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The “Incisor,” and some of her friends: Northern Park Range, Colorado (Class 4)

TLDR: The ridge north of Big Agnes is full of interesting soft-ranked peaks with sections of rolling alpine, surprising challenges, and bomber rock. It can be roughly split into two parts, a higher section from the shoulder of Big Agnes to the “Incisor,” and an end-cap with the “Castle” and its unnamed neighbor, both of which look like minimum Class 3 scrambling. This report covers a Slavonia start, Micah Basin approach, ascent of “Middle Agnes,” and a jaunt north over every high point to the Incisor and a smaller, hidden (but really fun) high point behind it. Then, you loop back to the highest of two unnamed lakes in what I think is the prettiest basin in the region. Pick your line of least resistance to the saddle with Mt. Zirkel, turn south and piece together a connection to the Gilpin Lake Trail. From there, bust on back to the car. What you get: clash of environments, forest, alpine, off-trail hiking, short bouts of Class 3-4 scrambling on good rock, a series of high points, two stunning unnamed lakes, lots of off-trail exploration and, ultimately, a loop back to where you started. I don’t think this hike will appeal to too many checklist people when you have Zirkel, Big Agnes, and Flattop Mountain as the area’s only 12ers and this hike covers none of them. I saw the potential for this route from a previous scramble of the west ridge up Big Agnes and wanted to check it out. I’d consider it more of an exploration-type adventure than a summit bagging or scrambling adventure (even though it has both). This hike made me reexamine the role arbitrary elevation lines have had in limiting mountain discovery because on a map it doesn’t look like there’s much to love, but when you get back there, it’s a whole different ballgame.

-Roundtrip distance: ~13 miles (+4,150 ft.) *roughly half of the distance is off-trail, your pace will slow and orientation skills are a must*

Go Pro video of the ridge/scrambling portions only.

Click on a heading to jump to that section. At the end of each section is a “Back to Table of Content,” phrase, click on it to return here.

Preface/Rating System
Regional Intro
Resources
The Approach
To the “Incisor” (Class 4)
Extra Credit (Class 3)
Tarns, basins, and off-trail beauty (Class 2+)
Return to Gilpin Trail (Class 2)

Preface/Rating System

Quick disclaimer: I like to highlight and mark-up some of my pictures for route clarification.

Black/white lines= general directions, landmarks, and/or Class 1 sections.
Blue Lines=Class 2 sections.
Red= Class 3 sections.
Purple = Class 4 sections.
Orange = Class 5.

The class system is based on the YDS rating scale. Please note that these colors are different than other sites. If you are unsure of what a color means, I usually leave a quick reminder in the picture caption.

Quick Stats:

Highest point: 12,010 ft. on Middle Agnes
YDS breakdown
- Approach to Micah Lake: Trailed Class 1
- Spike Bypass saddle NE of Micah Lake: Class 2
- Middle Agnes to Highpoint 1: loose Class 3 traverse or Class 5 downclimb, Class 3 ascent
- Highpoint 1 to “Molar Tooth”: Class 3 descent, Class 2 ascent
- “Molar Tooth” to “Golden Tooth”: Class 3/4 descent, Class 3 ascent
- “Golden Tooth” to “Incisor”: Class 2-3 descent, Class 4 summit pitch (for both summits)
- “The Incisor” to optional highpoint “Flathead”: Class 2+ descent, Class 3 ascent
- Descent to highest lake “Timo’s Tarn” for simplicity, officially unnamed: Class 3
- Follow the basin east toward Zirkel: Class 2+
- From low saddle west of Zirkel south to Gilpin Trail: Class 2
- Gilpin Trail to Trailhead: Class 1

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Regional Introduction

For a very long and probably overly detailed explanation, click here.

The Park Range has three pieces. The southern piece is called the Gore Range, the middle part is low and forested (think Rabbit Ears Pass), and the Northern Park is largely in the Mt. Zirkel Wilderness. The southern and northern portions have exquisite scrambling, and after completing the Big Agnes West Ridge Route (with the Spike add-on), I wanted to explore all the ridges around there.

The area I’m focusing my efforts on is the Sawtooth Range, the spindly ridges that lead up to and around Big Agnes. You access this area from Slavonia Trailhead, which is about an hour north of Steamboat, near the town of Clark.

This particular journey includes a series of soft-ranked summits on a north-south oriented ridge north of Big Agnes and some quality off-trail navigation.

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Resources

Weather, always check the weather. This area does not have a hugely reliable forecast; expect high variability and come prepared. Unless you live in Routt County, make sure someone has a detailed plan of where you are going and how long you plan to be there.

For general lower trail conditions, you can use the Clark 7-day forecast. For the higher portion of the hike, Mt. Zirkel is the most reliable forecast.

Here are some local emergency numbers as well; stay safe out there.

Routt County Sheriff: 970-879-1090 (offices in Steamboat Springs)
Routt National Forest: 970-723-2700 (offices in Walden)

There are some resources that shed light on this region. Summitpost has a good Park Range page with mountain profiles; there are occasional Zirkel and Big Agnes reports on 14ers.com, and List of John has regional trail reports. The following photo journal is also a great resource for the Sawtooth Traverse, but it is a photo journal and doesn’t go into too many scrambling specifics. The definitive guidebook for the region was written by Joe Kramarsic, but it is not well distributed. You’ll have to hunt in local gear shops in Steamboat or perhaps Winter Park to find it. It’s listed on Amazon as “Mountaineering in the Park Range. A Guide to the Mountains of the Mount Zirkel-Dome Peak wilderness,” but has been unavailable every time I’ve checked. Hopefully, this guide helps fill in some knowledge gaps.

Directions to Trailhead: Type Slavonia Trailhead or Seedhouse Road into your phone and follow the directions. If you’re coming from the Front Range, expect somewhere between 4 and 6 hours.

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The Approach

Since the approach is the same for the West Ridge of Big Agnes, I just copy/pasted from that guide. If you’re interested in that scrambling route, here’s a link to that post.

From the trailhead, pick up the only trail as it heads northeast-ish. Only a few points of a mile into the hike, you’ll come across a trail junction. Take the left branch (Gilpin Trail); the right one heads to Gold Creek Lake. Continue along the trail as it ascends a smaller valley and skirts a larger burn area. You’ll be seeing lots of burn evidence on this hike. The late 90s saw a devastating wind event in the region, followed by a pine beetle infestation and a couple of fires (~2002). Combine that with the deeep regional snowfall (~500+ inches a year), and I think trees have just had a really hard time bouncing back. It’ll look a little bare on the approach, but for the first 1.25 miles, you stay in a treed area and only skirt the scars.

The next junction is with the Micah Basin Trail; take a left and head up the valley. The approach into the basin is a good 700 or so vertical feet in less than a mile. It’s not so bad in the morning, but from late July-early September, if you go up this stretch, put on some sunscreen, it gets bright.

Once you get into the basin, the elevation gain lessens, and you meander along the trail as it winds higher among fields, burn scars, and babbling brooks. Eventually, you cross a crest of land and can stare down a small rise to the shores of Micah Lake. Your introduction is over. Micah lake is about 4 miles in, so it’s really not a bad approach, and all on easily identifiable trails.

Micah Lake.

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To the “Incisor” (Class 4)

Instead of heading directly north to the low saddle visible from Micah Lake, you want to head northeast into the higher part of Micah Basin. A good visual cue is to head right from the lake shoreline and keep the rock towers of “The Spike” clearly framed to your left.

Once you get beyond the towers, a steep but Class 2 slope will present itself and you can get onto the ridge without too much difficulty.

The key to this ascent is to stay to the left of a thick patch of Krummholz. These low-lying subalpine pine shrugs are very hardy plants and will scratch the shit out of you if you try to break through a patch. It’s much easier to just go around them until you hit the ridge.

The blue arrows in the picture above show the ascent route to the ridgeline. Everything from Big Agnes to the left is part of the prominent N-S ridge that makes up the bulk of what’s considered to be a part of the “Sawtooth Range.” There are other components of the range on the other side of Big Agnes.

Once you hit the ridgeline, you can turn west (left) and see the isolated but very gratifying set of rocky towers known as “The Spike.” There’s also a smaller north-south ridge that has a prominent rock tower on it called “The Grand Central Tooth,” according to ListofJohn. Other online references to this rock are rare or nonexistent; I’ll use the name’s I can find. If I can’t find a name, I’ll create one to help with orientation. A lot of the peaks around here don’t have names, and if they do, they are unofficial.

The “Grand Central Tooth.”

If you’re looking at Grand Central Tooth, head east (right), following the ridgeline as you skirt to the left of the Krummholz patch and ascend a Class 2 grassy slope up to “Middle Agnes.” As you ascend, you’ll get stunning views of one of the most dramatic cliff lines in the area (Mt. Zirkel’s west slope being the other contender). Now, these aren’t the most dramatic cliffs in the state, probably not even the top 100 (or 200, tbh), but for the region, they are stark, shapely, and give you a preview of the summits you’ll be on. Rest assured, the other side is easier to scamper across, but I wonder if there’s a scrambling way up those cliffs that does two things 1. stays fun, 2. avoids roped climbing pitches. Further exploration is required.

At one point there’s a small cluster of rocks on the ridgeline, you can just hop around it to the right to keep everything in the Class 2 range.

Stay to the right of the rock cluster on the ridgeline.

If you haven’t yet, hop up to the top of Middle Agnes, an obvious high point in the shadow of Big Agnes’s North Wall. Instead of working your way to Big Agnes, you’re going to head north (left if you’re looking at the view in the picture below).

From Middle Agnes, looking over to Zirkel.

The ridge from this perspective doesn’t nearly as intense as it did from the ascent up Middle Agnes, but it has a few surprises waiting for you.

Here, again, is the link to a GoPro video detailing all ridgeline issues and challenges. It does not show how to get back, only the scrambling parts!

The first question you should ask yourself is, “how do I get off this thing?” Which, as it turns out, is not so easy and makes up your first challenge.

Blue=Class 2, Red=Class 3, Purple=Class 4, Orange=Class 5

There are two options, you can head north from the summit of Middle Agnes and piece together a relatively short but very significant Class 5 downclimb to the next saddle, or you can take the loose way around (Class 3).

The Class 5 downclimb looks like this from the next saddle to the north.

Short but consequential Class 5 downclimb off of Middle Agnes.

You don’t really get a look at the downclimb until you’re on top of it, so I decided to find a way around. Turns out there is a navigationally easy alternative but probably my least favorite part of this hike. It’s not long, it’ll take you only a few minutes, but everything moves. It’s San Juan scree meets off-trail Cascade volcanic crap. Is it doable? Yeah, absolutely. But go slow, check every hold, and don’t be surprised if you slide and/or have to kickstep a bench out of the loose slope to stabilize yourself.

This part kinda sucks, but it’s not long; just go slow and double-check everything. The good news is that you do not have to do this part again if you make a loop out of your route.

Once you make it to the first saddle, you need to scramble up Class 3 blocks to the top of Highpoint 1. This one isn’t that visible from the approach and only has like 40 feet of prominence, but it’s in your way, and you need to deal with it.

What’s not apparent from the short scramble to the top is that the majority of Class 3 scrambling on Highpoint 1 comes on the descent to the following saddle. It’s stable for the most part, 3.5/5 if 5 is the sturdiest bomber rock you ever held, but there are a few places where careful foot selection will help you out. You can descend about 2/3 of the way along the ridge crest. However, the endcap is a bit of a cliff. Bounce right and traverse around to avoid having to backtrack.

Looking back up at Highpoint 1 from a section of Class 3 scrambling.

The scrambling is pretty involved and interesting, but the best view of this stretch of the route isn’t from the ridge. On your return journey, you’ll be able to snag the view below.

The rock striations on Highpoint 1 are really fun to look at. Red=Class 3, Blue=Class2.

Once you get off the rocky ridge, you’ll end up in a Class 2 saddle. The rest of the ascent to “Molar Tooth,” which was probably the most obvious high point you saw on the approach, is a pretty easy Class 2+ affair. The only real scrambling is a couple feet near the top.

This part of the route is lovely and rolling. Enjoy it while it lasts. As you descend off of the “Molar Tooth,” make sure to stay closer to the ridgeline so you can enjoy the dramatic western profile of the ridge.

Looking back to “Molar Tooth” Blue=Class 2.

You’ll descend toward the notch between “Molar Tooth” and “Golden Tooth”, which seems to go at an easy Class 2 until you hit the Trench. This gouged-out section of the ridge forces you into some brief Class 4 downclimbing. It’s only a couple of moves but may come as a shock given the gentle nature of “Molar tooth.”

The view ahead as you get closer to the Trench shows the gnarly sides of both “Golden Tooth” and the “Incisor.”

Like the Class 5 downclimb off of Middle Agnes, you don’t really see the Trench until you’re right on top of it. The best perspective is actually down by one of the two lakes you’ll visit later. I’m calling it Timo’s tarn bc it doesn’t have a name, and since there are two lakes, it’ll be easier to reference later in the report, but you can call it whatever you want.

The Trench is an interesting and abrupt feature. The geology in this area is super cool with lots of interesting rocks shapes, striations, and colors. Purple=Class 4, Red=Class 3, Blue=Class2.

The descent isn’t long, and despite the near-vertical look, there are two variations that stay Class 4 and make use of a slanted boulder that keeps the difficulty from shooting into the Class 5 range. (Check out the footage here.)

Once you’re down in the trench, you’ll notice that the rock lining the other side has a few more breaks in it, which gives you more to work with. There’s a nice Class 4 climb (optional) and an easier Class 3 traverse to a Class 2 slope.

Purple=Class 4, Red=Class 3, Blue=Class 2

Whenever you’ve picked your route, work your way out of the trench and reclimb up to “Golden Tooth.” If you took the easier traverse, the scrambling is majority Class 2, with a short/fun Class 3 section near the top.

The Class 3 scrambling section up to the top of “Golden Tooth.” The rock is sturdy and a nice break from the rolling tundra you’ve been moving through, but like previous sections, it’s over pretty quickly.

“Golden Tooth” is the last summit before you get to the “Incisor.” Again, summit is a bit of a stretch. I think we’re looking at like 80 ft. or prominence…maybe. But it has nice scrambling, and the views keep getting better the farther north you go. I think the best perspective I’ve found for “Golden Tooth,” was taken on a subsequent trip up Little Agnes. It hides from most perspectives, but when you’re climbing up it from the Trench, it certainly feels like enough of a highpoint to warrant acknowledgment.

Taken from Little Agnes’s East Ridge, another Class 4 route in an area that’s just full of ’em.

There’s a bit of Class3 downclimbing but nothing substantial, and before you know it, you’re knocking on the “Incisors” door. To me, this was the most consequential summit. There are two summit blocks, both require a little Class 4, and the rock is glorious. Despite the exquisite scrambling, both sections are short, which is another staple of the route. I believe the western summit is higher, and it also has the most gratifying scrambling on it. The best way to dispense with it is to move up between the two summits, drop your pack, and hit the western one first.

Generalized look. Purple=Class 4, Red=Class 3, Blue=Class 2

The western summit is basically one intact rocky slab that has an astounding amount of exposure to the north. The exposure to the south is less scary, but a slip will absolutely send you tumbling head over heels down to more dangerous terrain. This is very clearly a no-fall zone.

I climbed up according to the alt. route in the picture below, but you can squeeze in a little extra Class 3 before a few non-negotiable Class 4 moves if you hit the ridgeline between the two summits first and then turn left toward the western summit.

Despite the short duration, this is the best section of rock on the whole ridge. You can find a few variations to work with; the rock quality is 5/5, and if you combine this summit with the eastern one, you get to stretch the scrambling out for longer.

Careful up top; not a whole lot of room. Looking back east, you can zero in on the route up the other summit block, which wasn’t 100% visible from below.

Fun, fun, fun. Purple=Class 4, Red=Class 3.

Both summits are really fun, the western one feels more dramatic and exposed, but the eastern one has better views toward Zirkel and the massive untrailed basing between it and you. What’s nice from this perspective is you can piece together a visual route into that basin, cuz if you do the loop, that’s where ya going. (If you have the time, you want to do this, but it is longer and has way more off-trail navigation.)

Once you’ve had your fill of the “Incisor,” you could start to head down into the basin with the lakes, but I would recommend going a bit farther. There’s a high point that’s been hidden this entire time, and it’s a fun 3rd Class scramble. Plus, you get some great looks at the rock walls on the “Incisor’s” north side.

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Extra Credit (Class 3) “Flathead Rock”

The first cool part about this added little section is that you can descend reasonably close to the Incisor’s dramatic north face without having to do anything more than Class 2+.

The descent is Class 2 to the next saddle.

The scrambling on Flathead Rock is fun. You start right on the ridgeline and ascend up to just below the summit block; this gives you great sections of Class 3 scrambling. Once you make it up to below the highest part, the easiest thing to do is traverse to the right and scout a way around.

Probably my favorite view of the whole day, especially with the warm afternoon light.

You’ll start on a grassy bench that narrows down to a slanted rock. Traversing the slanted rock is solidly Class 3 with exposure behind you. Once you turn the corner, you’ll end up on another bench.

Now, turn to find the highest rock (hard left) and scamper up (Class 3). I ended up taking a nice long break up here, it’s a cool spot with killer views of the Incisor to the north, the Castle, and whatever sharp, mystery peak is in front of it.

