May 3, 2009
Where to start for this one? I started skiing 14ers without ever thinking of skiing them all (like most I imagine). I skied Quandary Peak on May 4th 2006. I was young (at least younger than now). I carried my alpine skis, bindings, and climbed all the way up the Cristo Couloir in my Alpine boots. I turned around and skied down, and I think my initial thought on the whole deal was, “That sure beats the hell out of walking down!”
The idea grew on me, but it didn’t take me long to realize that his whole alpine gear thing had to go. That summer I acquired some proper gear for the tasks that lay ahead. The next year was a better one, I skied over 20 peaks in the next winter/spring season, and it really started to click that this was going to be a project to the end, or until I got to something that I wouldn’t be able to ski.
Fast forward to this past week. Joe and I had a huge weekend! Saturday the 25th of April Joe and I skied Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle in prime conditions. Sunday I went up solo and bagged Humbolt with some of the best conditions I’ve ever seen on it. And then on Monday we hauled our tired butts up El Diente, Mount Wilson, and Wilson Peak. 5 of those peaks were on my list, and they brought the list down to one peak, Snowmass Mountain.
For a long time I thought I wanted to ski the west side of Snowmass from Geneva Lake. In the end though, it looked more and more like Snowmass Mountain would be my final 14er ski descent. I decided it would be fun to have anyone who wanted to join me for it come, and we headed for the east side. In the end we ended up with a crew of 6 humans and 3 canines meeting at the trailhead to make the trip. Making the trip were : Brandon and Kristine (Whom I climbed Elbrus with last year), Jason and Chris (whom I met for the first time at the trailhead), and Katie (this would be her first ski backpacking trip). I think the number would have been a little higher but the weather looked kinda rough for the weekend. Saturday into Saturday night was supposed to receive 3/4 of an inch of rain in the Aspen area. And it was 50% chance of snow on sunday. Well that means 50% chance that it won’t right? We all loaded up our packs for the 8 mile walk to the lakes. Recent beta from some friends who had come out the day before told me that the first 4 miles were in and out of snow drifts and long dry spots. We set out in our trailshoes prepared for wet feet.
Remarkably it did not really rain on us on the way in. However, the post holing was on the side of misery. You would walk 50 yards of dry trail, and then 200 yards of rotten snow. 4 miles up, I had never been so excited to put on my ski boots and start skinning.
Start of the snow:
Sometimes mountaineers are lazy:
We were about 200 vertical from the upper lake when it began to snow. It started as a wispy light snowfall, and transformed into heavy snow fall. We reached the lake and met another group of 2, Woody Leed and Elam Leed. One of them said something along the lines of “well at least we aren’t the only dumbasses up here!” Well that would change tomorrow. We set up camp, ate some dinner, and called it a night (after a few nips off the Jim Beam).
Kristine loving the snow:
We woke up in the morning and my biggest hopes for the day were confirmed! 6 inches of fresh snow at camp, and blue sky above my head! I walked around camp trying to rally the crew to get moving, and around 7 AM we made it out of camp.
It didn’t take long for us to realize that the new snow had insulated the old wet snow a bit, meaning it didn’t get the hard freeze the night before that you like to see, but at the same time we are getting in to a more consolidated period of time, and we decided to press on and stay a bit more spread out. As we skinned up the head wall I was out in the lead and noticed that the stuff that faced a bit more northeast felt quite a bit better than the direct east facing stuff. I re routed my skin track accordingly. Jason took us to the top of the headwall, and we took a break. The sun was out, the view of the bells was incredible, and there was enough of a breeze to keep us from baking alive.
Photo: Brandon
I was ready to go again, and took off over some rolling hills.
Photo: Brandon
Our train of people:
Photo: Woody
After a bit Brandon took over and then Kristine, and then back to me. We found ourselves at the base of the ridge leading up to the peak. From here we deemed it easier to bootpack up to the ridge than to try and keep skinning. Woody had caught up and broken the last hundred or so vert of the skin track, and he and I swapped leads a couple times on the thigh deep booter (we had more like a foot of new snow up here). Woody chose a line directly up and through the rocks, I looked left and decided it looked like an easier route for the group. I took one step to my left and was momentarily startled as a VERY soft slab broke away. The top 6 inches had decided to point release and take a slide down. Everyone was out of the way and kind of just watched it go. We discussed it later, saying that it probably would not have even knocked you over had you been standing in the middle of it. Katie had decided she was content a while back and was hanging out down in the flatter part of the basin waiting for us. The remaining 7 of us continued up the ridge to the summit (three of us with our skis). The climbing was relatively easy mixed climbing up to the summit.
Me Just below the summit:
Photo: Woody
My mug on the summit:
Joe Brannan introduced me to this new great thing called a Jetboil this year (ok I wasn’t really that naive, but I didn’t have one). I pulled out a pack of Ramen and in about 2 minutes I was sitting there eating some noodles waiting for our crew to regroup. Jason, Woody, and myself were the only ones who brought the skis to the summit. We decided that the only way any of us would ski it, was if we could get the top layer to break off before we were committed. Everyone who had left there skis down below were not regretting that decision.
A look at the drop in:
Photo: Brandon
Woody insisted that I go first… Gee thanks man I wonder why? I clicked in to my Dynafits, pulled out my avalung, and dropped in from the summit.
