Next Thursday night, Friends of Berthoud Pass is putting on a Backcountry Film Festival. There will be several short films played, all of which I’ve been looking forward to seeing. Tickets are $10, though there are multi-ticket packages available at a substantial discount. There will also be raffle ticket and beer sales, with all proceeds benefitting FoBP’s grassroots avalanche education program. If you get ahold of me, I might even be able to arrange a better ticket discount. See you there!
A couple weeks ago I took part in the Christy Sports demo days at Loveland, as I was looking for a ski to replace the second-year 187 Bluehouse Districts I sold off a couple months ago. These were skis like the K2 Kung Fujas, Rossignol S97 and S3, and the Head Jerry. There were a few other skis I wanted to try as well, like the K2 Obsethed and Head Jimi.
The first ski I took out was the 179 Obsethed, as the Fujas was out on the hill. Conditions were pretty hard, and I wasn’t warmed up yet and just didn’t love them. I knew I’d be happier on them in better conditions and once I had a few laps in my legs, so I took them back with the intention to try them again later.
The 179 Fujas was a great ski – playful but could throw a little weight around when needed. Later in the day I would realize it’s pretty much a perfect blend of the Rossi S3 and S97. Unfortunately K2 changed its sizing this year – a 179 (like with my Public Enemies) used to measure more like a 183 from other manufacturers, but that’s corrected for this year, making the 179 feel just a little small. I lost a good amount of weight over the summer though, and so felt comfortable with a little bit smaller ski. Last up at K2 was the Revival. I was hesitant to ski it as it seemed to be entirely park-specific – no camber, equally rockered tips and tails, and a pretty centered mount. I was absolutely shocked at the ability for it to carve on hardpack, and I think I found the replacement for my Public Enemies when they finally need to be retired.
Next up was the Rossignol tent. I wanted to try the S3 but they were all out on the hill, so I took out the S97. It was exactly the ski I had been looking for – maneuverable, easy to ski, and plows through everything. A bottom-feeding charger if you will. Don’t be fooled by the marketing speak, as this ski has zero rocker at all. That said, I loved it so much I picked up a pair of last year’s, and they’re leaning against a wall waiting to be mounted. The S3 was back when I took the S97 back, so I took it out. It’s an incredibly fun ski, and I wish more terrain had been open. In contrast to the S97’s tendency to go through anything in its way, the S3 likes to go over everything. I have a pair on order from a local shop, and can’t wait to get them out on a powder day. My only dilemma is what bindings to put on them.
Next up was Head. I tried the Jerry, and hated them. There was a weird hooky feeling to them, and I just couldn’t get them to feel right. I jumped on the Jimi next, and loved it. Powerful, slarvy (even on mostly-hardpack, though it had been snowing all day and softened things up), and easy to lay on edge for big-radius turns. Lauren is getting a pair of these, and I think she’ll like them.
I stopped back at the K2 tent to try the Obsethed again, and all they had was the 189. I took it out and it was fun, but too big for me. I liked it quite a bit more, and can understand some of the hype around it. I was getting tired and badly needed to stop for lunch and a rest break at this point, as I had been demoing skis non-stop for six hours. I wish I’d been able to try some of the smaller brands (Ski Logik and Icelantic specifically) but just ran out of time.
11 days into the season and I still haven’t ventured out to the backcountry (though plans to correct that are in place), and have instead been having fun, trying to dial in new boots (Full Tilts, which have already given me four broken buckles in 5 ski days on them), and getting my legs back under me at Loveland. Just a couple photos here from the past week.
Alex is one of the few people on earth who can actually put a 150-flex ski boot to good use. Must have something to do with chasing the never-ending winter for a few years. Continue reading
This ski season started off with a bang the likes that hasn’t been seen in quite a while. An impressively powerful storm rolled in at the end of opening day last Sunday, dropping 30″ of snow in just a few days. Lauren and I pulled in to the parking lot Tuesday morning to snow falling at about 2″ per hour.
