Gothic Mountain Ski - 1.19.2013

Rolling into Crested Butte at 10 this morning was admittedly a bit late to start for a tour. Fortunately, Brittany hadn't already headed out for a ski and suggested that we check out Gothic's south facing spoon. By 11, we were on the sled and headed up Washington Gulch towards the base of Gothic. The skin started in beautiful aspen glades which thinned as we climbed higher, the views getting better and better along the way.

Mount Owen with Coneys in the foreground:

Moonrise over The Spoon:

Higher up the skinning was a bit challenging for me with plenty of hard switchbacks up the steep flanks of Gothic. Brittany slaying the skin with the Town of Crested Butte and Whetstone Mountain behind.

Cinnamon and Treasury:

Purple Mountain:

Augusta and Mineral Point:

Mount Crested Butte and Snodgrass:

About 100 yards from the top of The Spoon, the snow suddenly went downhill becoming markedly unsupportable. Knowing that the shallow snow at the top of the line would hold similar potentially dangerous snow, we called it quits and prepared to head down. Sitting at 12,000 feet with no wind and beautiful mountains in every direction is about as close to heaven as I think you can get - I could have stayed there forever, but with the sun beating down on the south face it was time to head down.

Brittany powering through some wind crust up high:

transitioning into more consistent snow:

a lifetime of lines:

approaching the choke...

skiing the apron below the walls of The Spoon:

and wrapping it up with some meadow skipping!

Looking back at the line, what a beautiful day!

What a fun line! The steep skin itself was definitely exhilarating, followed by 2,000 vertical feet of continuous steep turns. Can't wait to get back on Gothic!

Mount Baldy Ski - 3.29.2012

On Thursday Josh, Anthony, and I headed to Washington Gulch to ski Mount Baldy. On a normal snow year Baldy is generally reserved for early and late season skiing...but this certainly hasn't been a normal year.

After picking up Anthony's sled we were at the trailhead by 8, and quickly on the road heading towards Baldy. Looking back at Wolverine Basin where we skied on Wednesday:



Without snowmobiles the touring options around Crested Butte are relatively limited, but Thursday was one of those days where the efficiency of sled access skiing was a bit questionable. Anthony's newly installed ice scratchers were mostly busy trying to mangle his track. And, at the same time, with the extremely bumpy trail, my scratchers were rarely in contact with the snow, forcing us to stop several times for my sled to cool down.  


But, after these minor inconveniences we dropped Anthony's sled around the west side of Baldy, shuttled everybody up the south side of Baldy, and started the skin. With the help of the sleds we were almost immediately at treeline with the usual amazing views; Mineral Point and Augusta where we skied on Tuesday:


Ruby, Owen, Purple, and Schuykill:


This is the first time I'd seen the remains of the huge Purple Ridge slides from February in person. This one built up a huge pile of debris on the shelf...


...before continuing to the valley floor then back up the opposing valley wall. Yikes!


Eventually the ridge became too steep to skin and we finished out the last 300 vertical feet on foot.


At the top we decided to ski a lap down the south east face, hike back up, then finish up with either the north or west face back down to Anthony's sled. Josh and Anthony check out the SE face:


Josh dropped first:




Followed by Anthony:




I dropped last, the top half of the bowl was smooth corn, then the snow quality degraded into rather large bumps. I think these bumps were probably formed by uneven surface melt generated by the patchy dust that exits on the surface of our snowpack. Looking back up at the SE bowl:


At the bottom we pulled out our skins and started climbing again. On the first lap we'd followed the ridge on the skier's right of the SE bowl, this time we went up the left ridge. This different route provided more great views; Josh with Pyramid:


And views into the steeper east bowls of Baldy. Upon seeing this face we were all immediately tempted to ski it, but with rising temps, large cornices, lots of warm rocks and its solar aspect we decided to save it for another day.


An hour after starting the skin we were back at the top. With strong northwesterly winds it was clear that the north bowl, Western State Bowl, wouldn't be softening any time soon. So, we settled on the west bowl, which we reached after a short hike along the summer trail.


Looking down the west bowl, I was stoked! It wasn't super steep, but the sustained pitch all the way to the Slate River gave it a top of the world feeling.


I dropped into the 1500 vertical feet of smooth corn first. Followed by Anthony:

Who not only is a beautiful skier,


but also apparently likes to make left turns.


Josh followed making half as many turns as Anthony and I had:






Anthony wraps up the last few turns:


Too soon we were back at Anthony's sled on the Paradise divide road. Then we collected my sled from the bottom of the SE bowl and headed home.


Baldy surprised me. The SE bowl was nothing to write home about, but the west bowl was long, steep, and smooth. I'm definitely going to go back to ski the fun-looking east face followed up by a run down the west bowl.

Coney's Gray Day Ski - 2.8.2012

After a fun day up Washington Gulch yesterday, Jeff and I headed back up today to check out Coney's. The start to our day was a bit delayed because we first had to snowmobile 5 miles past the start of the skin track and do some searching for a pair of sunglasses that had been left the day before...

But before long we were battling our skins...


And not long after that we were on top of the ridge, with the ski area behind us:


Coney's terrain reminds me of Vail's back bowls: mellow open fields. But with our current snowpack, I'm happy to ski mellow terrain and check out new places. Even on these mellower pitches we saw evidence of many recent avalanches, however I observed these exclusively on the more easterly aspects, and sticking to the more northerly lines we observed no signs of instability.


Jeff dropped in first, finding smooth, boot deep pow.


through the middle pitches...

and milking the last turns at the bottom.


As always, stoked to ski somewhere new. I'll definitely be going back here, its the kind of terrain that would make for glorious mellow pow turns.

More BC Booter Action

Sorry for the lack of posting lately! For the most part it is because we have been in a bit holding period lately: we finally got some snow, which boosted the avy danger in the bc, but it wasn't really enough snow to open much inbounds terrain. 

I've been thinking almost exclusively about building pow jumps lately, and had a great day with Matt about two weeks ago; but at the same time I realized that as of last Friday I'd skied only 9 days inbounds at CB, so I felt like I should suck it up and go hit some rocks! 

After a late start followed by a bit of looking we finally had a jump built by 3 PM today. Kind of late even for me :) Thanks to Jeff Welch for the great shots!

Jeff was nice enough to do the speed checking honors:

 

I warmed up with a little 3:

Ryan threw a big cork three on his first hit:

which didn't quite work out...

 

Jeff with a nice air despite two very sore knees:

 

 

Ryan with a big front flip under Gothic:

Beautiful views looking back towards town:

Today was actually the first time I've been up Washington Gulch, and I'm stoked! Its looks like there is some fun skiing up here, and LOTS of great jump spots. Despite the late start Ryan and I each hit our jump 4, which, with a couple of good bathtubs, was plenty to track out the landing. I'm definitely going back... maybe tomorrow.