The 11th running of the Golden Gate Dirty 30 near Blackhawk took place this past Saturday, and I decided to head up there and join the fun for a 3rd year in a row. Although it wound up being my slowest finish time thus far, I was happy with the overall effort and still felt I overachieved based on my training compared to past years.
It’s no secret that 2019 has been one incredible snow year. Living in the mountains has had some obvious and much-welcomed upsides this season, but one downside was the lack of dry trails in March and April. In Denver, a solid April long-run was almost always available at Green Mountain, Indian Creek, or Deer Creek Canyon. But up here in Vail, on a year like this one, good luck. So that just meant it was a lot of skinning and road running up until the end of April, when the desert side of the valley finally melted out and I was able to log a few 20 mile runs. Better late than never I suppose. Keep reading…
While this spring has been one for the books in terms Colorado’s snowpack, finding decent weather windows for skiing has been a tad challenging at times. Despite a few failed outings which didn’t go as planned, mostly due to unforeseen weather and funky avalanche conditions, the stars did align for several fun days in May on a handful of local Vail/Summit County peaks. Read more…
Last Saturday several of us headed over to Summit County to ski the northeast line off Red Peak B (13,189′) in the southern Gore Range, known colloquially as “The Big Bad Wolf”. The route is one of several dropping off Red and its eastern sub-summit (most of which sport Little Red Riding Hood themed names), and offers up roughly 1,800′ of steep skiing down to Willow Lake just south of Mt. Silverthorne. Read more…
The backcountry skiing around Vail has been good lately. Really good. The snowpack finally settled down enough to green light steeper lines, and coverage in the Gores and Holy Cross Wilderness is about as good as it ever gets. After a fun ski of Bald Mountain’s northeast face this past Saturday, Rick and I pored over ideas of what to hit next and ultimately landed on Mt. Powell, the highest peak in the Gore Range. Read more…
