It wound up to be sort of a lean year for me on the spring ski objective front. A combination of life, work schedule, weather and snowpack made it so. But one of the half-dozen days I was able to get out and ski a new peak was certainly one to write about. In late-April Dave Bourassa and I realized a dream ski of ours after talking about it for years but never getting around to pulling the trigger until this year. Namely, a ski descent of the northernmost peak in the Gore Range, Eagles Nest A. We ended up picking a perfect day with everything falling into place, allowing us to ski two different lines off opposite sides of the peak.
In terms of skiing, Eagles Nest is about as obscure of a descent as they come in a range that’s already known for obscure descents. There’s not much that’s been previously written about this one, and neither of us know anyone else who has skied it either. That’s not to say it’s never been done, this is Colorado after all. But regardless we knew we were in for an adventure into the relative unknown. Keep Reading….
Ski season is over in Colorado, for most of us at least. It wound up being sort of an odd spring with great coverage and ski conditions throughout May followed by a dramatic warmup in June. We went from something like 120% snowpack in the northern regions to an impressively rapid melt off, and all of a sudden spring ski season was over as quickly as it began. May was the month this year, and though I stayed close to home I managed to get out for ten days in the month on skis, revisiting some old peaks and lines and exploring a few new ones. Keep reading…
A hut trip to Janet’s Cabin has been on my Colorado bucket list for years. As a lifetime skier of Copper Mountain, I’ve always known that there was a hidden cabin way up in the woods somewhere beyond the gate of West Ten Mile, the most westerly run on the mountain. I had skied past the gate dozens of times and pondered an outing beyond the rope lines. I had also seen plenty of fully loaded snowshoers and skiers riding the Kokomo and Lumberjack lifts en-route to a stay at the hut. Keep Reading…
After a successful ski of Rainier the day prior, Dylan, Nolan and I packed up and motored down to Trout Lake, a small town between Hood River to the south and the Mt. Adams Wilderness area to the north. With near-perfect weather continuing to hold throughout the weekend and two more climbing days before our flight home, we knew we had a great shot of skiing Mt. Adams and potentially even Mt. Hood. Read more…