From here, the main ridge you’ve been on dips to its lowest col before climbing back up to the Castle. It makes for a natural break. My original plan was to do the whole ridge up to the Castle but sometimes life shits on your plans. I got a bead leak in my tire pulling into Steamboat so my early start was replaced with 2 hours of waiting for a shop to open and another 2 to get it fixed, plus another hour to the trailhead. I don’t think I hit the trail before 10:30, so by the time I got to Flathead Rock, the afternoon was in full swing and I had hours of off-trail travel ahead of me. Flathead ended up being the last summit on the day but because of the views, probably my favorite on the day. I’ll have to come back for the Castle and it’s crazy looking neighbor.

Chronogically, Gopro video coverage ends on the top of Flathead Rock.

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Tarns, Basins, and Off-Trail Beauty (Class 3)

From the Flathead Rock/Incisor area, though, you have the easiest exit off the ridge. If you went out to the Castle, you’d have to budget another hour or two for going out and coming back. I don’t know if the ridge north of the Castle goes and if it does you’ll just end up farther from where you started. Coming back over the ridge seems to be the best one-day option.

Work your way back to the saddle between Flathead Rock and the Incisor. From there, head SE toward Timo’s tarn.

There’s a grove of krummholz here that you can try to skirt to the south, though you then have to deal with loose traversing. You can also pick a path through the krummholz veering left to stay on its northern side, where the scrambling is less. Between the krummholz are a few lines of rock steps, so be prepared for those (Class 3).

The rock most prominent rock tower, is the Eastern Summit of The Incisor.

Once free of the steepest part of the descent, it’s an easy Class 2 stroll to the lakeside. However, the shoreline has a lot of rock alongside it, so anticipate some Class 3 scrambling to get to the outflow stream when you’re ready to leave the area. If it’s a hot day, the lake is deep enough for a jump and, at least when I was there, had a wonderful greenish hue.

The echo is also pretty good here, so if you take a dip, follow that up with a nice shout to see if you can hear it bouncing off the ridges. All in all, this is a very cool place and still allows you two options to get back. Reclimb the few hundred feet to the ridge and backtrack, or head downhill and deeper into the basin.

If you go deeper into the basin, your first challenge is getting away from the shoreline. The best thing to do is climb above the shoreline and traverse across until you can hop down to gentler terrain on the southern edge of the lake.

Once you’re clear of the lake, follow the drainage down, clinging to the left (north) side for easier movement (Class 2). The outflow stream starts underground before reappearing farther down, but anything close to the water will be slippier.

On this stretch, you get some interesting views back up to the ridgelines around Big Agnes, including a cool look up to the South Summit of Big Agnes from below some gnarly cliffs.

Looking down the valley, you get an idea of where you want to go. Ideally, you want to stay closer to the ridgeline on your right (which looks super gnarly and is on my scramble list).

Looking back up from where you came you can see that the easiest descent (or ascent) route is hugging the north side of the drainage.

I think there’s probably a way to rope in a shoreline traverse of the other unnamed lake in the basin, but it won’t make for your fastest route. In my situation, running out of daylight, I was going for the easiest route out of this wild, trailless, and miles-from-my-car mountain basin. Below is the route I settled on. It worked well.

The high route in the pic above (high as in you never quite descend down to the other lake) is the faster way out of this basin. There’s a decent amount of sidehilling, but it’s not more than a few Class 2+ moves. Essentially, you descend down to the outflow stream, cross it, and find a way to attack the grassy bench just to the south of the lake. Then, wrap-around, regaining a bit of elevation, until you can see a diagonal slot (pointing up and to the left) that’ll take you around another finger of land.

Even if you had the time to go down to the lake, I’d recommend skipping it and traversing above because of the views of the Castle. They just keep getting better and better.

And look, once again, these aren’t 14ers, they don’t have thousand-foot uninterrupted cliffs, but this area is surprisingly rugged, wild, and beautiful.

Anyway, now that you’re traversing above the lake, time to look for your next marker.

Forgive the bad quality of the pics above; however, they do a great job of showing the whole traverse. Once you make it to the end of the ramp, turn right and enter another basin, this time with the flanks of Mt. Zirkel just to the east of you.

Work your way up forgiving ground in a S-SE direction, taking care not to lose elevation or cliff out. Eventually, a super loose gully will separate you from the pass you’re going for. DO NOT TRAVERSE THIS SLOPE. I did, and it blew chunks; wasted a lot of time in there. Can you? Yeah, but if you’re doing this loop the way I’m describing, this far into the journey, you’re going to be tired and more susceptible to mistakes. Mentally, it may be tough, but the best thing to do is drop a couple hundred feet to more stable ground and then reclimb up to the pass.

The reason traversing high is crap is because it’s steep, there’s no grass or solid slope to get traction, and the rocks are all small, meaning any bit of movement starts a slide. Plus, for your convenience, you’ll be traversing below crumbly cliffs that almost certainly contain rockfall danger. It’s just crap; drop down and go around.

Once you finally make it to the saddle, you’re out of one trailless basin and into another. Luckily, now you’re on the right side of the range. Let’s take a look at a map of your progress since Flathead Rock.

Nice! You cover a good amount of distance in this basin, but there is an issue. Do you see any indication of Gilpin Lake Trail in the pic above? Nope, because it’s still far below the bottom frame. It’s off-trail till you reconnect, but thankfully, it’s downhill and fairly intuitive.

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Return to Gilpin Trail (Class 2)

Follow the drainage down. From the saddle, connect fields and rocky benches together in a southward direction. You want to eventually get on the right (west) bank of the stream that starts from a small tarn you can see from the saddle. The ground is uneven, and this late into the hike, perfect ankle-rolling territory, Be cautious!

As you make your way down the valley, you’ll notice the Pt. 11,580 sticking up like a sore thumb; the easiest route is to stay relatively close to its flanks.

This strategy works well for a while but finding a good place to meet the Gilpin Trail takes a little creative navigation. If you stay on your trajectory, using Pt. 11,580 as a wall to your right, you could end up trending parallel to the trail without connecting, which is a grand ole way to waste more time and energy (says the guy who did exactly that). On a follow-up mission to scramble Bulwark Ridge, I did find what I think is the best reconnection strategy.

It’s not foolproof, but eventually, the terrain features a series of bogs and meadows. The temptation is to stay to the right to avoid them, however, if you find yourself on a rib of rock. Turn to the right and see if you see this view.

If you can, turn around and veer downhill and diagonal left (east-southeast). You’ll pass through a few more fields, some wetter than others, but there are many game trails to follow. Keep a true south trajectory when able, and you should pop into the trail right here.

Don’t expect the last part of this to be smooth. It’s tough bushwhacking and checking orientation often that ultimately got me to this spot.

Back on the trail, bust ass to your car, just remember, it’s still a few miles to Slavonia.

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Conclusion and Future Adventures

I loved this hike for a variety of reasons. The scrambling on the Incisor was short but very fun and well-worth the ridge walk. Flathead Rock was kind of the surprise hit, I really enjoyed that highpoint. The tarns are also delightful, and worth an alpine dip. The trailless basin you end up in has some of the best views of the whole region and it all feels very wild. Plus, you can make a loop out of it. This is an unexpected and surprising route for those interested in getting way more than the map suggests you will.

My next adventure in the region was a route up to and across Bulwark Ridge (my name, it officially doesn’t have one) which ended up being more committing and, in my opinion, more of a classic high peaks scramble than Big Agnes’s West Ridge. Stick around for that one!

Big Agnes Mountain West Ridge (Class 4) w/ Optional “Spike” Traverse (Class 4)

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Looking to Mt. Zirkel from below Big Agnes’s true summit

TLDR: Big Agnes Mountain has a few ascent routes, this is the most difficult while still allowing access without ropes. It’s a really fun, dramatic route with short periods of intense scrambling followed by very pleasant alpine strolling. The scrambling (both up Big Agnes’s north summit/west ridge and around the Spike) certainly demand attention and careful route selection but aren’t as difficult or nearly as long as something like the North Ridge of Lead Mountain. However, for such a geographically small area, the scrambling possibilities are explosive. There are many, many individual rock formations that you could add to the adventure, although many of them require ropes. In most cases, you can just breeze right by them so the variety of possibilities is a highlight. This route takes advantage of easy access, offers great views of the Sawtooth Range, sections of superlative scrambling and stellar views of Mt. Zirkel. I have two Gopro videos that show both the Spike and the W. Ridge. You’ll find links sprinkled throughout the article. There’s no volume, it’s really for informational purposes and goes well with the route description below. “Spike Traverse,” “Big Agnes W. Ridge.”

-via W. ridge and the Spike: ~10.6 miles (+ 3,920 ft.)

-via W. ridge and the Spike Bypass: ~10.25 miles (+ 3,770 ft.)

Each bullet point below is hyperlinked, just click it to go to that section of the report. At the bottom of each section is another hyperlink back to the table of contents. Endless scrolling is annoying, hopefully this helps.

Preface/Rating System
Introduction to the region (lots of maps and geography talk)
Resources
The Approach
The Spike Option ie. full West Ridge Traverse (Class 4)
Spike Bypass
Big Agnes West Ridge (Brief Class 4)
Descent Options
Conclusion/Future Reports

Starting along the ridge to the Spike. Peak 11,777 is the large peak, and Pt. 11,820 is the mountain farther behind.

Preface/Rating System

Quick disclaimer: I like to highlight and mark-up some of my pictures for route clarification.

Black/white lines= general directions, landmarks and/or Class 1 sections.
Blue Lines=Class 2 sections.
Red= Class 3 sections.
Purple = Class 4 sections.
Orange = Class 5.

Quick Stats:

Highest point: 12,060 ft. on Big Agnes Mountain’s middle summit (there are three)
YDS breakdown
- Approach to Micah Lake: Trailed Class 1
- Low saddle north of Micah Lake: Class 2
- Direct approach that skips the “Spike”: Class 2+
- “The Spike” (optional but very fun): Class 4
- The North Summit of Big Agnes from this route: Class 4
- Descent route: Class 2+

The Class 4 challenge on the way to Big Agnes, the North and south summits are showing; the true summit is hidden. You’ll ascend just to the left of the obvious cliff face.

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Introduction

So, the Park Range. it’s a lower, lesser-known, and difficult range to reach, despite relatively good access from the Steamboat area. Resources are scarce, although there are some (discussed in the Resources section), so my scrambling partner and I were flying a bit blind. A lot of this adventure was an exploratory endeavor, and I think the route represents a really good case study of the type of terrain available here. The rock is generally very solid around Big Agnes but gets less solid around Mt. Zirkel and the Continental Divide.

Since many people recreate in Colorado without ever stepping foot in this part of the state, I think it’s beneficial to play a little geography catch-up.

Here’s a big overview of the main ranges of Colorado. By the way, I hope you are a map person. Slide the bar to the right to see a PARTIALLY labeled map. The partially labeled map shows areas many people are familiar with but also leaves some notable areas out, like the Grand Mesa, Rabbit Ears Range, Roan Cliffs, Uncompahgre Plateau, and The Park Range.

If you’re wondering what the numbers in the Front Range Zone represent, here they are:

1. Medicine Bow Range (NOT Medicine Bow Peak, that’s in the same range but north of the border in Wyoming. A lot of people just call these the Rawahs because of the wilderness area and to avoid confusion.)
2. Never Summer Range.
3. The Mummy Range.
4. The most popular area of Rocky Mountain National Park, west of the town of Estes park. The east/northeastern part of the Never Summers and all of the Mummy Range belong in the park as well.
5. The Indian Peaks Wilderness
6. James Peak Wilderness
7. The mountains around I-70 i.e. Loveland Pass, Pettingell, Citadel, Grays/Torreys, Evans etc.
8. The Pikes Peak Massif, kinda off on its own
9. The Wet Mountains

Wow, great, cool, super nice, but where’s the Park Range? Great question; it be here.

There are three broad areas of the Park Range that, combined, make for a continuous uplift area about 180 miles in length before jumping the border into Wyoming. Big Agnes and Mount Zirkel are located in the Northern Park Range, which we’ll be focusing on.

The middle section of the Park Range is a lower, rolling area with thick forests (Sarvis Creek Wilderness is a notable feature, along with the Colorado River breaking through the range just west of Kremmling). If you’ve ever driven over Rabbit Ears pass on US 40, that’s a great example of the terrain typically associated with that region.

The southern part of the range is really dramatic and known as the Gore. This part of the Park Range is well-known and well-loved for a truly mind-boggling amount of scrambling and peak bagging. The Northern Park Range is similar in its offerings but much less expansive.

Sweet, let’s zoom in on the northern part of the range, again, with an unlabeled and labeled map; just slide the indicator to toggle between them.

Zoomed in on the Park Range north of US 40 and Rabbit Ears Pass

Yeah, so, a lot going on. Steamboat Springs is on the southwest side of the range; the higher peaks are to the north and east. There’s also the lower Elkhead range, which is an East-West oriented range that includes Hahns Peak, a popular hike and backcountry ski. Hahns Peak is NOT in the Park Range. Adding to the confusion is the Sierra Madre, or what Wyoming calls the Park Range, which spills north into Wyoming. Jury’s out on whether or not the Sierra Madres is distinct enough to be its own range (geologically, it’s part of the Park Range), but again, these distinctions begin to matter when you live around here or recreate in the area and are trying to relay accurate locational information. For now, there’s the Sierra Madre and the Northern Park Range, which bears similarities to the 10 Mile/Mosquito Range issue (same range geologically, but separate names and divided arbitrarily at a point). The 10 Mile/Mosquitos are divided at Hoosier Pass, the Parks and the Sierra are divided along the drainage of the Northern Elk River and the Encampment River.

Don’t worry, there’s more! Let’s zoom in on the Zirkel/Agnes zone, one of two major alpine uplift zones that make up the meat of the Northern Park Range.

The southern zone is almost as high but doesn’t quite make 12k. The southern zone is notable for large stretches of alpine (treeline is quite a bit lower this far north) and contains a ton of large permanent snowfields on the eastern flank of peaks like Mt. Ethel and Lost Ranger (turns-all-year people take note).

The Zirkel/Agnes zone (northern zone) contains the Northern Park Ranges only 3 official 12ers and can be subdivided further (because, of course, it can).

Confused yet? Here’s the gist. The Northern Park Range has two major alpine zones; we’re focusing on the northern one, which is largely accessed by one trailhead: Slavonia.

This zone can be divided into two components based on rock quality. There’s the looser rock quality along the Continental Divide spine and the bomber rock hidden in the Sawtooth range. The Continental Divide portion has the range’s two highest peaks (Zirkel and Flattop); both are longer journeys but don’t exceed Class 2 and are beautiful. The area has some backpacking potential as well, especially near Gilpin and Gold Creek Lake (not allowed to camp within 1/4 mile of either). The trails that connect the two lakes to the trailhead make up a loop called the Zirkel Circle or Zircle. That is probably the best way to experience the area without going too crazy because it’s a great loop and it’s on an established trail network. If you want Big Agnes, you gotta get off-trail no matter what route you pick.

For the adventure-oriented and scrambling-minded folks, let’s do one more zoom-in, this time focusing on the best part of this area (and a top-five candidate for the best area in northern colorado if you ask me), the Sawtooth Range. I’ve also drawn the general overview of the West Ridge Big Agnes route. Don’t worry, route descriptions are still coming, along with a shitload of pics and extra maps.

There are MANY more peaks than what I’ve labeled, most are soft-ranked (under 300 ft. of prominence) but totally worth exploration.

The Sawtooth Range is exquisite, and Big Agnes is its heart. However, if you look online, you will find very few pics and descriptions of the area. This is due to a variety of reasons, including a lack of online reporting and the generic-ass name. There are Sawtooths everywhere. There’s the Sawtooth Traverse, a very popular and well-documented intro Class 3 scramble between Mt. Evans and Mt. Bierstadt. There’s also Sawtooth Mountain, a 12,300-foot peak in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. There’s even a Sawtooth Mountain in the remote Elkhead Mountains. The Sawtooth designation doesn’t end in Colorado either; Idaho’s Sawtooth Range is one of the prettiest in the western US; there’s even a set of Sawtooth Mountains in Minnesota.

Understandably, this Sawtooth Range (the rugged subrange that includes Big Agnes) is tougher to get info on. This is kind of a double-edged sword, though. Despite weekend popularity and high traffic around Gilpin Lake, once you barrel into the arms of the Sawtooth, you will likely be all alone. The exceptions are Micah Lake and the two of three routes up Big Agnes that don’t involve Class 4 scrambling. If you do see people on this route, they’re likely just as nuts as you are.

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Resources

For general lower trail conditions, you can use the Clark 7-day forecast. For the higher portion of the hike, Mt. Zirkel is the most reliable forecast.

Here are some local emergency numbers as well; stay safe out there.

Routt County Sheriff: 970-879-1090 (offices in Steamboat Springs)
Routt National Forest: 970-723-2700 (offices in Walden)

Directions to Trailhead: Type Slavonia Trailhead or Seedhouse Road into your phone and follow the directions. If you’re coming from the Front Range, expect somewhere between a 4 and 6-hour commute. Plan accordingly. The last 6 miles are on a relatively easy dirt road but there are some sections of washboard to watch for.

