Winter has arrived, and it brought snow with it.
Over the past several years we’ve been able to find decent early-season skiing in the high country by Thanksgiving. A slow start this year though had a lot of us waiting into December to head up for that first ski day (myself included). Well over the past ten days a series of storms finally dropped some real snow up high, so we decided to head up to Berthoud Pass and get our ski seasons rolling.
On the skin.
With a considerable avy danger rating in the Front Range, we elected to keep things conservative and headed for some low-angle terrain in Current Creek. After a thirty minute skin up the west side we clicked in and found a couple pitches of powder in the lower-110’s area.
And we’re skiing!
Some nice low-angle glades. Here’s Brian.
Then we re-skinned and headed up for another lap as more weather began to roll in.
It’s good that Carl didn’t forget how to ski over the summer.
Bloomfield managing to avoid the big rock I unearthed to his right.
After one last run in the Hell’s Half Acre area we loaded up and headed back to town for a beer at Cannonball.
It looks as though things are finally shaping up. Any early-season obstacles that may have still been lurking under the snowpack should be all but covered up after this next series of storms. Stay safe out there.