Making an attempt to keep the streak of long, but iconic Gore slogs going, sights were set on the elusive Straight Arrow Couloir off Peak H. Sadly enough, the easiest way to approach and ski this line is from the Booth Falls TH in Central Vail, since Piney is snow covered late in to the summer and Black Creek is, well, no explanation really necessary there. Nonetheless, we were salivating for another Bone Tomahawking cause Peak N a few weekends earlier wasn’t painful enough. Keep reading…
This past Saturday Brian, Bloomy, and I made the short drive to Summit County with a pair of Gore Range ski lines in our crosshairs. We had a hunch that north and northeast aspects were going to deliver, so we decided to check out two inset couloirs with eastern access points – the Silver Sneak (aka “Elvis Crotch”) on 12er Buffalo Mountain, and a rarely skied line off 13er “Peak N” from Brush Creek. The Sneak wound up being a great warm up for the more challenging day on Sunday, which I’ll get into later. Keep reading…
The Sunday before last a few of us motored up to Vail Pass in search of some turns, good conversation, and a potential summit of resident Gore 12er, Uneva Peak. Brian, Jason and I met up with two of Jason’s buddies, Luke and Zach, early in the morning on the pass, where we were greeted by single digit temps but an otherwise clear, sunny day. Keep reading…
For a few years now the Ripsaw Ridge has been high on my list of must-do routes in the Gores. This iconic ridge run collects the ranked summits of C and G, in addition to several unranked sub-peaks between them. But even more important than all of that, the Ripsaw is “one hell of a ridge run” smack dab in the middle of one of my favorite areas in the state. With a fresh coat of snow falling in the Elk Range over the weekend, Rick, Steve, and I diverted our original plans for the day to a range we knew would be dry (thanks to our Gore guru friend, Mr. Chalk). Once we made this shift, it took all of two seconds to land on the Ripsaw as our new plan. Keep reading…