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The Approach

From the trailhead, pick up the only trail as it heads northeastish. Only a few points of a mile into the hike, you’ll come across a trail junction. Take the left branch (Gilpin Trail); the right one heads to Gold Creek Lake. Continue along the trail as it ascends a smaller valley and skirts a larger burn area. You’ll be seeing lots of burn evidence on this hike. The late 90s saw a devastating wind event in the region, followed by a pine beetle infestation and a couple of fires (~2002). Combining that with the deeep regional snowfall (~500+ inches a year), I think trees have just had a really hard time bouncing back. It’ll look a little bare on the approach, but for the first 1.25 miles, you stay in a treed area and only skirt the scars.

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The Spike Option (Class 4, optional but the best scrambling on the route)

Right, so north of Micah Lake is a low saddle that separates the east ridge of Little Agnes with the ridge leading up to The Spike and eventually Big Agnes. Head for it.

GoPro footage of the scramble.

If you look to the right as your finding a way beyond Micah Lake, you should be able to see the profile of the Spike.

Clamber up to the low saddle, where you’ll notice fire damage from the Mt. Zirkel Complex Fire (~2002) to the north and the effect it has on the landscape, which is…yeah, pretty noticeable.

Head east (right), up a steep slope with sections of dead trees. This first part is somewhere in the Class 2 range and gains elevation quickly.

The higher you go, the better the views become. There are great perspectives to the south, where you can see all the way down to the Lost Ranger and Mt. Ethel region, which is the other large alpine area of the Northern Park’s.

Little Agnes also starts to take shape behind you, along with its apparently Class 4 east ridge (on the to-do list).

What really steals the show, though, is your view east, which reveals a dramatic profile of the Sawtooth Range.

This view continues to change and impress as you traverse the spike. In fact, the whole route from here on out has plenty of great mountain views to stare at and scramble over. The sharp and serrated profile of the ridges in the Sawtooth is a route highlight.

The ridge will stay class Class 2 as you descend a bit off of the first high point you reach. As you start to gain elevation on the other side of a shallow col, the first scrambling section appears.

You’ll cross into Class 3 territory as you negotiate a rock band on the ridge crest. There are several options to choose from, and if you get to the Class 3 section on the ridgecrest and don’t like what you see, head right, following the rock band. The rock will break in a few spots allowing for a few additional Class 3 options to consider that will reconnect you with the ridge crest.

In either scenario, you’ll continue along the ridgecrest, deploying Class 3 and Class 3+ moves where necessary. The rock quality is great, with plenty of holds. The ridge narrows, and you get to stay on it for a few seconds before the route briefly banks to the right to avoid a wall. Once you get around this (Class 3 light), the ridge widens out a bit and softens with more grassy saddles.

The next section as you near the tallest part of the Spike.

This is very typical of the Sawtooth Range. There are stretches of superlative rock scrambling, but those sections are often broken up by mixed terrain. It certainly keeps you on your toes, but none of the scrambling sections on this route are what I would consider relentless.

With the summit tower of The Spike, the strategy is to head right and circle around. The exposure is very high to the north (left) if you decide to take a look that way. There is a route that hugs the summit block and goes at easy-moderate Class 3, with a final small Class 3 slab to climb before relenting back to Class 2. A rocky side ridge blocks you from maintaining your elevation line, so the only way to continue is to work back up to the ridge crest, now on the other side of the summit tower.

**This route does not climb the top of the Spike, to do that I think you’ll need to still circle around the tower and attack it from the east, it could go at exposed Class 4 but I didn’t scout it, will report back when I do!

Once you work back up to the ridge you have a sneaky Class 3 descent before arriving at the next grassy col. This is the last break before the route crux, which is a really fun and engaging section.

From the grassy col, sight a diagonal line of rocks to the left of a very prominent rocky highpoint.

The first part of the route is a nice Class 3 section with good holds, then you hit a small shoulder and the difficulty bumps up to Class 4. The rock is delightful and there are great options for holds.

Once you get right up to the obvious highpoint rock, slide by on Class 3 terrain and approach another difficult section. The next part features two small leaps of faith sections where the ridge comes down to only a few feet in width (on good rock) and drops vertically on either side. The exposure to the north is, again, much more dramatic.

The first leap of faith section, you don’t actually have to leap but be very careful: Class 3+

The second section, with a class 4 downclimb into the notch. The rock is very grippy, and it’s 1-3 moves but with substantial exposure.

Once you get out of this section, the ridge begins to look a lot more accommodating, and for the most part, it is. However, like with the traverse around the highest tower of the spike, there is a sneaky descent here (Class 3+). The path is not straight down; hunt for options, and don’t be afraid to traverse around before settling on a route. There are a few chances to make this section harder than you’re intending.

After you drop off the last rocky part, you’re back to grassy alpine for a while. Descend to the right of one final rock fin, hit a lower saddle, and approach a thick line of krummholz atop another sneaky Class 3 rock band. The scrambling is easy and fun. Make sure to stay on the ridgeline to avoid the krummholz. Watch the exposure to your left(north), but this part doesn’t get harder than moderate Class 3 if that.

On the other side of the krummholz, you’ll see two rock towers along a softer stretch of the ridge and The Grand Central Tooth taking shape on a sub ridge to your north. This area is where the Spike Bypass comes in.

Looking back at the Spike section from beyond it.

Footage of The Spike Scramble

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The Spike Bypass

Now, let’s say you didn’t want any of that, and you just came to tag the Class 4 wall on the way to Big Agnes. Well, you can skip the Spike and its associated scrambling portions. The idea is to break from the trail at Micah Lake, and head east, higher into the basin. The vegetation is pretty sparse here, so orientation should be very simple on a clear day.

It’s easiest to break trail from the top of the ridge right before you get your first views of Micah Lake.

Keep the Spike to your left, traverse beyond the rock towers and sight a grassy slope leading up to the ridge with thick krummholz on its right (eastern) side. By the easiest route, you can keep this ascent at a mid-Class 2 and avoid the Spike. I would argue that including it adds to the route, but the option to skip it is certainly there.

As you climb up to the ridge, make sure to keep the krummholz to your right and sight the line of least resistance to the ridgeline. You’ll join the route from the Spike right after its difficulties relent and around a set of three rock towers. There are two smaller ones on the main ridgelines and a much larger tower on a spur ridge leading north (called “Grand Central Tooth” on Listofjohn).

The two smaller towers on the ridge are called “Baby Teeth,” according to ListofJohn, but I don’t know how I feel about that name. I kinda thought the eastern small tower looked like a howling Pika, so I’ll just call it that. You can scramble the Howling Pika at Class3+; the other tower looks harder. I think Grand Central Tooth also looks like a Class 5 endeavor.

The two smaller towers, Howling Pika is centered.

Head east and uphill to continue to Big Agnes.

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Big Agnes West Ridge (Brief Class 4)

Like the Spike portion, the start of the Big Agnes West Ridge route (post bypass) starts out pretty innocuously.

Seen from the end of the Spike scrambling. The Blue line below is the bypass option.

The trajectory is fairly self-explanatory. Stay closer to the ridge crest, avoid the krummholz and begin ascending up to “Middle Agnes.” This unofficial peak is attainable via Class 2+ scrambling, making it one of the easier peaks to reach in the Sawtooth. As you climb, the Sawtooth wall leading north from the Big Agnes Massif steals the show. The rock walls around the Incisor are particularly good-looking. On subsequent adventures, I went along that ridge and made it beyond the Incisor, look for that report soon.

As you ascend up the pleasant alpine slopes of “Middle Agnes,” you’ll run into one ridgeline obstacle. There’s some quick Class 3-4 scrambling involved here, but you can just as easily skip it all to the right.

After some huffing and puffing, you’ll top out on “Middle Agnes.” This is a great place to take a break with stellar views.

A trailless basin with two unnamed lakes and Mt. Zirkel in the background. I’m going to call the higher lake Timo’s Tarn because A. alliteration is easy to remember, B. I’m vain and wanted to use my name in something. If that don’t float your boat, you can call it something else; it has no official title, like many features in this area.

Don’t get too caught up in the view, though, because there’s a big ole wall that’s now in front of you, and you need to get around it to get up to Big Agnes. The wall leads to the summit of Big Agnes North, one of three summit blocks.

As you approach the wall, you may be wondering how on earth you’re going to be able to scale this thing without ropes. Well, there’s a sneak on the left-hand side that provides a (relatively) simple passage. Let’s walk through it. FYI: This will be another section of concentrated scrambling like the Spike, or it’ll be your scrambling intro if you hit the bypass. Get your game face on, it’s not long, but it is steep.

Scrambling footage

The first section involves some brief Class 3 scrambling along the ridge crest as you approach the wall of North Agnes.

You’ll stay along the crest (employing some moves to the north side to get around a small tower) until arriving at a set of white slanted blocky rocks. Here, you have two options, a Class 3 skirt to the left or a brief, fun Class 4 traverse along the very sturdy rocks.

Is there any benefit to the Class 4 way? Yeah, it’s fun. Practically, though, you can just skip it.

On the other side of this initial test piece, you’ll be on the slanted northern slope of the Big Agnes massif. The terrain here is a mix of solid rock sections and grassy benches, which are pretty but don’t offer the best traction. Pay attention to where you step and what you step on.

The first section along the white rocks. Red=Class 3, Purple=Class 4

The strategy now is to perform an ascending traverse along these grassy ledges while keeping the mostly solid cliffs close to your right-hand side. A few sections of traversing are necessary, but if you start losing elevation in this part, you’re doing something wrong.

Gopro still shot. Head to the red circle.

As you ascend towards what looks like a rockier section, two options open up for you.

The upper option is initially easier, taking advantage of a large, flat-ish rock, but ends in an awkward Class 4 traverse move to get into the right gully. The lower option traverses underneath the flat-ish rock, heads into the right gully, and then climbs it directly. In both scenarios, there is a move or two of Class 4, while the rest remains manageable Class 3.

Once you’re in the right gully, you climb up and bank left, following the natural lay of the land. This will deposit you on another series of grassy benches underneath a last quick pitch of Class2+/Class 3 scrambling. Once you find the easiest gully up, take it, scramble for a few seconds and then find yourself on a much more forgiving summit plateau.

Here’s the whole route from below.

From where you break through on the summit plateau, it’s only another 20 seconds to the top of Big Agnes North. Might as well touch it since you’re up there (Class 2).

Once satisfied with your first of 3 Big Agnes summits, turn south and sight the last mandatory Class 3 section. The basic pattern is ridgecrest (Class 3), dip left to circle around a small tower (Class 3, stay on the slanted rocks, it’s got better grip than the sandy chute below), scramble back to the ridgecrest (Class 2+).

When you’re beyond the Class 3 section, pick your easiest Class 2+ route up the blocky terrain to the highest summit. There’s a small plaque in this section; see if you can find it.

Continue up to the highest point, and just like that, Big Agnes is yours.

There is a southern summit that’s within a few feet of the true summit’s elevation. It takes a bit of Class 3 to reach, but nothing you haven’t already done.

To add the south summit, descend into the col, and work your way back up to the white rocks at the top.

Looking back at the other two summits from the col

The final push to the Southern Summit requires a handful of Class 3 moves on gloriously solid rock. Have fun!

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Descent Options

Once you’re done farting around on the summit, it’s time to pick your descent route. There are three options, repeat what you just did (hardest), choose a Class 2 route back into Micah Basin, or choose a longer Class 2+ route that leads southeast towards the Gilpin Lake Trail. I chose the Class 2 Micah Basin option; it’s easy to find, the off-trail veg is manageable, and you can reconnect with the Micah Basin Trail pretty simply.

Once you descend out of the upper basin between Big Agnes and Pt. 11,777, head west or southwest to reconnect with the Micah Lake Trail. The simplest strategy for the off-trail descent portion is to sight Micah Lake and head towards it. This may not be the most direct route, but you connect with the trail quickly, and then you can haul. Once you do, follow it south to its end, take a right and bust the 1.25 miles back to the trailhead. Nicely done, ya did it.

Scramble Video

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Conclusion/Future Reports

Big Agnes Mountain is one of 3 12,000 foot mountains in the Park Range. There are three ways up it, with the Class 4 west ridge providing the most in terms of scrambling. There are also three summits, a southern summit (Class 3), true summit (Class 2+) and a Northern Summit (Class 3 by easiest way, Class 4 via West Ridge).

I find this area fascinating for several reasons:

Rock Quality: Generally great, especially within the Sawtooth Range (Big Agnes and the ridges leading up to it).
Off-the-beaten-path: Solitude almost guaranteed if you hit Big Agnes via the Spike or any of the other spindly ridges in the area
Satisfying scrambling and views (largely Class 3-4 with harder stuff around)
Lots of rock climbing potential
Large alpine area for being so low. The tree line is also a lot lower so you get alpine ruggedness mixed with stretches of krummholz, thick alpine grass and occasional pine trees. It makes for a challenging and visually quite interesting smash of environments.
Generally manageable distances to get to most of these ridges, just a (potentially) long way to the trailhead
Lots of fun off-trail exploration (Pack your shit out though, like, all of it.)
TONS OF SNOW IN THE WINTER. Backcountry skiing looks like it would be excellent up here, most likely via snowmobile though, lots of winter gate closures limit cold weather access
Relatively contained area: i.e. depending on willpower and scrambling ability, you could check off the main ridges and peaks within a season or two

The next report will deal with the Incisor and the ridge to the north of Big Agnes, which makes for another excellent adventure. Look for that report soon!

Route preview for next report: The Incisor and off-trail exploration in the basin north and east of Big Agnes

Lead Mountain North Ridge: Crux of the Never Summers (Class 4)

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TLDR: This is a fantastic and remote adventure in RMNP that utilizes some of the best rock in the Never Summer Range. You approach from wild and remote Skeleton Gulch, hit the main Never Summer Crest between Tepee Mt. and Lead Mt., turn south and begin scrambling. The crux of the whole range is the North Ridge of Lead Mt. (Class 4). You can stay on the ridge for aaaalmost the whole way, and it makes for a great challenge. There do appear to be workarounds near the toughest sections, but they also feature Class 4 scrambling. Once above this, you ridge stroll on looser but generally OK rock to the actual summit of Lead (2+). Then, for the most expedient way down, take the East Ridge (Class 3+/4). You can descend via Hitchens Gulch, the Ditch Road, and Red Mountain Trail back to the Colorado River Trailhead, OR you can retrace through Skeleton Gulch, descend to the river trail via the lower part of Thunder Pass Trail and head south to the trailhead from there. For mountain masochists, you could try the entire Never Summer Traverse or take Thunder Pass to Static Peaks East ridge (solid rock and Class 3), climb that, tag Richthofen, head south to Tepee, tag Lead, and then pop off the crest via Lead’s East ridge. ~16-17 miles roundtrip. ~3500 ft. gain/loss.

Here’s a video of the whole North Ridge scramble up to the summit.

Preface/Rating System
Introduction
The Approach
The Route (Lead Mt. North Ridge Class 4)
Notes on the North Ridge
To the summit!
East Ridge

First light on the Never Summer Range from lower Skeleton Gulch. Tepee Mt. is the shape point right of the center.

Preface/Rating System

Quick disclaimer: I like to highlight and mark-up some of my pictures for route clarification.

Black/white lines= general directions, landmarks and/or Class 1 sections.
Blue Lines=Class 2 sections.
Red= Class 3 sections.
Purple = Class 4 sections.
Orange = Class 5.

Quick Stats: ~16-17 miles roundtrip. ~3500 ft. gain/loss.

Half pano of the area. “Never Summer Peak” is on the left, Lead Mt. is actually the next summit to the right, and the dominating North Ridge is the central high point. The range drops precipitously to the west.

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Introduction

The Never Summer Range is a fantastic, albeit lesser-known range of Rocky Mountain National Park. Part of its lesser-known status is due to a western location that’s harder to get to from the Front Range. During the winter Trail Ridge closes, giving the range another level of isolation. Another aspect is the lower elevation of the range. None of the peaks make it to the 13,000 ft. Access is also a bit helter-skelter. The eastern side you can get to from Trail Ridge. The northern side is best visited from Colorado 14 west of Cameron Pass. The western side you can get to from a few trailheads on long dirt roads, but it’s pretty scattershot.

The most popular area of the Never Summers is most likely the northern endcap, located in Colorado State Forest State Park (fees apply). From just west of Cameron Pass, you get a great look at it, and it’s jaw-dropping if you haven’t seen the Nokhu Crags before. Between the Crags, Richthofen (the highest in the range), Lake Agnes, and the American Lakes, this area pulls visitors. It’s also a popular backcountry skiing area in the winter. However, this area and the Rocky Mountain National Park area don’t connect unless you car position. So, they really operate separately.

Overall, the range does not have great rock. Many of the summits require scrambling on loose and uncomfortable slopes. That pattern breaks in three notable areas: the east ridge of Static Peak, the North Ridge of Lead Mountain, and the East Ridge of Lead Mt. After two adventures to the range, I had done Static peaks East ridge (Class 3) and Lead Mountains East Ridge (Class 3+/4). The only thing left was the crux of the range, a sizable Class 4 ridge scramble up the North side of Lead Mountain, then a downclimb of the Class 3+/4 East Ridge to get off the mountain. Kind of like my ascent of North Arapaho from Wheeler Basin and descent of the Arapaho Traverse, you get two scrambles for the price of one.

