. read more>>>

March 29th, 2012 4 comments

Orbiting Star

Star Peak traverse

The route, click to enlarge.

Last Saturday, Anda, Christy, and I went on a little St. Patrick’s Day ski tour that circumnavigated our local Star Peak.

The 20-mile loop is a pretty obvious linkup of established local trails. Start at Ashcroft and head up towards the Tagert and Green-Wilson huts, following the snow covered jeep road all the way to Pearl Pass. read more>>>

March 23rd, 2012 4 comments

His & Her Airbags

These have been in the news a lot lately.

Christy and I decided we’d get avalanche airbags for each other as Christmas presents this year. And even though we haven’t been backcountry skiing at all this season due to the dicey conditions, we know they’ll eventually see some use.

read more>>>

February 24th, 2012 8 comments
« Newer Entries  
  Older Entries »