Matt had plenty of time to scope out Princeton from BV during his mid-week Sawatch ski campaign. After he told me it looked good and was almost certainly in from the summit, I started working to convince Carl that we should ski it Sunday. Eventually Carl was in, as were two other skiers, Marc (Carl`s neighbor) and Chris (Matt`s brother). Keep reading…
I met up with Matt at Bongo Billy`s in Buena Vista early Sunday morning where we consolidated into his truck and headed for the Cottonwood Creek Road. Both of us were amped about the possibility of another 14er ski, though we certainly had a few reasons to doubt our chances. Firstly, the weather forecast was less than ideal, sitting at a 60% chance of snow, and secondly and much more importantly, the avy danger was locked in at “considerable” for the Sawatch for all aspects at and above treeline. Keep reading…
Carl and I left Golden early for a winter ski descent of Mt. Elbert, the tallest peak in the lower 48. Despite being the tallest, it’s one of the easiest 14ers to climb and ski via its trade route, the East Ridge. We were pretty set on skiing the ridge rather than going for the more adventurous Box Creek Chutes due to the avalanche danger which was likely present on steep slopes in the Central Sawatch. Keep reading…
A short post about our early January Holy Cross trip. In reality, I could never write it up as fluently or colorfully as Kiefer did so I’ll just let his words speak for this one…here’s a link to his TR over at SummitPost. Keep reading…