Lead Mts. East Ridge (3+/4). This is your quickest descent route and makes for a fine scrambling adventure on its own.

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The Approach

Lead Mountain is an oddly shaped peak on the Continental Divide between the bulk of Richthofen to the north (and the almost invisible from the ridgeline Tepee Mt. in front of it) and Cirrus to the south. It’s not the tallest peak in the range and is, in fact, hard to see from many areas of Trail Ridge that otherwise support fantastic views of Cumulus, Nimbus, Howard, and Richthofen. For elevation-oriented hikers and peak baggers, there isn’t much to love here, but for the discerning scrambler and explorer, Lead Mountain is a winner.

A rare view of Lead Mt. from the east, taken from near the Mt. Ida trail.

If you’re doing this in a day, I’d say start before dawn. The approach is largely trailed and easy to follow with a headlamp so you can burn some distance. From the Colorado River Trailhead, head north toward Lulu City. Make sure to follow the signs for Thunder Pass. The trail will initially follow the river, pass the Red Mountain Trail, and go up and over some meadows and steeper sections. Eventually, you’ll break left at a large intersection and head to Lulu City (between 3-3.5 miles, the trail signs are a bit off in this area).

At the plaque for Lulu, it seems like the trail splits again (do not take the left variety, it heads to the river and dies on the other side). Stick to the right-hand variation and continue toward a footbridge across the river. Once across, you’ll begin a steady rise to the Ditch Camp area (passing a trail junction with the Little Yellowstone Trail). When the trail dead-ends into what looks like an old logging road, head left and through the Ditch Camp Group sites.

Depending on how dark it is, there could be some momentary confusion here. You need to actually go through the Ditch Camp Group site (a large flat pad for tents should be visible on your right). After you pass the tent pad, look for this sign to continue to Skeleton Gulch.

On the other side, the trail meanders through the woods before connecting with the Grand Ditch. Almost directly across from where you are (slightly to the right), you’ll see a bridge over the ditch into Skeleton Gulch.

Take the trail ~1.2 miles up to the Skeleton Gulch campsite. From here on, you’re off-trail. You can either follow Sawmill Creek on its right (northern side) or go through the Skeleton Gulch campsite and cross the creek below it. In either scenario, you want to follow the stream uphill. The trees will break around the stream, and you’ll want to pick a gully on the northern side to gain some elevation. It’ll look like you’re heading up toward Richthofen, but this method avoids harder climbing.

Beautiful Skeleton Gulch. Lead Mt. is visible above and doesn’t look like much from here. Once you gain some elevation, the perspective shifts pretty quickly.

General route from higher in the gulch. Blue=Class2.

Once on a grassy plateau, sight the low point in the ridge to the left of the sharp Tepee Mt., which you can see from various points leading into Skeleton Gulch. If you choose your route well, you can get to the ridgeline without any Class 3 scrambling. From many points below, the North Ridge doesn’t look like much, but when you get up to the ridge, the seriousness of the route begins to take shape. Once you’re on the ridge, turn south and ascend to a high point (Class 2+). Once you top out on this ridge point, the rest of the route unfolds in front of you, and the scrambling begins.

Don’t worry, it’ll look a lot more intense when you get on the ridge. Purple=Class 4.

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The Route

From where you hit the ridge to the first high point requires a bit of Class 2+ navigating or light Class 3 if you stick to the ridgeline. It’s a nice intro but won’t last long.

Lots going on here, key takeaways: there are at least 3 sections of scrambling, each with Class 4 components (purple arrows). There are 2-3 ways to handle the crux, and the most direct way flirts with lower 5th class (Orange). Above the crux, there are some really great slabby climbing sections.

From the first ridge high point, a.k.a. the start of the scramble, this is what the rest of the ridge looks like.

You’ll start with some solid Class 3 scrambling that maintains elevation. For the most part, the rock is super solid; there were a few errant pieces that moved, so if you’re moving quickly, take a couple of extra seconds to check holds.

This part into a wild dip in the ridge where you’ll hit your first Class 4 downclimb and then a quick Class 4 reclimb up the other side.

I was both surprised by how long this first section took and how committing it ended up being. There were several sections where exposed climbing into and out of notches slowed me down, but the weather was gorgeous, there was almost zero wind, and the stellar rock helped A TON.

Eventually, you get up to a small knob that isn’t visible when you start but actually has a little prominence on either side. From here, you can stare up at the Crux section and contemplate your fate.

One of the more interesting perspectives of this area is actually from below. As you initially rise up from Skeleton Gulch, you can pick out some of the features I noted in previous pics.

Keep in mind, the ridge side facing us looks easy but a sizable cliff runs just below the picture frame which limits access to that side and you’d still need to scramble Class 4 sections to make it up to the ridgeline before cliffing out. Purple=Class 4, Orange=Class 5.

As you work way slowly up to the crux, the terrain hits high Class 4 pretty quickly and may sport a move or two at low 5. It’s certainly there if you want to stick true to the ridge. There are two “problems” you need to contend with if you employ a ridge-direct strategy: 1) there’s plant life growing in a seam you need to use to get up to the crux moves, and the alpine grasses in it are not great for foot traction. 2) An overhung lip limits your options to an exposed move to the ridge’s east side or squeezing into a pocket between two rocks and then figuring out how to scramble out of it.

Red=Class 3 approach to Class 4 alt. route. Orange=Class 5.

Although it’s still certifiably Class 4, there is a workaround to the right that breaks from the ridgeline briefly, attacks it at a relative weakness (light Class 4), and then turns left up this Crux Ridge (Class 4) until it reconnects with the main ridgeline above the Crux.

Work around. Once you get onto the Crux Ridge, there are a few surprisingly exposed Class 4 moves before you rejoin the main N-S Ridge Crest. Red=Class 3, Purple=Class 4, Orange=Class 5.

The workaround isn’t long and still gives you plenty to scramble over before you rejoin the ridge. You’re not saving a ton, but there are much better holds on the alternative route, and that can be a really nice confidence booster. If the ridge direct is calling, go for it, just know that it is harder.

Despite the difficulties near the ridgeline, the rock more than makes up for it all.

So, after the crux, you’re on to section three of the scramble. The difficulties are NOT over. However, the scrambling takes on more of a vertical profile. Up until the crux, you’ve gained maybe 150 ft. (net). The last section will pull you up another 250 ft. in short order. Thankfully, the rock remains wonderful, and you can stay true to the crest pretty much the entire way up.

You can pretty easily bail right and keep it at Class 3ish, but eventually you need to either go back to the ridge or climb up to the top of the rise, which could push you back into Class 3+/4. At this point, since the Crux is over, just stick to the ridge.

After some stout elevation gain, you’ll pop up to the top of the ridge, and the scrambling mellows back down into Class 2 terrain for a while. Congrats! Don’t take your foot off the pedal, though; you still need to go a quarter mile to tag Lead and then descend the East Ridge. Alternatively, you could go all the way to the saddle above Lake of the Clouds, but that requires additional miles, a 2+ traverse of all of Hart Ridge, and going up and over Cirrus.

Looking back after about 2/3rd of the way up the last section.

Here’s a link to Gopro Footage of the North Ridge scramble.

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Notes on the North Ridge

There isn’t much information out there on the North Ridge scramble; both Lisa Foster and Gerry Roach recommend staying west of the ridgeline for the majority of the scramble. The thing is they only have like a 3-4 sentence description of the whole route, which isn’t all that helpful aside from the generalized “stay west” advice.

I don’t know, partly because I love ridgelines and partly to prove that I could, staying on or within a few feet of the ridge crest was my goal, and it was exhilarating. This is a high-caliber Class 4 scramble. In the interest of transparency, I think you could possibly construct a bypass further west around more of the Crux ridge (like Foster and Roach suggest), but then you have to reclimb to the ridge; it’ll likely involve Class 4 sections anyway. The closest report I found that gives a bit more detail on a possible western workaround is here.

Sorry about the crap quality, taken on an old phone, but this is looking up at the Crux section.

Obviously, it’s a choose your own adventure type deal but let’s be real, if you’re out here trying to scramble this random ridge in a remote corner of Rocky Mountain National Park, you’re here because you enjoy scrambling on good rock in a pristine setting. If that’s the case, stay close to the ridge and enjoy the experience more.

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To the summit!

From the top of section three, you still have a quarter mile to go, but it’s easier. Note that the rock quality gets a little worse, still not bad, but off the crest, and even sometimes on the crest, stuff starts moving a bit. Watch for small rocks and if a rock looks loose, give it a tap with your hand or foot before putting weight on it.

If you stay close to the ridge, you can flirt with some exciting exposure back to Skeleton Gulch. There’s also a small section of optional Class 3 as you draw near the summit but you can just as easily skip it.

Getting closer! Red=Class 3, Blue=Class 2

After a steeper Class 2 pitch, you get up to the summit.

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Lead Mt’s. East Ridge

This is the fastest way down. I’d scrambled up this route before and combined it with Hart Ridge. The rock is solid, and it’s a pretty enjoyable route on its own. Here’s a description I wrote on it for the website SkyBlueOverland where I’m a frequent contributor. You can also check out this summitpost page as well, which I used to prep for the route.

Here’s the abridged version; start descending down the east ridge with substantial exposure to the north. The rock quality is excellent, but you’ll still have to perform a few awkward moves.

Pretty soon, you’ll top a small subpeak, and then the route drops quickly away, leading to the crux and a pseudo-knife edge.

Crux moves. Purple=Classs 4, Red=Class 3

After the crux, you’ll have to downclimb the knife edge. Move for move, it’s not bad; just don’t let your eyes drift too far downhill.

After the knife edge, the exposure drops a bit, but you still have a series of small points to get over before the scrambling relents. Depending on your mood, at this point, it can be nice to keep scrambling or annoying that you’re not done yet. Stay alert until you’re safely on the saddle between Lead Mt. and “Never Summer.”

Lead Mountain and the East Ridge from inside Skeleton Gulch.

Right, well, you can either drop into Hitchens Gulch (right) or circle back to Skeleton Gulch (left). Snow does linger in both gulches well into the summer, so make wide moves around any snowy surfaces unless you have spikes. You’re still 7ish miles from anything, so stay focused on the return journey to your car. Take your time descending into whichever gulch you choose. Once you’re back on established trails, you can start hauling.

Video of North Ridge Scramble

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Cooper Peak: South Buttress (Class 4) & North Couloir

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TLDR: Incredibly fun Class 4 route on grippy rock. Over in 45 minutes if you’re moving slowly, and you avoid downclimbing any Class 3 or 4 sections by looping around via the Cooper Peak-Marten peak saddle. VERY long single day or great activity while camping at Gourd Lake. Bonus route (North Couloir) below. GoPro Footage of both routes below each trail description and again in the summary. Indian Peaks Wilderness-Northern Colorado (western side of the wilderness).

Preface/Rating System
Introduction
The Approach
The Route: Cooper Peak, South Buttress
Bonus: The North Couloir
Summary and Acknowledgments

Preface/Rating System

Quick disclaimer: I like to highlight and mark-up some of my pictures for route clarification.

Black/white lines= general directions, landmarks and/or Class 1 sections.
Blue Lines=Class 2 sections.
Red= Class 3 sections.
Purple = Class 4 sections.
Orange = Class 5.

The class system is based on the YDS rating scale. Please note these colors are different than other sites. If you are unsure of what a color means, I usually leave a quick reminder in the picture caption.

CalTopo of the region and the various route up/down Cooper.

Introduction

Cooper Peak is a fairly unsightly lump in the western IPW. From most angles, it isn’t much to look at and gets lost beneath the size and height of its eastern neighbors, namely Ogallala and “Ooh-la-la.” Even the local peak that it’s taller than, Marten Peak, is more eye-catching and features some interesting routes of its own.

Cooper Peak from near the top of Buchanan Pass. I believe Hiamovi Mountain is back and to the left.

Yet, Cooper Peak is one of the more magical peaks in the IPW due to at least three interesting routes on it. In his IPW book. Gerry Roach describes Cooper Peak as epitomizing the joys of the lesser summits. After climbing up Cooper via each of its interesting routes, I gotta say I agree. The South Buttress is a particularly fun and exciting route.

If you camp at Gourd lake, you can stare right up at it from your tent and contemplate potential route strategies. A good zoom also helps capture some of the more interesting parts of the scramble.

The Approach

The approach to this area is pretty straightforward. Park at the Monarch Lake Trailhead in Grand County and hike to Gourd Lake (~8.3 miles one way). If you’ve never been over Buchanan Pass or you feel like punishing yourself, you can also get to Gourd Lake from either Camp Dick or Beaver Reservoir on the eastern side of the divide.

The South Buttress is visible from Gourd Lake.

Once you’re at Gourd Lake, your first objective is to get out of the lakes drainage. Head north. You can ascend a number of ways. Since I camped by the lake, I circled the lake on its eastern side and just followed the stream that emptied into Gourd Lake uphill. It’ll take you up to a small unnamed lake. At this new lake, I hopped across the stream and headed for a notch to the left of some cliffs.

At the crest of this rise were two additional ponds with the towering South Buttress behind them. The challenge from here is getting onto the route.

You need to descend to the next stream, which is coming out of Island Lake to the northeast. There is a mini canyon that the stream goes through before entering the basin to the west between Marten Peak and Cooper. It’s best to cross either above or below the mini-canyon.

If you cross above the mini-canyon, orientation is fairly easy, but you will be bashing through some krummholz before the route begins. If you cross below the mini-canyon and then work your way up the ridge to the right (east), you should be able to find some gullies that lead up to the ridge line and the start of the scramble.

When the Krummholz ends, the scrambling begins.

The Route (Cooper Peak, South Buttress)

Beyond the krummholz, you have this rock step that you need to deal with. The scrambling starts there, and if you’re careful, you can pick a path through this rock step that doesn’t exceed Class 3.

For the next few parts, you’re right on the nose of the ridge. There are a few rocky steps like the first one, interspersed with grassy saddles.

One of your first looks toward the crux area as you begin scrambling.

This pattern continues for a minute until you get to the view below; then, you have an option.

You can stick to the ridge by heading initially right and then doubling back to get onto the crest. This appeared to be the sunnier and easier way (at least in the morning). If you want a quick Class 4 challenge on good rock, head to the left and follow an angling ramp to the side of a nice slab.

Get onto the slab and climb back to the ridgeline.

Between the top of the slab and the ridgeline is a little window that you need to climb through. The moves here are Class 4 but short.

Once you’re back on the ridgeline, scramble through a couple brief Class 3 sections before gettin up to the crux area, which looks like this from below.

After you’ve digested the view, walk up to the Class 4 slab and climb up it on its left (western) side.

Once you’re on top of this first slab, there’s a brief section right on the nose of the ridge with substantial exposure. The holds are good through this stretch, though.

After the brief part on the nose of the ridge, your path gets blocked by an overhung rock. You could climb it, but the overhung first few feet looked difficult. I found a Class 4 way by traversing to the right underneath the rock on a grippy slab and then climbing up and around the right side of the rock. This is likely the most exposed set of moves on the route.

Once you get through this part, the crux difficulties relent briefly.

The route isn’t over though and there are some more Class 3 sections and a surprising wall that you have to take care of to get to the top of the buttress.

Some of the moves on this wall felt very Class 3+/4

After you get above the last scrambling surprise, the terrain starts to mellow out pretty quickly.

One last look back before the ridge moderates. Gourd Lake is visible below.

Before a minute has passed, you’ll be standing on a wide-open arm of Cooper Peak with no signs of the ridge you just climbed.

The top of the South Buttress with Cooper Peaks summit nearby. “Ooh La La” is in the background, with part of Ogallala visible between Cooper and “Ooh La La.”

The flat finish can seem like a bit of a letdown, but the scrambling is awesome, and I’m sure there are more variations you can play around with on that route.

From here, head up to touch Cooper’s summit, or if you don’t care, head west and downhill to the saddle between you and Marten peak.

At the saddle, which you can get to with some loose Class 2+ terrain or sturdier Class 3 near the ridgeline, drop left (south) into the basin. Cross the basin, sneaking glances back at your ridge, which once again starts to look intimidating.

You can see the optional Class 4 slab from this perspective, the rest of the route is hidden.

Recross the stream, climb up to the top of the low ridge on the other side and pop down the other side to get back to Gourd lake.

Here are some reminders of what you just scrambled up.

Here’s also a link to some GoPro Footage of the scramble. There is no audio, the only thing your missing is the blustery wind and me wheezing. If you expand the video caption it breaks down where I am on the ridge, which should correspond with the marked-up pics in this post.

Bonus: The North Couloir

In 2020 I climbed the North Ridge of Cooper and Marten Peak and wrote a trip report on it. Remembering how fun and surprising that route was, I committed to coming back and snow climbing the deeply inset North Couloir when it was filled. I climbed this route on July 18, 2022.

The North Couloir in Septemeber. An early July attempt worked well with the couloir filled in.

The North Couloir is ~55 degrees and is a fairly standard snow climb. You can mess around with the finish to create a nice mixed climb.

This weird side of Cooper is fairly rugged.