Elbow on the summit boulder:
Photo: Brandon
A quick sideslip:
Photo: Brandon
The first 20-30 feet was some sideslipping down, sending the upper layer, exposing the dust layer. This is top 3 steepest things I have skied on a 14er (the other two being on Capitol and South Maroon). I finish my traversing ski slip and the route is clean, new snow gone. Jason and Woody drop in to their respective stopping zones. One ski cut later and I am dropping into the cloudy abyss that has formed in the last 15 minutes.
Photo: Woody
Photo: Woody
Photo: Brandon
Jason Drops in:
Photo: Brandon
5 or 6 jumpturns down high 50 degree terrain and I have covered a ton of ground and find myself arching turns through boot top to knee deep pow. There was a certain sense of vertigo in such a big bowl with the clouds coming in the way they did, but I kept skiing with the knowledge that there was nothing for a couple miles that would hurt me. I skied a slight traversing line to my right and stopped after about 1000 vertical and looked up to find Katie. I yelled to her, she hadn’t even seen us come down. Jason emerged from the clouds and a while later Woody.
We all regrouped in my flat spot below to wait for the others who had a couple hundred feet of downclimbing to their skis.
Out of the corner of my eye I say Rainier, Brandon’s Golden Retriever wandering aimlessly in the middle of the bowl where I had just skied from. A quick call and she was on a beeline for me (she had just dropped the same line that we did!).
The jetboil made another appearance, as did the Jim Beam as we waited for the rest of our group. A bit later we were all regrouped around 13,000 feet. 2000 feet of powder left!
We pretty much “gang skied” down to the headwall above the lake where we would make our final turns on the now mashed potatoes new snow.
I dropped off first and made huge G turns to the bottom, setting off a couple creepers along the way. I didn’t even know the snow had moved until I was far out into a safe run out zone, watching it slowly creep it’s way down the slope like a slow lava flow of nasty dirt and wet snow. These were nothing to be concerned with as they couldn’t have been moving any faster than 1/2 a foot per second.
We all regrouped in the flat spot above the lake and reflected on out ski descent. It looked like a ski area up there! Pure snow farming.
Katie down safely:
A little kick and glide and we found ourselves back at our tent. Everyone seemed to be ready to get moving so we packed up out 3 respective campsites and headed out. It was nice skiing down the gully we were camped next to, to the trail and taking that to the lower lakes, where some kicking and gliding across flat, rotten, wet snowfields continued for a couple miles. Finally back to our shoes, we couldn’t wait to make the transfer (though I did remember skiing all the way back to the car from here when we did Capitol a month and a half ago.).
Back in wet trailshoes with pack weights increased by 30% it was off to slogfest.
Some gorgeous country though:
It doesn’t really matter how you cut it, this side of the mountain is a slog anytime of year. We postholed, walked, postholed, walked, all the way back to the trailhead, arriving around 6:30 PM.
And who was there? My mother. She had driven all the way from Denver to see me finish this goal that I had set for myself. Here is an excerpt from an email I sent to a group of friends and family.
“I think a special thank you goes to one person out there; and that’s my mom, Luann… My mom has been the most supportive person in this effort (and the most worrisome). She is the one who sends me text messages until she sees one go through and knows that I made it out ok. She is the one who wants to know when I leave the trailhead and return, when I start driving, when i get home. Recently we got one of the SPOT trackers. It tracks my progress every 10 minutes or so, and she gets to watch, and at least feel to an extent like she is there. Like any caring mother, she worry’s about me in the mountains, but she never tells me not to go. She understands, sometimes she even comes along. Without her support, this journey probably would not have happened.”
My Mom, My sister, and I in Russia:
Me at the end:
I was done, I dropped my poles, dropped my pack, put on my flipflops, I was done. Our group showed up one by one over the next 20 minutes or so, half of us swearing never to walk up that trail again, but all agreeing that the snow up high was oh so worth it. We all headed to White House pizza in Carbondale, where you have never seen a group of people eat so much pizza.
We skied this on May 3, 2009, almost exactly 3 years after skiing my first 14,000 foot peak.
I don’t think I could do a last 14er trip report without thanking the people who have partnered up with me over the last 3 years of this project. Up front I need to thank the two most constant partners I had during the project. Frank Konsella and I skied around 16 14ers together on the way to his completing them all. Thanks Frank. Joe Brannan and I skied 14 peaks together, and Joe will likely be the next one writing a finisher trip report. Thanks Joe. The following list of people is in no particular order, but it’s the most complete list I can come up with of people I have skied 14ers with. Thanks to: Colby Christoff, Tyler Christoff, Jon Turner, Spencer Branson, Brittany Walker, Hudson (the pooch), Katie Workman, Bill Middlebrook, Fritz Sperry, Derek Dreschel, Caroline Moore, Shawn Kiel, Caleb Wray, Andy Zimmerman, Andy Dimmen, Homi (last name?), Lou Dawson, Ted Mahon, Christy Sauer, John Humphries, Sean Crossen, Brandon Chalk, Kristine Oelberger, Jason Weingast, Chris Carlsen, Jarrett Luttrell, Doug Newton, Mike Fabbre, Karina Mullen, Jeremy Wegener, Kellie Baker, Nick Thompson, Scott Borger, and Brian Miller
If anyone can help me out with those last names please leave a comment.
I hope I didn’t forget to mention anyone, but if I did drop me a line.
It’s been a heck of a journey, one that I don’t regret for a second. Thanks for reading.
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming WOW! WHAT A RIDE
JW