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 The view from the top. Spring is here. At least according to the calendar. And though it isn’t a tradition to try to get out on the first day of the new season, with Christy and I both free this past Sunday, we set our sights on an objective we’ve had for some time- Buckskin Benchmark’s Southeast Face. The 13,370 foot summit just north of Buckskin Pass sits between the giants of the Elk Range and looked to have a fun, direct ski down it’s southeast face. read more>>>  Joey, throwing horseshoes. We’re halfway through the season, and despite the fact that every major storm thus far has skirted us to the north or south, the first half of winter, and January in particular, proved to be pretty good for backcountry skiing. With any luck, the second half of winter will be even better. read more>>> Saturday’s bad weather made for classic storm day conditions up in Highland Bowl. The wind and low visibility kept the fair weather crowds away, and the snow only piled up deeper as the day progressed. Here’s a little video from Christy’s Bowl day. If it isn’t obvious, she’s a proud member of the camp [...]  Sean takes it first here. Consider it good advice when up in his neighborhood to at least offer him the first drop. We’ve had a couple of outstanding backcountry ski days around Ashcroft this week, with long powder runs and total solitude. That is unless you consider repeated bighorn sheep encounters as feeling crowded. Some pics:  Christy prances through the snow. The holiday season is upon us, and if you live and work in a resort town such as Aspen, it’s not quite the “vacation” you might think. Everything and everyone is maxed out– the mountain is busy, you work everyday, town is packed, you can’t park anywhere or walk into a restaurant without a reservation– and although the business/ busy-ness is welcome, by the time the New Year arrives everyone is pretty eager to see the tourists to leave, so they can get their lives, town and mountain back. Somehow this season we managed to squeeze in a quick little trip, right in the middle of the holiday madness, and five of us went up to the Green-Wilson Hut above Ashcroft for a night. The Christmas Day getaway was perfect for breaking up the hectic pace of things in town, and even though we opted against schlepping any gifts up to our mountain hideaway, we still made out well, awaking to a calm, bluebird day with fun skiing– a pretty nice Christmas present in itself. So after escaping for the night to decompress and catching some really good skiing the next day, we all descended back to town to begin the second week of craziness amongst all the visitors here. Back to work!  The North Face of North Maroon Peak, 14,014 feet, from the new book, Fifty Classic Ski Descents in North America. If you ask Christy and me, 2010 was a pretty good year. The skiing was great, the races went well, the summer was memorable, we had quite a few fun adventures away from Aspen and of course Christy finished skiing the 14ers. As I was trying to organize things on my computer I came to realize that it was also a pretty good year for photos. |
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