Category Archives: Backcountry Skiing

Mt. Parnassus North Face Ski

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With weekend weather windows continuing to close down and push any thought of skiing bigger lines further and further into May, we decided to check out the north faces of Englemann Peak and Mt. Parnassus from Woods Creek on back to back weekends. When the weather sucks, go ski some low-hanging fruit and hope for the best. That was our mantra, and we wound up getting two decent days of skiing out of it while managing to avoid getting struck by lightning. Keep reading…

Mt. Adams East Face Ski

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Mt. Adams (13,931 ft) is a high 13er that resides just north of Kit Carson Mountain in the Sangre de Cristo range. It’s a neat, pyramid shaped peak with a few different faces rising out of different drainages up to a singular summit point. Being one of my favorites of all the “Centennial” 13ers, I was excited about the idea of revisiting Adams on skis. Ricardo and Bloomy were equally interested and agreed to a midweek adventure, which came to fruition this past Thursday. Keep reading…

Loveland Pass 13er Tour: Grizz D and “Cupid”

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So far this spring, weather windows on weekends have been difficult to come by. El Nino has been and continues to be generous and we definitely need the moisture, but it’d be nice to have some sun once in awhile too. One such day where we did actually get some weekend sun, a few of us headed on up to Loveland Pass for what turned out to be a nice tour along the Continental Divide. Out across the long, undulating ridge we went to the summmit of Grizzly D, down the north face, up the east side of “Cupid”, and then down Dave’s Wave to the Arapaho Basin Ski Area. Keep reading…

The Snake and The Naked Lady

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On Thursday Brian, Rick, and I got a 4am start from the Camp Bird gate closure, intent on giving the Snake Couloir on Mt. Sneffels a go. Any hope of getting a reasonable amount of sleep was dashed when we tried to plow through a snow bank blocking access to Angel Creek Campground a few hours prior, resulting in a high centered vehicle and a ninety minute effort to free it. With a day like the Snake ahead of us we knew we could’t afford to push back our start time, so we did our best to suck it up and began the long zombie walk up the dry road on schedule. Read more…