Democrat North Face Ski Descent
It‘s clear from the lack of information about this route that Democrat‘s North Face is one of the lesser traveled 14er faces in the otherwise popular Mosquito group, particularly for a ski descent (Dawson even states that, as of 1999 when his book was released, there were no recorded ski descents of the face). Although it certainly sees multiple descents every year (more and more as the sport becomes more popular), the face caught my interest as a unique line for the reason that it is certainly a lesser skied route on a 14er. Continue reading…
We were all up for some more descents this past weekend despite the deteriorating weather forecast. For awhile Carl, Caroline, and I had talked about a two night camping trip to Elkhead Basin to ski Belford, Oxford, and Missouri. As fortune had it, we all left with less than we wanted to leave with, but some good ski mountaineering was had nonetheless. Caroline, Carl, and I met up in Golden after work on Friday and headed for Leadville. The plan was to meet Sam at Vicksburg and backpack into lower Elkhead Basin as a group of four. The plan went off without a hitch, we were pitching a camp near the old broken cabin just below treeline after a few hours of tough skinning. We flattened out some tent platforms with skis and shovels and found ourselves warm inside sleeping bags by 11:30pm. 
I met up with Carl at the Park and Ride off 285 and 470 at 4:00am on Saturday morning. We drove to the Denny Creek TH where Lance and Caroline had car camped for the night, we all shook hands and were on the trail by 6:30. Continuous snow started about 200 yards from the parking lot, the trail was well packed by previous feet so we chose to boot it for awhile. It was refreshing to get out with new partners, this would be my first day out with any of them.