Here’s a video of how all of that looked.

Summary and Acknowledgements

Between Gerry Roach’s very brief description of the route in his book “Colorado’s Indian Peaks: Classic Hikes and Climbs,” the zoomed-in view of the route from Gourd Lake and a report by Lordhelmut on 14ers.com with a fantastic shot of the crux area, I felt good enough to give it a go. It was a very satisfying scramble. If I’m ever back in the area, I’d do it again. Super fun.

Here, again are the video links:

North Arapaho Peak – North Ridge (w/ descent of Arapaho Traverse): Class 4+ Scramble

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Preface/Rating System
Introduction
Approach
The Route
Video of North Ridge
Arapaho Traverse and Exit
Summary and Additional Resources

Preface/Rating System

Quick disclaimer: I like to highlight and markup some of my pictures for route clarification.

Black/white lines= general directions, landmarks and/or Class 1 sections.
Blue Lines=Class 2 sections.
Red= Class 3 sections.
Purple = Class 4 sections.
Orange = Class 5.

Due to the strange boundary of the Boulder Watershed, part of this route may intersect or cross briefly into the Watershed. Approached from Wheeler Basin, and based on Gerry Roach’s comments in his Indian Peaks guide, this is a legal route. Mapping software says that a part of the route near the crux does cross the boundary. The rest of the scramble and the summit plateau of North Arapaho aren’t in the watershed. Technically, crossing into the Boulder Watershed is illegal. However, many routes like Niwot Ridge, the standard route up Navajo Peak, the Arapaho Traverse, and South Arapaho are in the watershed and routinely climbed without issue. Use your best judgement when you’re up there.

Introduction

This is a spectacular and completely inconvenient route considering that the far more obvious Arapaho Traverse exists so much closer to the 4th of July Trailhead. However, for mountain masochists and people who have ever wondered if there was another legal way to climb North Arapaho, there sure is. Be aware that while some people continue to debate whether or not the crux on the Arapaho Traverse qualifies as Class 4, the North Ridge of North Arapaho absolutely does. You’ll be performing a series of angled Class 4 slab traverses and climbs while your bum hangs out over the infinite. The good news is the holds are bomber and move for move; it’s quite enjoyable. You do, however, stare right at the crux as you’re climbing up to the ridge, which is either exciting or terrifying.

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Approach

The first part of this scramble is easy. From the parking lot, hoof it up the trail to Arapaho Pass. You can knock this whole section out in the dark as long as you have a headlamp. Once you get to the Arapaho Pass Sign, take a right to continue following the Arapaho Pass Trail.

Stay on the well-defined Arapaho Pass Trail as it passes scenic Caribou Lake. The views to the northwest are particularly nice.

Once you get out of that area, the trail drops down through a forested and rocky set of slopes until you creep into Coyote Park, another beautiful subalpine field with great views. When you get down to around 10,300 ft. above sea level, start scanning the terrain to the right, you’re looking for this view.

Caltopo has this at about 6 miles into your journey (give or take). Anyway, once you see that old avvy chute, break from the trail, cross the creek and begin traversing left (north), trying to maintain your elevation as much as possible.

This is true off-trail navigation. If you go up to much, you’ll either cliff out trying to round N. Arapahos spindly west ridge or have to descend once you get near Wheeler. There are some game trails here that help, but you will have to break from them eventually because animal herd paths don’t usually lead to Class 4 ridges. It’s about a mile of traversing before you get into the mouth of Wheeler Basin. I’ve heard there is an old trail here that makes navigation a bit easier. I never found it because I got too excited and climbed up too high… Ultimately though, even my wonky path made use of game trails to enter Wheeler Basin. I then bushwhacked up the south side.

Gerry Roach describes Wheeler Basin as a fairyland, and he ain’t wrong. There are a series of meadows along the south side and mature trees with minimal undergrowth that made following herd paths easy (at least initially).

Stunning scenery in lower Wheeler Basin.

Eventually, a large avalanche path that looks like it broke from the side of Apache Pk. dumps debris across the basin. I used a system of downed logs to cross the creek to the north side and continued along its banks until treefall, and I swear the longest long grass I’ve ever been in forced me to ascend above the trees. From above the treeline, I just talus hopped around the vegetation difficulties and rounded back to the valley center when it seemed logical. If this seems vague, don’t panic, it’s a basin surrounded by cliffs; follow the direction of the stream until you eventually get to this meadow.

The head of Wheeler Basin, “Deshawa” is the mountain to the left.

Great, let’s orient ourselves.

Nice, not too bad. There’s a fun boulder field you can play in on the other side of the meadow (bouldering potential?). Get through or around it and climb a steep grassy ridge. On top of this grassy ridge, turn around for killer views of the basin and the gnarly western side of Navajo Peak.

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The Route

From the grassy slope, you transition onto a scree and talus slope to the ridgeline. This part kinda sucks; lots of moving rocks. The best and most stable rock is actually more to the left (north), and you can perform a series of angled traverses that make the most use of the sturdier rock. If you go for more direct, just watch the loose rocks and never ascend right above someone else. It’s here that you get some good and scary looks at the ridge and the crux section.

Here’s a marked-up version of what you’ll be expected to do.

The Crux section. Class 3=Red, Class 4=Purple (lighter shade to highlight better against the rock).

The crux section is longer than any Class 4 you’ll encounter on Neva or the Arapaho Traverse. The crux buttress is also tilted, so you get this lovely off-kilter feeling as you’re climbing. I took some GoPro footage of the main parts of the scramble; I’ll toss a link in at the bottom of the description for added visual aids.

From the ridge crest, head south. The ridge narrows at a gap with views down to another little alpine glacier that’s seldom viewed since it’s deep in the off-limits Boulder Watershed. Once you pass this notch, the Crux difficulties begin in earnest.

Because of the seriousness of this kind of climbing, pictures are lacking (look for video link at bottom). The order of operations is to first get up the step below the crux, perform an exposed traverse across a gap and swing to the western side. From the tilted bench you’re now on, find a diagonal-looking route up the buttress, that’s your Class 4. There’s climbing, traversing and some interesting problems to work through. The route is not just straight up. Once you find your way beyond a notch, the scrambling finally drops back to Class 3.

For the next hundred yards or so, stick close to the ridge crest, dodging any difficulties on the east side. You can usually stay pretty true to the crest. There are some surprises, so look for sneaky downclimbs, and secret ledges and keep bailout options in mind before committing to anything.

Eventually, you get to the low point of the ridge before it starts heading up to North Arapaho. Here, locate a long, green ramp on the east side of a set of crazy-looking cliffs. This ramp will lead you past the cliffs and up to another section of scrambling. This is the first place you gain significant elevation in a minute so expect a slower pace through it.

The ramp features some Class 3 sections and looser rock in the middle. You can ratchet the scrambling up to 3+ and 4 but trade the loos rock for sturdy rock and good holds on the ramp’s left side.

On the ramp, looking back at the lower ridge and another alpine glacier tucked into the Boulder Watershed.

At the head of the ramp, you have two options. You can climb up to a notch and through it to the other side (Class 3). On the other side, the rock ends into a big ole sandy chute. If you take the sandy chute up to the right (west) it’ll lead you up to the ridge crest (loose Class 2). Form there, you can veer around a final gathering of scramble rocks and continue up to the summit via loose Class 2 gullies.

But wait! There’s more scrambling if you want it. Instead of popping over then notch and into the sandy chute, turn right and clamber up the ramps headwall. It goes at a fun and surprising mix of Class 3+ and 4, with, again, bomber holds. From the top of this scramble, head left (south) up along the crest, where all that’s left to decide is whether you want to mess around on some more Class 3 scrambling (left) or take the path of least resistance (Class 2) up to the surprisingly broad and gentle summit plateau. You’ll see the enormous summit cairn and know that you’ve arrived!

After the handshakes and champagne, stow the silliness because you still have to do the Arapaho Traverse backwards before you’re out of scrambling danger. Translation: more scrambling, hurray!

The Arapaho Traverse has been well-documented in a few stellar resources, so I won’t go through all the bells and whistles with you but I will do a quick description and link to a bunch of useful resources. Before we get into that, here’s a marked-up picture of the whole North Ridge Route, as seen from the summit of Navajo Peak.

The purple area is the Crux. Red=Class 3. Blue=Class 2.

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Video of North Ridge

As indicated before, here is some footage of the more dramatic parts of the North Ridge, hope it helps!

GoPro Footage, North Ridge – North Arapaho Peak

The Arapaho Traverse and Exit

Essentially, get off the summit plateau by finding a strong use trail that dips down in between two rock outcrops.

The trail as it leaves the summit plateau; easy start.

The hardest moves are downclimbing between the two rock portion(Class 3+).

Downclimbing this features the most serious moves to get off the summit plateau.

Once beyond this, find the first opportunity to juke right and get out of the sandy mess at the bottom of the notch. Use this trajectory to find the trail and hug the western side of the ridge.

Looking back at the notch to get off the summit plateau, a possible alternative to the left?

You can dance along the ridge if you want, but the trail and path of least resistance hugs the western edge until you’ve passed a few obstacles. Eventually, the trail will circle back to the crest. Scramble up the rocks in the pic below.

This reclimb will get you up to the top of the traverse crux. There looked to be cairns marking a very circuitous path down and to the west. I suppose you could follow them and skip this part, although you lose a ton of elevation in the process, and if you’ve just come over the North Ridge, you’ve already dealt with the hardest stuff anyway. The crux is fun.

This is the crux rock from the bottom. Scale is missing, but if you stand on the crack to the right, you can basically reach the top of the rock. At most, this is a 2-3 move Crux, I think still Class 4, but so short you may be wondering if that was actually it.

The whole area. Red=Class 3, Purple=Class 4.

After downclimbing a sneaky step underneath the crux, pick up the social trail and keep on keeping on. After this, the trail winds up a few ridge highpoints. There are ways off of them, but they might not be at the very crest of the ridge, where a few isolated Class 5 moves wait. If you lose the trail, stop, turn around, and hunt for the path, it is there, and it takes you beyond any remaining difficulties with minimal Class 3 thrown in here and there.

Before you know it, you’ll be on South Arapaho Pk! From here, you have some Class 2 to contend with on the way down to the next saddle (stick close to the ridge and avoid descending to the right before the slope allows for decent traversing). A strong official trail meets you at the saddle, from there follow it right and it will intersect with the Arapaho Pass Trail after a significant descent. Turn left, and take the Arapaho Pass Trail back to your car. Done!

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Summary and Additional Resources

While helpful, my Traverse info is just the quick and dirty version, here are some better resources:

I also used a couple sources to help get into Wheeler Basin, keep in mind the Caltopo route on the Arikaree link for getting into the basin was lower than what I ultimately ended up doing.

And once more, here’s a link to my Gopro footage, which covers the most dramatic parts of the North Ridge, including the Crux components!

North Ridge – North Arapaho Peak

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Colorado Backcountry Turns All Year: Year 1, Months 10-12 (2021/2022)

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Introduction

This is an ongoing series about my ski all-year challenge, which is largely open-ended (though I recently figured it would be cool to get to at least 30 months consecutive) and revolves around a few central points.

One ski adventure every month with a minimum of 5 connected turns attained.
During snowy months, one location is acceptable for multiple adventures as long as the line skied is different (different, in this case, means on an adjacent mountain face, separate peak, ridgeline, or aspect with logical topographical dividers between “lines.” It does not mean tracks right next to other tracks and calling it different). A topographical divider includes rock ridges, hogbacks, different drainages, etc.
Geographical restrictions: the state of Colorado, 1-70 corridor and north. Western limit, the Park/Elkhead Range, and the Gore Range. Eastern limit, front range foothills. Maybe someday the rest of the state, but it’s too big to take out at once.
For the summer months, each snowfield or alpine glacier skied cannot be repeated. Safest bets include permanent snowfields on larger mountains and a series of alpine glaciers between. IPW/RMNP (Andrews, Taylor, Sprague, Skyscraper, Navajo Snowfield, Isabelle Glacier, Tyndall, etc.)
Avoid high-use areas or hit them during the week.
2 different sidecountry runs allowed per year (located outside of ski resorts but may be accessed from within them).
Go for a minimum of 1 year, maximum of?

Months 10-12 represent the fourth article I’ve written about this challenge thus far. For access to previous entries, click the links below:

Backcountry Warnings and Resources
Month 10: November 4, 2021 (St. Vrain Southern Slopes)
Month 11: December 8, 2021 (Vail Pass East-Uneva north-Saddle Run)
Month 12: January 12, 2022 (Banana Bowls-RMNP)
Final Thoughts

Mountain scenery is exceptional if you know where to go.

Backcountry Warnings and Resources

If you’re tip-toeing into backcountry skiing, there are a ton of resources and education that I would consider mandatory before taking it to the hills. I’ve compiled a list below.

Avalanche training (look up Avvy 1 certifications near you).
Avalanche gear (shovel, probe, beacon, radio).
Regular ski gear plus skins, frame/tech bindings.
Orienteering skills (download offline maps, have a GPS watch, or bring a physical map and a compass).
Scout your line before committing.
Ski with partners when able (if not able, compensate by only attempting on the best day conditions wise). This is a touchy point, many refuse to attempt without a partner, and I accept that, but if you have a flexible risk tolerance and can accept more risk in one area (solo journeys), you have to compensate by nailing down all other aspects of the planning process to make the risk defensible.
Check the weather up until the moment you leave.
Leave your plan with a loved one and have that plan include emergency contact info should you miss a predetermined rendezvous time.
Here are some Colorado-focused resources I use: Opensnow, Front Range Skimo, Mountain Weather Forecasts (click here), CAIC (they have an Instagram page, and there are other associated avalanche pages to follow as well), NWS.
For added info on planning and gear, please visit these two articles I wrote for an outdoor website called SkyblueOverland. The topics covered are crucial for any aspiring backcountry skier/rider. Essential Backcountry Gear and Guide to Planning a Backcountry Adventure.
Additionally, I wrote an overview of Colorado Snow, which has a bunch of additional information pertinent to centennial state winters.
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Month 10: November 4, 2021 (Saint Vrain South Slopes)

By the time November 2021 rolled around, I was getting excited about accumulating mountain snowfall. My non-meteorological brain told me there were several big waves of snowfall that struck the Colorado high country yearly. The first was usually in the mid-late Autumn, which helps prep the high country for its peak snowfall months of Dec-early March. Unfortunately, Colorado is notoriously fickle in its winter storm delivery; sometimes, you have incredible week-long storm cycles that produce feet upon feet of snow, and other times you get skunked in mid-January. It is what it is; just keep checking that forecast.

While October was, for the most part, thin on snow, a set of storms toward the end of the month guaranteed some moderate turns off of Shrine Pass Road and got me excited about early November. High pressure was supposed to dig in around the middle of the month, so I knew I had to hit something early to take advantage of this first wave of mountain snow. The stars aligned for a trip back to St. Vrain on November 4th.

Mt St. Vrain sits on the border between RMNP and the Indian Peaks Wilderness. While smaller in stature than surrounding peaks, there are a handful of fun routes on the mountain, including a thigh-burning east-ridge-down-rock-creek-road-run that, if timed and skied correctly, will net you 3,000 vertical feet. I’d done Saint Vrain as one of my first backcountry skis in 2018, so I was keen to do some more exploring on the mountain in search of early season turns.

Mt. St. Vrain, while relatively benign in the summer, is kind of a bear when there’s snow. The approach is long (almost five miles for one run, up to 6-7 if combing skiable runs), and the mountain is always windy. Seriously. I have been up there almost 10 times between all four seasons, and I have yet to have a day on the summit block when there wasn’t some form of blistering wind. So, why bother? Well, it’s away from I-70, if you bundle up, you can handle the wind, and any run combination with the descent back to the car will give you at least 3k of vertical skiing. Plus, all of the “established” runs on it (i.e. what books and the internet have found) are between 25-37-ish degrees, so, while avvy danger may be high locally, at least two runs on St. Vrain can be safe low angle bets.

Nicely spaced trees in the upper portion of Rock Creek Drainage.

My goal today was to ascend up Rock Creek, climb above the start to the East Ridge and scout some of the other lines (Southside slopes and north side). Originally, I’d wanted to ski a lower-angle avalanche chute on St. Vrain’s north side, but I didn’t know the area too well, and the wind stripping made all options that way seem sketchy. Instead, I settled on a south slope variation from right below the summit cairn.

My gear on top of St. Vrain w/ Longs Peak towering behind.

There are two possible routes on the south side of St. Vrain, and both are well-documented (powder project, front range skimo, and my own description w/ this article on skyblueoverland). Of the two, the snowfield west of the summit provides the most consistent snow, but after the long approach (not enough snow to slap skins on until nearly a thousand feet above where I parked) and having to carry my skis over the last few hundred feet of rocky, wind stripped terrain, I wanted something to access quickly. The snowfield on the west shoulder looked nice but would’ve required another half-mile of awkward ski carrying over talus terrain.

My tracks on the South slope direct. The southwest snowfield is the gentler ridge in between my tracks and the continental divide on the horizon.

Curious about alternatives, I found a wind drifted line of snow leading on a meandering journey south from the summit. Of all the routes on St. Vrain, this one had the most hazards, however, the mid-November timeframe meant that it was quite literally the only bit of snow I could feasibly ski without butchering myself or my equipment.