Patrol opened some new terrain (Upper Richard’s) and we missed the rope drop, but still got some boot-deep turns that made it feel like mid-winter. Continue reading
As you’re no doubt aware, this has been a long, warm and dry late summer/early fall in Colorado. This pushed off the start of ski season by a couple weeks; though some friends were going out of their minds, I tried to enjoy it on the mountain bike, running Scout, hiking, and just generally enjoying the pleasant temperatures. Things finally cooled off enough recently for Loveland to get the snowguns blasting, and today was finally the day. After grabbing our passes we got in line, as the clock ticked down to 9am. And then we were off!
It was great seeing friends I hadn’t seen in a while – that’ll change now that the lifts are turning once again. Continue reading
After Culebra last Saturday, I thought the misery would be over for a while. It’s turning into spring, I thought. No more bitterly cold, painfully long, 11+ hour days for a while, I thought. We’ll have good, stable, easy to climb snow, I thought. And then this past Saturday happened. After driving for a few hours to the Lake Como road, and an hour of 4-wheeling (which included cutting branches and shoveling snow-drifts that were obstructing the road), we arrived at 10,100′ for a luxurious three and a half hours of sleep, my spot being the front passenger seat. It was not warm, and I was only able to be comfortably warm by wearing a puffy on top of my other clothes inside my 15 degree bag.
The 3:30 wake-up call was not a pleasant one. It was so cold that I abandoned my oatmeal plan, and just shoveled down a PB&J that I didn’t eat for dinner, and downed a bottled Starbucks thing that I grabbed at a gas station the night before. As tends to be the case, getting started in the morning was slow, and an hour later we were walking up the rocky road towards Lake Como.
Another hour and a half later, it was still bitterly cold, although it was finally starting to get light out. Shortly after crossing the lake, we saw a group of five or six approaching for Little Bear.
As seemed to be the case with everything this day, we took an approach line that, while beautiful, was certainly “interesting.” Continue reading
This trip got started a couple weeks ago when I got an urgent email from Carl about a date set for a climb of Culebra in a couple weeks; with spots likely to fill fast, I jumped on it. I’m glad that I did, because all 20 spots filled in about four hours. For those of you not familiar with Culebra, it’s the only 14er that’s entirely on private property. During the summer it’s possible to get on the mountain more often than not for a $100 fee, and certainly on weekends. Winter and spring availability is much more limited, and in the past has had a climbing fee of $200-250; this time it was only $100. The original plan was to ski the North Face, assuming good weather. Unfortunately the weather was not good (as seems to be the case with most Culebra ski descents), but we certainly got our $100 worth of adventure. Keep in mind when you’re reading this that most of these photos have been enhanced to de-fog them and make people a bit more visible.
A major spring storm rolled in to Colorado late last week, bringing with it lots of snow. People in their right minds were enjoying an amazing powder day. Nine of us decided to take our shot and chance the weather. Besides, the forecast was for the storm to ease up and clear out by about 2pm, we would just have to fight our way through it most of the day. A few days ago things were dry pretty much to the summer trailhead, which would mean a 7 mile round-trip day with about 3,200′ of vertical. Things changed a bit, so we had a 14 mile day with roughly 5,000′ of vertical. I’d like to think Carl was saying something like “we have to go how far?” in this photo.
Here are a few photos Carl took from yesterday. First, a steep sidehill on the approach.
Fortunately there were plenty of anchors on this slope.
Shortly after this came the tree-climb:
And now a few of me enjoying the snow:
Until next time…
Today’s summit attempt, unfortunately, was one of failure. That’s not always a bad thing, though. I usually don’t write anything about failed climbs, but today is a little different. It was just one of those days.
First off, the (small) cast of characters. Carl:
And myself:
After oversleeping by 40 minutes and incorrectly setting the coffee machine (good thing I cooked the bacon last night!), I scrambled and raced to meet Carl in Golden for the uneventful drive up to Montgomery Reservoir. Continue reading
Through Polarized Eyes 
