Berthoud Pass and Coon Hill Powder

Storm skiing up on Coon Hill at the end of December.

This winter as been a fickle one so far, with seemingly higher-than-normal temps and dry weather persisting throughout most of the month of January. Whether it be that this winter is actually different from any number of past low-tide winters, or we’re just getting a late-start on things, remains to be seen. Despite what has unarguably been a below-average snow year thus far, we have managed to time the storms right for a few nice days of powder skiing nonetheless.

Just before Christmas, Rick and I headed up to Coon Hill for a few hours of touring during what was our first real storm in the mountains. Low visibility and coverage had us on our guard for most of the day. But some mini-golf laps right at treeline provided the first pow skiing of the winter, for me at least.

Rick coming over a roll into some deep turns. “Skiing by feel” in these conditions was fine by us…

#RickyRedPants doing his thing on our way back to the car.

Then it was onto Berthoud Pass a few days after Christmas to ski some post-storm leftovers. Diana joined us for a few laps in Hanging Meadow and Hell’s Half Acre, before a run down Big Roll, then the exclamation point at Westbound & Down Brewing in Idaho Springs.

Looking down valley towards Winter Park from below Colorado Mines Peak.

Rick enjoying the snow one gully north of Hanging Meadow.

Diana enjoying herself.

And then lastly, this past weekend we were able to successfully scare soon-to-be dad Mr. Miller out of the house for another day at Berthoud. Five degree temps on the pass at 7am when we started skinning finally made it feel like we were in the right month. A couple laps off the northeast side of No Name Bench led to a soft finisher down Big Roll, and some slushy La Cumbres in the parking lot.

Skinning up No Name Bench on a brisk late-January morning.

Skiing in down jackets was pretty much mandatory. Here’s Rick making his #RickyRedPantsandCoat debut.

…and one of Brian. Good to see he still remembers how to ski.

Here’s hoping for more snow soon, and a better spring than the winter we’ve had. But, to keep things in perspective, I can recall worse winters in recent history. I know it’s not cool to not freak out about stuff these days, but let’s see what happens. This winter ain’t over yet 🙂