It’s been a good snow year in Colorado so far. On the heels of the most recent January storm cycle, a wave of high pressure moved over the state for a few days and Brian and I decided to take advantage. After mulling over a few options we landed on Crystal Peak’s east face, a classic route on a friendly peak that Brian and I first skied back in 2012 and eventually went on to include as one of the 50 routes in our guidebook. Read more…
One of my only firm goals for this year was to finally wrap up the Colorado Bicentennial list, that is, the 200 highest peaks in our state. It’s a project I had technically been working on since 2003, dating all the way back to my first summit of Mt. Elbert when I was 18 years old. Well, last month Anna-Lisa and my long-time friend Stu Clark joined me on a gorgeous fall hike up Organ Mountain in the San Juans. And with that summit, I’m finally finished. Keep reading…
On Tuesday I headed over to Aspen intent on finishing off the group of nine 13ers accessible from the Conundrum Creek drainage west of Ashcroft. Last July I hit six of them, running the ridge from Hunter Peak out to Triangle Pass, but left the last three summits including 13,803-foot Mt. Raoul for another day. Down to only two Bicentennial peaks left to finish the Top 200 in the state (Raoul and Organ Mountain in the La Garitas), and armed with a perfect fall weather forecast, it was time to head back up Conundrum and knock off the rest of those peaks. Keep reading…
To cap off the month of July Steve and I headed over to the Elks and climbed a few peaks up the Capitol Creek drainage – Clark Peak and Mt. Daly. It’d been 9 years since either of us had been in there to climb Capitol Peak, so we were both excited to revisit an old friend as well as make some new ones. Thanks to the day’s near-perfect weather and some opportune glissades we were able to link up both summits in just under 13 hours from the car. Keep reading…