The edge of the line I took (leading diagonal right), ~100 feet below and 50-75 yards west of the true summit.

I hung to the western edge of the snow, where a long deposit of wind-drifted power had gathered enough to guarantee turns.

What the rest of the slope looked like after my first 6-7 turns.

Despite the thin conditions and committing approach, I skied the south line well, making a series of happy turns on the way to a roughly 750-foot vertical ski.

Looking up from the bottom, about 65-70% of the run is visible.

In the winter, the run can continue a few hundred feet more to treeline, but I had to work with what nature gave me; When the snow stopped, so did my skiing. I also, despite my best efforts, scraped a couple thinly buried rocks. Nothing was damaged beyond the point of p-tex repair, but it was a timely reminder to heed early season hazards.

Another shot of my tracks on the lower 2/3rds of the run.

Due to the thin snow and many exposed rocks, traversing from the end of my line back to the eastern side of the mountain was an exercise in frustration, but I endured. The saving grace (at least for the initial traverse) was the sublime views.

The upper St. Vrain glaciers area from the summit of St. Vrain (one of the glaciers is in the shadows under the mountain to the left, which is called Ooh la la). Ogallala is in the middle, and the serrated ridge along the right side of the picture leads to Elktooth.

The Coney Lake drainage, with Paiute’s north face dominating the view, and even a bit of Apache Pk. poking out from behind.

Red Deer Mountain, a reclusive Continental Divide peak with loads of skiing potential, is high on the list for a future adventure. When that big face fills in with sticky, spring snow, it’s just begging for big GS turns.

All in all, this felt like the best, most cohesive skiing I’d done since Andrews in late July. There wasn’t a lot of uniform coverage yet but seeing the mountains with a coat of snow again served as a nice appetizer for the upcoming winter.

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Month 11: December 8, 2021 (Vail Pass East-Uneva north-Saddle Run)

Additional skis
W. Deming-scouting trip (Dec. 19, 2021)

After a dry and warm mid-late November, December started to turn things around. The snowpack was still lagging statewide, but there had been enough high elevation accumulation to help me get my first month of multiple backcountry adventures since the previous April. Along with the challenge, I was hoping for two separate skis in December and at least three for January-April. A lot of that was going to be based around my work ski instructing at Beaver Creek. Like we’d done for the past few years, my wife and I would dutifully drive up for weekends so I could teach and stay with friends and family in the valley when it didn’t make sense to sit in I-70 traffic.

On the approach to my Dec. line, Vail Pass is visible in the background.

Over the years, we’d developed a pretty good routine and came to enjoy our winter nesting grounds in the vail valley. Since storms generally roll into Colorado from west to east, I figured the western slope would get hit harder and earlier than some of my usual RMNP/IPW/Cameron Pass terrain. Even just driving from the Front Range, you get a sense of the snow disparity. It’s usually bone dry from Golden up to Georgetown, then the highway pops up a thousand feet, and you get mountains with snowy, sheltered faces and wind-stripped sides. Once you’re through the tunnel and into summit county, the snow coverage becomes more widespread. In my experience, though, it’s really the stretch between Copper and East Vail (including both sides of vail pass) that gets some of the best early season snow (as evidenced by my Oct. ski on Shrine Pass road).

My selection for December was another Vail Pass run. Since my successful outings in the area the previous April, I’d been keen to go back and do some more exploring. My experience on the thin snowpack in November, however, had me looking at sheltered areas that seem to rake in the most snow. The Saddle Run, a northward line from the saddle between Uneva Pk. and Pt. 12,089, provided just that. I’d skinned up part of this run after skiing one of Uneva’s north Couloirs, so I was comfortable with the terrain. This time, however, I planned to ski deeper into the trees to extend the fun.

The snow was a bit heavier than usual, but I was grateful to get as much of a ski line as I did. There were a few ski tracks crisscrossing the area after a storm 2-3 days prior, but I went up on a low avalanche weekday and had the mountains to myself.

My only big obstacle was another front moving through in the mid-afternoon. As long as I could ski my first run and climb back into familiar territory before visibility was stolen, I’d be able to ski back to the pass, no problem.

I made it into the wild North-Tenmile basin and enjoyed some surprisingly fresh powder hiding below the pine tree canopies. The line wasn’t all that difficult, ~30-33 degrees, so less steep than November, but the snow quality was a ton better. I enjoyed every second of it.

On the skin track back to the saddle (low point on the horizon)

The skin back to the ridge wasn’t bad, but since I was a little tired, it took longer than anticipated. Luckily, the weather held off until I was out of the drainage and back to an area where I could return to Vail Pass using already well-established tracks.

Another view of the Saddle run area, the couloirs off Uneva are to the left and off-screen, the mountain you can see is Point 12,089.

On the way down, the storm really kicked into gear and had me flying through a nice accumulation. Again, since visibility was low, I relied on my previous experience in the area, maps, and an obvious skin track to glide effortlessly down to Vail Pass and my car.

A little more than a week later, I found myself with another opportunity to get some turns and decided to go explore W. Deming. I had seen it a few times from previous Vail Pass skiing, and its broad southwestern face looked like a perfect combination of snow-covered and low angle. Since this was a scouting trip, I anticipated the usual problems with discovering a new, trailless area and figured the skiing was going to be sub-par.

I did have a few navigational snafus but ultimately made it to within a few hundred feet of the summit (basically where ski options stopped).

The first 5-600 feet were sublime alpine skiing in a large bowl with just enough snow to make turns. The surface was crunchy but provided enough support to ski aggressively.

When I reached treeline, however, it all became an unconsolidated heavy powder mess. I also veered off track to avoid a flat area I’d found on the ascent and overshot my end-point by nearly a half-mile. Directionally, I’d tried to find the safest run, but upon analyzing my route and the end result, I knew any subsequent trip would go up an adjacent valley with more of a direct line to the summit. All in all, though, a great trip for beta.

Like the November trip, a lot of what made this particular scouting trip worth it were the views.

Looking back to Uneva Peak and two lines I’d already skied on it. The Big Couloir to the left of where I skied looks like it’d be worth a future visit.

Bald Mountain, a local favorite for Vail/Avon backcountry skiers.

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Month 12: January 12, 2022 (Banana Bowls-RMNP)

Additional Skis
Hidden Valley-Orgasm Alley (Jan. 18, 2022)
Bighorn Glade variation 1 (Jan. 28, 2022)

The back half of December was busy. Between holiday shenanigans, ski instructing, and my family coming to visit, I stuck to resort skiing. For New Year, my wife and I went to a great party in Denver and contracted the Omicron Variant of Covid. That was Covid #2 for us, a lot less severe than the first time but still a distraction and a loss of the muscle power I’d built up from October. The silver lining, if there ever was one, was resting and recuperating while the high country got slammed with what can only be described as epic snowfall. Over an 8-9 day period, favored areas hauled in over six feet of beautiful powder. Even unfavored areas managed to eke out a few feet, and once I felt good enough to ski instruct, I began to plan a new backcountry adventure.

The approximate location of the upper half of Banana Bowls from Bear Lake Road.

The Banana Bowls had always been interesting since Rocky Mountain National Park was close to home, and I’d heard that it could offer stable, fresh powder skiing without a lot of avalanche risk. With the fresh snow load and relentless wind, the high country stayed dangerous, and I thought that, at least with Banana Bowls, I could get some fresh snow skiing without running into anything crazy. Well, I was right and wrong.

Hallett Peak, Tyndal Gorge, and the Dragontail Couloir area from a rare, empty Bear Lake Parking Lot.

I applaud my choice in general; Banana Bowls is a supremely lapable area that would be an absolute blast on a big powder day. Unfortunately, I didn’t check the updated wind reports in the days leading up to my adventure. Don’t worry; I still skied Banana Bowls, but I fought against some of the hardest wind I’d ever encountered. On more than one occasion I was lifted clean into the air by gusts that easily topped 70mph.

Longs Peak looking on as I struggle against the wind.

Interestingly, I can now say that I’ve managed to ski through hurricane-force gusts, but wind zaps your energy so quickly that by the time I hauled my battered body back to the car, I knew I was going to need at least a few days of minimal movement to recover.

Brutally cold and windy, but at least the sun was out.

The approach to Banana Bowls is fairly mundane and, in fact, quite wind-sheltered, so I really had no idea what I was skinning into when I began my journey. The trails in this part of the park are so wide and well used that they might as well be highways. Despite the fresh snow, I had no trouble following a series of snowshoe, ski, and footprints along the access trail to the lower parts of Banana Bowls. It was only when I reached the bottom, where a large break in the trees gave me a view of the area, that I realized just how windy the day was going to be.

Wind stripping is a big deal in the Front Range, but it doesn’t mean the snow disappears; it just gets redeposited in sheltered areas.

Y’all, this was a mentally and physically exhausting ascent. My skins about froze in place on more than one occasion, and the relentless wind and cold temps (hovering in the low teens) built up a ridiculous sheet of ice under my skins. I had to stop and pry the ice off with a boot scraper a few times, or I just wouldn’t’ve been able to reach the top of the line.

Organizing my gear was another practice in risk management as any time spent out of my mittens ran the risk of giving my frostnip. Ultimately, I used my pack cover as a shield, sat facing away from the wind, and hustled through my routine until I could safely ski down.

I didn’t even risk taking a snack break because I was afraid that if I didn’t get moving, I’d give myself a cold or something worse. Once I was clipped into my skis, I immediately started skiing. Luckily, the wind was at my back, so speed was definitely not an issue. I managed to twist and turn my way down the slope in what I felt was record time until I found the edge of the trees and dove behind them, hoping for a wind reprieve.

All things considered, I was happy with how I skied, but it was far from my prettiest outing. Nevertheless, once I started skiing back to the car, the wind died down, and I remembered what it was like to feel my fingers and toes. I also got a Gopro 8 for Christmas and tried to video some of the descent. Whenever I stop being cheap and upgrade WordPress, I can upload it here, but for now, it’s still free to post on Youtube, so here’s the link.

After six days of working and planning, I organized a quick half-day adventure out to Hidden Valley. I’d already skied Hidden Valley the previous spring and enjoyed it. Granted, the area was an old ski resort, so the skin tracks are easy and the descents similar. Hidden Valley has long been billed as a great intro backcountry intro area. However, don’t let that turn you off from the area, it’s perfect for building skills, and its sheltered orientation (below the ridgeline anyway) can offer fun when the rest of the high country is either avalanche or wind riddled.

The top of a ski line called “Orgasm Alley.”

There’s a super simple main run in Hidden Valley that the lion’s share of visitors ski because it’s easy to figure out and generally skis quite well. There are also a ton of variations that get far less attention. A suspicious run called “Orgasm Alley” is one of them. When Hidden Valley still operated as a ski resort, this run was just outside the resort boundaries to the SE of the main run. A large bowl between it and the main area also merits future exploration, but I’d read about this particular alley in a Rocky Mountain National Park ski guidebook and felt like giving it a try.

Unlike the main areas, the approach I took required some extra navigation. Orgasm alley wasn’t particularly difficult to find with a GPS watch, but it certainly wouldn’t be in season until mid-January when enough snow has built up to cover downed trees and rocks. After the enormous dump of snow around Xmas and New Year, I figured it would fill in nicely, and I was right.

Looking to the High Plains from Hidden Valley.

The skiing was great on not-so-great snow, but I managed the terrain well. The wind and deep freezes had turned a lot of the recent powder into an icy sheet, but I’ll take any chance to backcountry ski over sitting at home twiddling thumbs. After the top bowl, I worked my way over to an old cut in the hillside where a chairlift used to be. What’s left is a thin strip of bumpy terrain and a straight shot down to the base. If you ever want a demanding descent where it’s either short turns or running into trees, this is a great choice. I enjoyed the challenge and wouldn’t mind skiing that part again.

Towards the end of the month, ski instructing picked up, and we decided to camp out at my father-in-law’s place in East Vail to ease the commute to Beaver Creek. This position allowed me to start looking at the area near Vail for more backcountry targets on the days I wasn’t teaching. I figured it would be until at least March before I could ski above treeline with minimal avalanche risk, so I settled for finding the best powder on slopes below treeline. This mentality flip allowed me to pursue the best conditions without running afoul of any of the mid-winter backcountry dangers.

On the skin track, East Vail is visible, along with a small part of I-70. The steep slopes to the left and behind East Vail are the notorious East Vail chutes.

There’s a summer bike path from Copper to Vail that follows the general path of the highway. When it’s snowed over, the path makes for a great access route to lines along the valley in the deep forests between East Vail and the top of Vail Pass. After a beautiful and windless forecast, I decided to explore the path and followed various skin tracks up into the hills. Research told me that the area I was touring rarely got over 30 degrees, and when it did, could easily be avoided. I also knew from being in the valley for years that East Vail tended to haul in the best powder, so when a small storm dropped a few fluffy inches, I set about exploring how I could take advantage of it.

I actually overshot what I was originally planning for, a notable gully visible from the dog park in East Vail, but made it as far as a fluffy meadow around 10,500 feet (from a base of 8,600) and followed a few old splitboard tracks down the smooth and powder-filled slopes. Most of the run was immaculate, but since it was my first time in the area, I made some navigational decisions that increased my return journey time. Those decisions, however, helped round out my knowledge of the area and would help me hone in future skis.

It wasn’t steep skiing, consistently in the 25-30 degree slope range, but oh.my.god, the conditions were damn near perfect. I just floated down the slope, turning when it was convenient and almost straight-lining near the bottom to maintain speed through the powder. When I got back down, I thought it might’ve been the softest skiing I’d ever done, not realizing I would continuously one-up that distinction through February.

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Final Thoughts

At some point during January, I realized, a little belatedly, that I’d skied for 12 consecutive months in the backcountry! I marked the accomplishment by doubling my efforts to find the best powder I could. So, as the deepest part of winter set in, I began hunting for variations of my east vail excursion to maximize the fluffiest, softest part of the season and the skiing was very, very, very good.

I also got a GoPro over the holidays and set about recording my adventures in a more cohesive way. Here’s a link to a Youtube compilation of my January Turns.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next part of the series!

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Colorado Backcountry Turns All Year: Year 1, Months 7-9 (2021)

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I am not the first person to try and ski every month of the year in Colorado. While the overall numbers aren’t many, there are people who have done this thing every month for decades or more. And while the elevation of the Centennial State guarantees turns through mid-July at hundreds of locations, by the time August and September roll around, you’re options become really limited. Additional limiting factors include the rate of recent snowmelt and the previous season’s snowpack. Luckily for me, I decided to ski in a year that only managed an average winter snowpack and experienced a warmer than average June/July…wheee.

Faced with dwindling options, I honed my focus on the areas of Colorado that seem to hold onto snow the most. In the northern Front Range, those areas are high, cold, sun-starved alpine cirques. Some of these feature permanent snowfields, and some feature the occasional glacier. For August and September, those became my focus while I clung to the hope that October might signal the return of accumulating alpine snow.

This is part of an ongoing series, for parts one and two, click on the links below.

Backcountry Warning and Resources
Month 7: August 25, 2021 (Ptarmigan Glacier)
Month 8: September 16, 2021 (Knobtop Icefield)
Month 9: October 28, 2021 (Shrine Pass Meadows)

Backcountry Warning and Resources

If you’re tip-toeing into backcountry skiing, there are a ton of resources and education that I would consider mandatory before taking it to the hills. I’ve compiled a list below.

Avalanche training (look up Avvy 1 certifications near you).
Avalanche gear (shovel, probe, beacon, radio).
Regular ski gear plus skins, frame/tech bindings.
Orienteering skills (download offline maps, have a GPS watch, or bring a physical map and a compass).
Scout your line before committing.
Ski with partners when able (if not able, compensate by only attempting on the best day conditions wise). This is a touchy point, many refuse to attempt without a partner, and I accept that, but if you have a flexible risk tolerance and can accept more risk in one area (solo journeys), you have to compensate by nailing down all other aspects of the planning process to make the risk defensible.
Check the weather up until the moment you leave.
Leave your plan with a loved one and have that plan include emergency contact info should you miss a predetermined rendezvous time.
Here are some Colorado-focused resources I use: Opensnow, Front Range Skimo, Mountain Weather Forecasts (click here), CAIC (they have an Instagram page, and there are other associated avalanche pages to follow as well), NWS.
For added info on planning and gear, please visit these two articles I wrote for an outdoor website called SkyblueOverland. The topics covered are crucial for any aspiring backcountry skier/rider. Essential Backcountry Gear, and Guide to Planning a Backcountry Adventure.
Additionally, I wrote an overview of Colorado Snow, which has a bunch of additional information pertinent to centennial state winters.
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Month 7: August 25, 2021 (Ptarmigan Glacier)

Ptarmigan Glacier, tucked into the Continental Divide between Flattop Mt. (left) and Notchtop (right).

After a successful July ski of Andrews Glacier, I began looking at the rest of Rocky Mountain National Park in search of other permanent pieces of snow. I’d passed by Ptarmigan Glacier (a name that doesn’t usually show up on official maps but has been recorded in many user trip reports and blogs) the year prior when I scrambled up Little Matterhorn. It’s not too terribly far from the Bear Lake Trailhead (roughly similar to Andrews, just the opposite direction), and from what I’d researched, stays snowy all year. Good enough for me

So, one late August day, after delaying what I knew would be a taxing journey with skis on my back, I finally committed.

