   |
 Joey, in front as usual, makes his way up towards the Bells. The season went on and on and we stuck with it as long as we found things good, but we’ve decided it’s time to pack the gear away for the summer. 
 Good call, Dav. Sometimes you just have to play the hand you’re dealt. Not that skiing isn’t one of my favorite things to do, but after six or seven months of winter, the arrival of summer is definitely welcome. As we all know though, nature doesn’t always follow a set schedule and this year’s prolonged snowy spring was a good example of that– summer really didn’t seem to declare itself until just a few days ago. In fact there’s still so much snow, even Aspen Mountain is set to be open this weekend. So rather than fight the trend, we’re still skiing. Earlier in the week, after some flakes fell in town on Memorial Day, Chris Davenport– just back from a successful expedition to climb Mount Everest that included a rare ski descent of the Lhotse Face– made the call to head up to North Maroon Peak, where we found conditions to be more like March than June. Until things dry out around here, the ski season will likely play out a bit longer. And if all the days are like this one, we should have no problem making the best of it. read more>>>  It was good snow and good times right from the start, pictured here, in the heart of the Bugaboos. (Note: I originally wrote this piece for powdermag.com, published on May 13, 2011.) Scrawled on the wall of British Columbia’s Glacier Circle Hut, we could read the names Bill Briggs, Barry Corbet, Sterling Neale, and Bob French, along with this: “10 June 1958—Ski Traverse from Bugaboo Creek to Glacier. Started June 2. -Alpine Ski Club of America”. It was their ninth and final night on the route and the following morning they would make their way to Rogers Pass to complete a visionary ski traverse; an incredible accomplishment for the era, and decades ahead of its time. read more>>> Sunday afternoon we made it to Rogers Pass, ten days after being dropped off in the middle of nowhere, by the Bugaboo Spires. Eight of us made the 85+ mile traverse, climbing some 32,000 vertical feet along the way.
 The approach, justified. Well actually, skiing 13,300 foot Mount Daly is almost always a great day, as it was for us last Saturday. In fact, I think it would probably be a hugely popular Aspen objective, much like Mount Hayden, were it not for the drawn out approach. So I say “grind” half-seriously, because the climbing and skiing is usually really fun and worthwhile once up in the basin, it’s just that more often than not, getting in and out can be a real grunt, sometimes feeling like the hardest part of the day. It has a lot to do with the super-early starts needed to get up in the basin early enough in the day, that to get the necessary alpine start, you’ll be skinning in the dark timber through the late hours of the night, trying to navigate without any well defined trails and it’s just easy to get off route. read more>>>  Adam on the East Face. The days are longer, the temperatures milder and the lines are more filled in- it just feels and looks like spring. Seizing a sunny day between spring storms that have been dumping on us lately, Anda Smalls, Adam Mosczynski, Christy and I set out to climb Castle Peak and ski its East Face. It was a great day by all accounts– blue skies, fun climbing and spring powder conditions on an Elk Range classic. |
|
|
Copyright © 2012 Stuck in the Rockies - All Rights Reserved |
||
Recent Comments