It’s no secret that this winter has been a great one in Colorado and is currently showing no signs of slowing down as we are now into April and it just keeps on snowing. The statewide snowpack sits at 139% of average as of April 3rd with the graph trending almost identically to the historic season of 2019. It’s the type of year that has one wondering just how long we’ll be skiing for given the snow totals to date. Read more…
Several years back I got an invite to join on J, Brandon and Co’s annual “Hardman Hut Trip” (some years are harder than others but there are always plenty of men). From 10th Mountain to Uncle Bud’s to Skinner we went, covering around 30 miles between the three huts with a few good turns mixed in along the way. This same crew of long-time friends has continued with this style of trip every year for the past decade or so, and I was happy to join again for this year’s outing as soon as I got the invite. Read more…
Fall has officially arrived in the Colorado high country. Days are getting noticeably shorter now, nights are chilling down and we’re past peak for fall colors with dustings of snow in the high alpine across the state. It’s always nice to get out around this time for those last few dry-ish peaks of the season, not knowing when things will definitively be snowed in for good. Steve was up for getting out as well, and so we decided to head to the West Elk Wilderness northwest of Gunnison to hike its namesake high point, West Elk Peak. Keep reading…
I think Ben and I changed plans 4 times for this trip, because of the vagaries of mountain weather forecasting, and barely finalized our itinerary before it was time to start it. This was the right weekend to visit Crested Butte – after wildflower season, after Labor Day, and before Leaf Peepery. Riding with me from Denver to meet Ben in Crested Butte was my adopted son, Carmine, who had turned 16 in the last couple of weeks.
The approach began very easily, as we proceeded up the excellent Copper Creek trail. After an hour, however, we had to find the place to leave it and nothing looked great – we just found a way up the steep forested slopes that overhung there road to get up to Queen’s Basin. After the trees thinned, we followed a dry watercourse to the alpine grassland of upper Queen’s Basin. Here it is from Ben’s view looking back and then mine a bit further up, scanning the way to White Rock Mountain. Keep reading…