Views toward Estes Park as the day slowly dawned.

Like Andrews, I used the Bear Lake Trailhead. This time, however, I went north, around the bulk of FLattop Mt. and the Banana Bowls (another lower angle backcountry area in the winter/spring), and continued as if heading towards Odessa Gorge. The whole Odessa area is magnificent, from the lakeshore to the views of Notchtop; it’s all National Park-level beauty.

Notchtop (and Notchtop Spire) from just above the Odessa Lake trail.

The established trail ascends gently to a saddle near Joe Mills Mountain and then drops into the gorge before finding the shores of Odessa Lake. My turnoff into the backcountry was at the saddle, where a noticeable but unsigned path leads south to Lake Helene, a shallow pond that acts as a great marker.

Lake Helene and the not-so-flat sides of Flattop Mt.

I followed the use trail around the right shore of the lake until a series of paths began veering uphill. Using a combination of a few, I found a route that ascends away from the lake and higher into the gorge. This part was a bit frustrating because Krumholtz kept catching my skis, but I soldiered through, following the occasional cairn, until I broke into the alpine.

As you can see in the picture above, stubborn vegetation gives way to two separate snowfields. Up until July, they are more or less connected. The upper field is what’s generally referred to as the glacier, although both fields are large enough to last all year. The navigation was never really hard on this trip, but it was a taxing approach nonetheless. As the terrain changed to talus and scree, my pace slowed to a crawl to make sure I wasn’t misstepping or taking a long rocky ride down a loose slope.

I broke out the crampons and climbed the first snowfield, thankful to be on more of a solid surface. All around the snowfield were large pieces of talus on unstable slopes. The whole area looked like it moved with some regularity, so I was keen to avoid any suspicious-looking areas. Using the crampons to bypass a particularly perilous-looking hogback saved me time and worry.

Looking back at a couple unnamed tarns as I get ready to climb the first snowfield.

Climbing up the first snowfield, notice the layers of windswept dirt on top of the snow. Not only is summer skiing limited to existing snowfields, but in a lot of cases, you have to deal with dirt, exposed rocks, ice, slush, and rockfall. Just because avalanche danger is low to non-existent doesn’t mean there is no danger.

Between the two snowfields, I chose an angling ascent over loose ground until I could traverse over to the second, larger snowfield, aka Ptarmigan Glacier, and put my crampons back on.

As far as permanent snowfields go, Ptarmigan didn’t look as sad as some of the others I’d seen; the top half looked fairly cohesive and nice, but the bottom half bled into a talus field with plenty of scree poking up out of the snow. The skiing looked like it would be challenging, which felt appropriate since it was late August. I channeled some energy and spike-stepped my way up.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the ideal time to hit these slopes is before the afternoon sun creates slush out of the top layers of snow. This process slows when you have temperatures that dip below freezing the night before. Well, in the middle of summer, that doesn’t happen often, so, even though I made good time getting to the glacier, the climb was slushy and uncomfortable. I had to brace a few times to stop from sliding.

Interesting looking crevasse near the top.

I made it one piece and allowed myself a bit of time to prepare but wanted to turn around and start skiing soon because the slush issue was only going to become more pronounced as the day warmed up.

To be honest, the skiing was a bit terrifying. I connected ~10 turns, but the top was a mixed bag of hard snow ridges and sun-cupped BS, the middle was slushy, and the bottom was a minefield of fist-size rocks that could really screw up my skis. I threaded together as many safe turns as I could but ultimately had to take my skis off and boot pack down the last hundred feet; there was just too much detritus to avoid.

It was too dangerous of a ski to film with my phone so this is the only “mid-action” photo I have. I think this day convinced me to start looking at Go-Pros, which I would eventually get by the year’s end.

So, yeah, I skied in August on a dwindling glacier in a National Park. It was harrowing, steep (~42-45 degrees at its steepest pitch), and riddled with debris that would’ve destroyed my skis had I not been paying attention. I don’t think It’ll be on the repeat list anytime soon, but it was a good reminder that while dirty snow can be skied, it’s really tricky.

I also finally got a good idea of what a “rock” glacier is, which I thought was pretty cool.

As yearly erosion dumps more rock and debris into valleys and cirques, they end up covering the top of the ice. The ice doesn’t really go anywhere; it just hangs out under accruing layers of rocks and dirt. Practically, this makes the terrain on top of the ice exceptionally loose and subject to sliding; as far as climate change goes, the layers of rocks actually help hide the glacial layers from direct sun exposure. So, even though you may not see a bunch of ice and snow above ground, in some areas, you can bet that the ice still exists; it’s just hiding below the rocks i.e., rock glacier.

What’s interesting about Ptarmigan (Taylor Glacier is also a good example) is that a substantial portion of the ice is still visible, so you get the above surface “glacier,” and you can see the transition zone into the sub-surface “rock glacier.” Cool stuff.

Here’s what you’re looking at. A roughly 20 foot wide, 8-foot tall chunk of ice covered by dirt and scree. In fact, everything in this picture is resting on top of ice. The only reason this piece is exposed is because the summer snowmelt creates a runoff stream from the glacier; as the water moves, it carries debris down the slope, opening up a channel to sun exposure. Between where I took this photo and the ice chunk, is a ravine about 10 feet deep that leads to a running stream on top of more ice layers. There was no way I was walking up to the edge, so this is as close I got.

Rock Glaciers are exceptionally unstable (because it’s all resting on ice) and demand careful footfalls and risk management. Naturally, I traversed it in ski boots.

Another instance of debris on top of visible ice.

The “rock glacier” continued pretty much right up to the lower snowslope. As I carefully made my way to it, I started to tire of the tedious footing and thought it may be worth it to grab a few extra turns on the lower snowfield and drop a couple of hundred feet relatively quickly.

To my surprise, the snow surface was much more agreeable on this field, and I actually made some half-decent turns without feeling like I was two steps away from dying.

Slide the bar to see roughly where I made my turns. You can see where the snow is disturbed from the turns but it’s not immediately obvious.

After managing a handful of extra turns on the lower snowfield, I felt accomplished enough to call the outing a success. I made my way to the tarn at the base of the lower snowfield and collapsed on a nice, sunny rock. Compelled to celebrate in some way, I stripped down to my birthday suit and got into the water.

Hand down one of the top five coldest water experiences of my entire life, and I’ve jumped into the Arctic Ocean before!

The tarn is only exposed enough to get into for maybe two months out of the year, so it’s all frigid snowmelt. Despite the shock, I didn’t freeze to death and let the sun dry me. A few confused and concerned rock climbers descending from Notchtop probably got more of a show from my naked lounging than they would’ve liked, but hey, after hauling my skis all the way up to Ptarmigan and faced with the daunting prospect of hauling them back to the car, I can’t say I was in much of a caring mood.

After my quick water refresh, I summoned as much energy as I could, strapped down all my gear, and dragged myself back to the parking lot. Unlike the hundreds of questions I had to field coming back from Andrews, I only spoke to a handful of people. There were still hordes of visitors near the trailhead, but I think they were too shocked at my appearance to even let some questions out, fine by me, haha. August ski down!

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Month 8: September 16, 2021 (Knobtop Icefield)

The previous October, I hiked Little Matterhorn, a Class 3 scramble overlooking the Odessa Lake area of Rocky Mountain National Park, and just a stellar adventure all around. While on the ridgeline to the summit, I noticed a large snowfield hiding under the bulk of Knobtop, a relatively ill-defined area with a flat top, gentle western slopes, and a precipitous eastern and northern wall. The snowfield looked large and interesting, so I decided to revisit the area and see if my observation last year held up to skiing scrutiny.

So, a little less than a month after my Ptarmigan Glacier descent, I saddled up for an attempt of the Knobtop Icefield.

I really wanted the snowfield to be exactly the way I’d seen it the year prior, but that turned out to be pretty optimistic on my part.

The approach was fairly benign until I broke from the trail around Lake Helene as I’d done for the previous hike. Instead of heading up into the Ptarmigan Glacier area, I traversed underneath a small headwall and descended below Hope falls. Technically, this is the same gorge that originates near Ptarmigan, but the headwall is a significant enough obstacle to legitimately call them two separate things (Odessa Gorge and Ptarmigan Cirque, for example).

Little Matterhorn and the Gables from near Lake Helene.

After descending below Hope Falls and crossing the stream, I found myself in a familiar talus field and slope (the same approach that I’d used to climb Little Matterhorn the year prior). This part I knew wasn’t terribly long but featured some serious elevation gain that I had to do with skis. It was a long, and grinding ascent, but I stuck to areas that I thought looked the most stable and slowly made my way higher.

Generalized ascent path, turns out, not the easiest way, but certainly the most direct.

My path was…ok, I mean, I arrived where I wanted to, but the loose rocks and steep slope angle made me a bit nervous, and if you’ve ever tried to hike anything with skis on your back, you’ll know how easily you can get off balance. So, I stumbled, cursed, and dragged myself up the rise, hoping to reach what I knew would be a relatively flat talus field leading up to the edge of the icefield.

The first views of the icefield were…not super inspiring.

Oof, dirty and a lot smaller than last year’s observations.

Feeling the looming specter of failure creep in, I resolved to at least scout the whole field from its base to see if there were any places I could rope together a measly five turns. The longest part of the icefield looked initially good but led right to a rockfall chute, and after watching countless fist-sized rocks scream down the icefield and crash into the talus below, I was keen to avoid that part.

I did find one section that looked relatively clean and was tucked up underneath a solid-looking rock wall with nothing overhung above it. To be honest, the whole area was a huge rockfall hazard, but I angled towards an area that looked white (so not a lot of surface debris) and got as close as I could to the start before getting my climbing gear on and preparing for a steep ascent.

Certainly not pretty, but clean enough to ski.

My crampons got their money’s worth as the terrain steepened quickly past 40 degrees. It wasn’t an altogether long ascent, but the sun-cupped surface, steep profile, and constant rockfall danger kept me plenty focused. I angled towards a large bergschrund (specifically, a randkluft in my case) between the top of the icefield and the solid rock walls behind it. In that pocket, I awkwardly got ready.

Also, in case you are unaware of what a bergschrund or randkluft are, this still shot from a video I took should provide some context. In no way was this a comfortable changeover from crampons to skis.

As the summer sun melts snow slopes, the snow can pull away from the walls behind them, creating a gap or a bergschrund. Technically, since this was the gap between stagnant ice and rocks as opposed to a moving glacier and stagnant ice, the appropriate term is a randkluft, but the key element is the same: a crevasse-like gap between ice and other stuff.

After a few trying minutes, I got all my gear ready and awkwardly sidestepped from the lower part of the randkluft up to the crest and gently, nervously, stepped my skis over. I was leaning so much on my inside edges I thought I’d fall right back into the randkluft, but it all held together, and I slid forward to a patch of clean snow.

Yeah, so, perhaps unsurprisingly, this was not a banner skiing day, but in the middle of the summer, beggars can’t be choosers. Would I ever repeat it though? ….Uhm.

I didn’t take any pictures on the way down but did manage to put together a set of turns that actually made me really proud. Despite my wonky start, I settled in quickly and hit the skiable bit with the same confidence I had at Andrews Glacier, which is saying something. I hated the rockfall danger and looming sense of potential catastrophe, but I skied better this day than I did on Ptarmigan in August.

I did get some perspective shots from further back and could trace my lines, which was neat.

Gotta love old iPhone pic quality. Below the red line, I unstrapped and just carefully heel kicked my way down, far too much debris.

Below is a different perspective from farther away. I drew in the lines using a computer mouse, so there may be small differences between representations, but you can clearly see my first few turns in the shade on the undrawn version.

The skiing was strangely better than August, but this was by far the most dangerous ski of the year.

Although I made it down the ski slope just fine, I had another couple of heart-stopping moments when chunks of rocks cascaded down from higher elevations. Hearing a rock pick up speed, hitting what looked like 60-80 mph, and then split into a thousand pieces when it hits a piece of talus bigger than an SUV certainly leaves an impression.

Luckily, I had scouted potential lower-risk escape routes, and because I had already identified the problem spots above me, I knew I wasn’t in immediate danger. With barely any wind that day, the biggest factors were sun-melt on the ice and rockfall from gullies and slots that broke through the walls above me. I could tell where those gullies emptied out because of how the snow looked (darker=more debris covered), and you can see that in the picture below. Purposely picking my line to ski the best conditions, as opposed to the longest vertical, saved my skis from getting too beat up and kept me in one physical piece.

Left pic, no markup. Right pic, Red arrows=most likely rockfall direction based on my observations. Blue=the area where I skied. PLEASE NOTE: all of this was completely dangerous, I just worked with the best option.

Still, having a bunch of rocks break a few dozen meters away from you is not a calming experience. I kept my helmet on for the majority of the return hike to lake Helene and only stowed it when I was safely back on established trails.

The hike back felt somehow more exhausting and challenging than last month’s outing; my ski straps kept loosening, so I had to do a bunch of re-adjusts, and talus hopping with skis on just beats you up. I did make it back successfully, and despite the rapidly forming blisters, felt pretty good about how I’d managed what is definitely one of the craziest backcountry adventures I’ve done.

Quick PSA: This is all completely nuts, and I think that should be noted somewhere in every piece I write about this kinda stuff. I am a competent skier and mountaineer with decades of experience; I’m also a 6-year ski instructor; additionally, I have years of trail-building and months of alpine camping/living under my belt. I make it my business to understand the mountains and the hazards they harbor, and I have turned around on many adventures when the conditions weren’t right.

I really like being alive, but I also intimately understand my personal thresholds because I have that conversation with myself often. Like most aspects of life, thresholds change over time. As silly as it sounds, the best advice when you’re pushing yourself in the outdoors is to get right with yourself, figure out what you can and won’t do, and identify the gray area where you can build skills into. After all the years I’ve spent in the outdoors (along with the hundreds of Colorado mountains I’ve climbed), I felt that I could handle the risks presented to me on this day, but I am always preparing for the day when that’s no longer the case.

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Month 9: October 28, 2021 (Shrine Pass Meadows)

When we talk about the alpine in Colorado, there’s usually a period of time in the autumn when a series of high elevation storms bring the first snow of the year. Most of this is unskiable from resorts, and there’s a fair amount of melting between storms because the sun angle is still high, but it signals the inevitable arrival of colder weather. Well, this year, that first bout of snow took its sweet time showing up. There were a few anemic spurts in early October, but finally, towards the back half of the month, a stronger storm targeting the western slope dropped up to a foot on the mountains around Vail Pass. My time had arrived.

By this time, I’d also managed to wrestle down the inevitable criteria I would use for the challenge. With an understanding that I’d elected to keep my skiing limited to the I-70 corridor and north, I figured exploring a small section west of Vail Pass would make for a nice excursion. I knew the road to Shrine Pass was skiable, so I planned for that.

The new snow, while copious for October, was also still drivable, so I ended up giving the ole snow tires a workout and chugged up the Shrine Pass Road, looking specifically for low-angle grassy slopes where the chances of skiing rocks was a lot lower.

I had no illusions that this was going to be a short outing. Already limited by early season snowfall, my hope was to just recycle a few slopes until I felt like I’d made my five requisite turns. All in all, I found three separate “runs” and pieced together about 20 turns between them.

There were a few people out skiing the road, but after driving over some bare patches, it looked, to me, like it would still mess up a pair of skis, so I was relatively excited to find soft slopes without surprise gravel under them.

There were a couple of times I broke through the snow, but luckily the surface was soft underneath. If you strain, you can see at least five turns in this photo.

This day wasn’t anything to shout about, but after languishing through the first part of October, wondering if I’d get to ski fresh snow or be forced to have another experience like August and September, I was just happy to be able to ski something soft.

I think from start to finish, I was on my skis for maybe 90 minutes total, and a lot of that was just soaking up being outside.

Yeah, no real issues, just enjoyed some high-altitude October turns under cloudy skies and on top of fresh snow.

Naturally, thoughts turned towards the following month since another storm was set to hit, and I wanted to take advantage but I also took a moment to give myself a high five, month 9 of backcountry turns complete! Only three more before I’d skied a whole year!

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Colorado Backcountry Turns All Year: Year 1, Months 4-6 (2021)

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April 2021 was a breakout backcountry ski month for me. While I only managed three days out in the hills, they were all exceptionally satisfying, and my confidence rose accordingly. As I mentioned in my previous turns all year post, by early May, the idea of doing a full year of backcountry skiing still hadn’t made it to the forefront of my brain. As a kind of interim goal, I’d resolved to keep the skis out of storage until at least June. In fact, I already had an idea of what the ski adventure could look like. As for July and beyond? Hadn’t even considered it yet.

From late April through mid-May, my wife and I had a few trips we needed to take (family visits and a sister’s graduation from college), so backcountry took a backseat. However, as May wound down and I found myself with a solid week and a half weather window, the pressure to go do something epic began to ratchet up in my head. And while the winter of 2020/2021 was average in pretty much every sense of the word, the spring of 2021 was temperate and wet, with a lot of alpine spring snow available for the taking.

