Though I’d hoped to be getting on a few more 14ers by now, Saturday’s trip up a high 13er was a great way to spend a spring day. Hans and I started skinning up the road at about 8:30, with Jeff and Sam running a bit late.

As Hans and I got towards the end of the road, we heard Jeff and Sam rapidly approaching on their snowmobiles. Perfect timing.

Jeff decided to attempt a sidehill, but jumped off his sled and watched it go headfirst into a tree. The great tragedy of this day was that no cameras were rolling at the time.

Half an hour later we were all back moving up the hill. Having four people to take turns breaking trail with was a huge help.

While lower down the winds were calm to the point that I was worried about being way overdressed, the winds up high cooled things down substantially.

We hit the summit at noon to surprisingly calm conditions.

After lounging for a while, we clicked in to our skis and started heading down. The snow was somewhat wind affected, but still soft enough to be lots of fun.

Not much later we were all back at the trucks, enjoying the gorgeous weather under the threat of a tree that looked ready to let go of the earth at any moment.

All in all a pretty quick, fun day in pretty good snow conditions.