Backcountry Warnings and Resources
Month 4: May 22, 2021 (Tyndall Glacier & Gorge)
Month 5: June 2, 2021 (Sundance Mt. North Face)
Month 6: July 25, 2021 (Andrews Glacier)
Final Thoughts

Backcountry Warnings and Resources

If you’re tip-toeing into backcountry skiing, there are a ton of resources and education that I would consider mandatory before taking it to the hills. I’ve compiled a list below.

Avalanche training (look up Avvy 1 certifications near you).
Avalanche gear (shovel, probe, beacon, radio).
Regular ski gear plus skins, frame/tech bindings.
Orienteering skills (download offline maps, have a GPS watch, or bring a physical map and a compass).
Scout your line before committing.
Ski with partners when able (if not able, compensate by only attempting on the best day conditions wise). This is a touchy point, many refuse to attempt without a partner, and I accept that, but if you have a flexible risk tolerance and can accept more risk in one area (solo journeys), you have to compensate by nailing down all other aspects of the planning process to make the risk defensible.
Check the weather up until the moment you leave.
Leave your plan with a loved one and have that plan include emergency contact info should you miss a predetermined rendezvous time.
Here are some Colorado-focused resources I use: Opensnow, Front Range Skimo, Mountain Weather Forecasts (click here), CAIC (they have an Instagram page, and there are other associated avalanche pages to follow as well), NWS.
For added info on planning and gear, please visit these two articles I wrote for an outdoor website called SkyblueOverland. The topics covered are crucial for any aspiring backcountry skier/rider. Essential Backcountry Gear, and Guide to Planning a Backcountry Adventure.
Additionally, I wrote an overview of Colorado Snow, which has a bunch of additional information pertinent to centennial state winters.
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Month 4: May 22, 2021 (Tyndall Glacier & Gorge)

Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the top 5 most-visited national parks in the country, and for good reason, it’s really pretty and less than two hours from a large metro area. The park is an outdoor mecca, and that means winter recreation as well. The Bear Lake Road corridor is a particular highlight, and any casual outdoor Instagram follower will have seen a ton of #inspiring/#grateful posts featuring a lake, pinnacles to the right, and a tilted blocky looking mountain to the left. The gorge in-between them is Tyndall Gorge, and if you hike up to the headwall, you get Tyndall Glacier. Ever since seeing the view from Dream Lake (picture below), I’d wanted to do a couple of things, ski Tyndall Glacier and climb Chaos Couloir up Hallett Peak. This year I’d do both, but since the snow was starting to melt lower down, skiing became the top priority.

Bam. While you can’t quite see the glacier yet, you get an idea of the gorge run (down the middle), Hallett Peak (left), and the Pinnacles to the right that house two gnarly ski mountaineering routes: Dragontail Couloir and Dead Elk Couloir.

With an elevation above 9k, the top of Bear Lake Road is the perfect place to explore some spring skiing. While there are many ways to access Tyndall Glacier, I wanted to skin up from the bottom because I hadn’t skied in the upper part of the gorge, and I wanted to see it before dropping in. When I arrived at the parking lot, there was enough snow about 1/4 mile from the trailhead to strap skins on, which I gratefully did. Not that carrying skis is overly complicated; they’re just heavy. So, I was keen to take any chance to connect snowfields without the extra weight.

On the way in, you pass three lakes, Nymph Lake, Dream Lake, and Emerald Lake. Beyond Emerald, the terrain steepens sharply, the crowds fall to the wayside, and you feel as though you’re back in the wild. Starting early enough, I’d already beaten most of the day-trippers, but crowd avoiding is a big part of my outdoor ethos. Not that I mind people beholding magnificent scenery, but for a serious outdoor adventure, you don’t necessarily want a huge audience watching your every move. Unfortunately, my head was so focused on speeding up to the start of the line that I took an ill-advised shortcut across a corner of Nymph Lake. In my defense, the ice was thick when I stepped onto it, but after crossing the lake, I had to get back on dry land, and the edge had a weak ice layer that was rapidly melting. My weight sent my skis through, and before I could curse, both boots were in the drink.

Soaked and a little pissed, I took stock of the damage, dried the boots as best I could, slapped a new pair of socks on, and continued. The weather was supposed to be a warm 50 degrees with ample sunshine (and no humidity because Colorado is high and dry), so I figured I wasn’t going to freeze to death, and the thought of being defeated by four feet of water didn’t leave a particularly great taste in my mouth. So, I soldiered on.

National Park-worthy scenery almost every step of the way.

If you look closely, you can see at least three climbers on the lower/mid portion of Dragontail Couloir.

The two other lakes passed in quick succession, and before I knew it, I was scrambling over some boulders near Emerald Lake, looking to gain elevation for the eventual ascent into the gorge. As predicted, the crowds vanished after Emerald until it was just me and a handful of other backcountry hopefuls, each set on their own objectives.

Dead Elk Couloir (L.), and DragonTail Couloir (R.).

I saw a group peel off to the East Couloir, a 45-degree option that attacked the ridge of Hallett Peak, and another group further ahead, heading for Tyndall Couloir. In the Tyndall area alone, there are at least eight well-established backcountry ski lines, and the variety is pretty spectacular. My goal, Tyndall Glacier, is one of the few alpine glaciers left in Colorado. There are a handful of them on the eastern slope of the northern Front Range, which is peculiar because the eastern side of the Front Range doesn’t get as much snow as the Western Slope. The glacier’s location can be explained by looking at the wind scouring that happens in this part of the state.

Quick weather PSA, for the full scoop, read this piece. Colorado winters are variable; storms roll in (very, very generally) from west to east. So, snow slams into the western slope first. However, the wind really kicks up over the northern Front Range. That wind, ruthless as it is, steals snow from the Western Slope and lobs it over the continental divide until it settles in high, cold, east, and north-facing alpine basins. These areas, consequently, have the most consistent snow. Colorado also isn’t as far north as people think, which means the sun factor is more critical. An eastern and northern aspect helps shield these areas from sun-melt. All of this is, of course, subject to climate change, but for now, these areas of snow and ice are the last vestiges of Colorado’s glacial history. Back during the last mini ice age, glaciers in Northern Colorado were huge and helped shape the gnarled-looking valleys of the Indian Peaks and RMNP. Estes Park and its world-famous rock climbing areas were carved out by advancing and retreating glaciers.

ANYWAY, Tyndall was one of a few left, and I kind of wanted to see them all, which of course led to a follow-up thought, “Hey, I wonder if you can ski any of them.” As evidenced by multiple trip reports, blogs, websites, and guidebooks, the answer to that is absofreakinglutely. Tyndall made sense because it was in the middle of a well-traveled and well-documented area, had a low avalanche rating due to snowpack consolidation and nightly freezes, was supposedly an enjoyable descent, and since I hit it early enough in the year, there was enough snow to take me from the top of the glacier on a more than a mile-long journey to the shores of Emerald Lake. (Quick aside: Tyndall Glacier slides every year, so a scouting trip is HIGHLY recommended before you commit.)

I found it astounding that this run even existed because if you’ve only been as far as Emerald Lake, you’d think the valley simply ended on the other side of the lake. You can’t see over the slope in front of you, so you assume it stops. In reality, there’s at least another mile of terrain between you and what’s left of the glacier.

The upper part of the gorge with a small tarn visible. The glacier is nestled up against the headwall (hard to see when most things are covered in snow).

So after a lot of grunting and sweating, I arrived at the base of the glacier and then faced the daunting task of climbing it. I had followed a set of previous skin tracks that ultimately broke up to Tyndall Couloir, so I approached the glaciers steeper south side (45-50 degrees). Armed with a trusty ice axe, crampons, and general mountain enthusiasm, I resolved to climb the steeper portion of the glacier and ski the mellower part.

Hallett Peak frames the southern side of the gorge rim.

This was a steep climb, made harder by the rising temperature and slushy snow. The biggest concern in spring is the idea of a wet avalanche, where the sun melts the top layers of snow, and they gradually sluff off the slope. Usually, if you have a good freeze overnight (which I did), you can get to the top of your line and ski it before the sun increases the wet slide risk. I made the timing work, but it was a bit later than I would’ve liked, with the slush making upward progress more difficult.

You can see my ascent tracks heading diagonally right to avoid the cornices up top.

By the time I reached the very top, I was down to shorts and a t-shirt. With added effort, I managed to crest the top, avoid the cornices, and take in the beauty of the alpine.

Looking northward around the rim of the gorge—the Mummy Range is in the background.

I took a little time to rest at the top and snap some photos of the surround. After some food, water, and a bit of stretching, I got ready to descend. The first set of turns I made were simple, just along the top of the glacier angling towards the mellower north side. I used those first turns to test my gear and then made necessary adjustments to my bindings before pouring into the gorge.

First few turns from the top of my climb.

Once I felt I had made all necessary adjustments, I swallowed a rapidly expanding bubble of anxiety (pretty common when you think about any crazy outdoor activity you’re about to do) and ripped into my descent. It went perfectly. The turns were soft but not too soft, and the snow held without sending me any wet avalanche signs.

Looking up to my ascent tracks (left) and where I skied down (hard to see my tracks through the darker patches).

Now, Tyndall Glacier descends into a formidable terrain trap. A terrain trap is simply a set of features preventing a continuous ski. In my case, the steeper side of the glacier bled into a large bowl rimmed by talus. If I skied the way gravity wanted me to, I’d end up in it, have to put my skis on my back, and hike out to the nearest continuous snow line. Well, all of that sounded awful, so about 2/3 of the way down, I made an abrupt left-hand turn and aimed for a 10-20 foot wide snow chute that offered the best chance for continuous skiing.

Slide the bar to see my marked-up ascent/descent routes.

Luckily, the little slot I’d chosen held just enough snow for me to ski through some chokepoints and continue unhindered. Turning the glacier into a continuous descent down the gorge was a game-changer and the only times I stopped were to take pictures, say “wow” under my breath, and, occasionally, catch my breath when I needed to.

At one point, I had to ski on one ski to fit through a section, and at another, lost all my momentum; but, after some sidestepping and huffing, I was able to keep connecting continuous snow-fields. I think another day or two after I went, and the snowmelt would’ve made that impossible.

The last part of the descent is interesting because you bulldoze into view of everyone down at Emerald Lake. You can’t hear them if you’re skiing and making turns, but boy, can they see you. I managed to make it all the way down to the shore and scooted around it until running into the crowds. I could feel eyes on me but only really began to field questions when I stowed all the gear that could be stowed, got out my hikers/crampons, and fastened my skis to my backpack.

Here’s a generalized drawing of the last part of the run down to Emerald Lake. I traded emails with a girl from Virginia who sent me this picture. It’s hard to see, but the skier in the circle is me.

All told, I skied more than a mile and dropped 2,300 feet over the course of my run, and I could not be happier. While conditions may have been better overall for April, skiing down an alpine cirque glacier in a National Park will always be a top memory for me. What a day, and to think I almost quit when I fell into Nymph Lake! Granted, my pruney and smelly feet had a lot to say about that choice, but I took a week and a half to lick my wounds before attacking my June ski.

From the top of the Glacier, looking down the gorge, Emerald Lake is hidden from view.

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Month 5: June 2, 2021 (Sundance Mt. North Face)

Longs Peak, seen from near the start of my ski line down Sundance Mountain.

Even though the summer solstice doesn’t occur until the end of June, you could tell that warm weather was on its way. After a wet and cool April-May, the heat was coming. Following an upper elevation snowstorm (11k and above), the weather forecast looked dry and sunny. I wanted to take advantage of a couple of things, ease of access, high altitude, and good weather. I came up with Sundance Mountain.

Trail Ridge Road is the primary road bisecting Rocky Mountain National Park and closes down over the winter. When it opens back up (around Memorial Day, weather permitting), there are still large snowfields left above treeline that the road gets very close to. One of those is Sundance Mountain’s north face. The year prior, I’d taken my parents through the park, and near the highest part of the road is a small trail to the Toll Memorial. It was on this trail that my dad and I noticed some skiers, and ever since, I thought that it would be the perfect early summer Colorado ski candidate. I was right.

Armed with a June plan and still high off my Tyndall Glacier descent, I finally committed to the ski all-year challenge and was eager to try some summer backcountry skiing. I had only skied in June once before, in 2019, the year A-Basin stayed open to July 4th. My friends and I skied on a few inches of fresh powder on June 23rd, which was my current record for latest season ski. While I wouldn’t break that with an early June ski, I was confident I’d find the snow.

So, June 2 rolls around, and I bulldoze up the recently opened Trail Ridge Road to just beyond its highest point. I was the first car in the parking lot, and that’s always strange, especially with an area as popular as Trail Ridge, but I was thankful for the solitude as it allowed me to futz with my gear and take oodles of pictures of mountains.

The Mummy Range from the Toll Memorial Trail.

There are a couple of ways that you can ski Sundance Mountains North Face. The top of the run gives you more than 700 vertical feet of super easy 20-25 degrees slopes. This is where most people ski. When the slope narrows and steepens (to the tune of 45 degrees), most people find a stopping point, slap some skins on, and recycle the upper portion. Well, I’d just skied a glacier; there was no way I was going to let a juicy 45-degree slope go to waste.

So, I skied the upper portion on a cold morning and enjoyed the fresh crunch under my boots while making wide GS turns. As all the other reports I’d seen indicated, it was fairly obvious when the slope angle steepened past the point of many people’s comfort zone. And, while unfortunate to discuss, people have died on the lower portion of this particular run, so you really need to “know thyself” before making critical terrain choices.

The beautiful and effortless upper portion of Sundance.

Having said that, when I finally got a good look at the lower portion, I knew I had to ski it. I had years of experience and had skied similar slopes recently. I knew I could handle the slop angle and the conditions. So, when I passed the logical point of no return, I flashed a smile and began slicing my way down.

The snow didn’t really soften up until the bottom half, so I wouldn’t say it was the best day out for the type of snow surface encountered, but just like Tyndall, I surprised myself with how smooth my turns ended up being. Aside from one break to scout my line through the bottom section, I skied a 2,000-foot slope without stopping.

Yeah, it gets steep. The line ends at the foot of the large meadowy patch of snow at the bottom left.

By the time I reached a logical end-point, I collapsed into the snow and practiced breathing for a while. The run only took about 10-12 minutes, but that is a significant time for continuous skiing. Once I collected myself, I took a shot from the bottom-up.

Runs like Sundance North have obvious benefits. Since Trail Ridge climbs up beyond the start, you can be out of your car and skiing within a few minutes. However, if you want to ski the whole line, and unless you car positioned, you have to reclimb the slope. Needless to say, this bit took a lot longer than the skiing, but the temperature began to moderate, and it was nice to feel my muscles working. About halfway up, I was surprised by the presence of a Coyote. I stopped and watched him stick his nose in a Pika nest, pull one out and devour it. Nature is beautiful, but she can be cruel.

Eventually, the coyote noticed me and began to saunter off, but not before I grabbed a few more pictures. Even in a state like Colorado, where wildlife is abundant, it’s always so cool to see big animals roaming around.

Seeing the coyote actually gave me a nice break, which I used to adjust the weight I was carrying and eventually make it back up to the starting point. For the bottom portion, I had to use my crampons and carry my skis, but after the Coyote sighting, the slope angle lessened enough for me to reapply skins. By the time I reached the top, at least a handful of other skiers were out and about enjoying the day. The gawking from the masses on the way back to my car was a bit much, but I shoved some earbuds in, smiled when someone looked at me and kept moving.

Sadly, only a week later, another skier died on the lower portion of Sundance, which by slope degree alone is easily a Black Diamond or Double Black Diamond run at any ski resort. I began wondering if the ease of access and gentle upper portion were fooling people into thinking they could do all of it. Was this slope only being advertised as beginner terrain? And by advertised, I mean by word of mouth, which is really how this stuff spreads.

This is the point of no return, or as close to it as I thought made sense to photograph. Once you pass that rock, you are committing to a steep and dangerous slope.

I don’t know; I guess hearing about another death in a year that had already killed more backcountry enthusiasts than any other in the last 50+ years made me wonder if those risks aren’t being communicated effectively enough. In reality, it’s just the top snowfield that can support those easier turns; once you commit to the bottom, you absolutely need to know what you’re doing. I hope that people are accurately conveying not only the rewards of backcountry but the risks as well; there are a lot of them.

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Month 6: July 25, 2021 (Andrews Glacier)

After my early June ascent, I turned my attention to other outdoor opportunities.

I took on Hallett Peaks Chaos Couloir, a fantastic mixed climb up an iconic peak, on June 8th.
I scrambled across the Gorge Lakes Rim, which included Mt. Ida, Chief Cheley, Cracktop, and Mt. Julian on June 14th.
I scrambled up a Class 4 route on the Spearhead, one of the more vertigo-inducing summits in RMNP, on June 30.
I scrambled a Class 3+/4 route up Lead Mt. in the Never Summers, one of the true hidden-gems of the area and a bear to get to.
I also hiked a few area favorites with my wife and had a banner scrambling day on Horsetooth Peak, a little known Boulder County mountain with an outrageous Class 4 option that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I was having so much fun embracing summer that by the time the last week and a half of July rolled around, I realize I hadn’t gotten my July ski in yet! A quick bout of panic turned into an opportunity when I settled on a trip to Andrews Glacier.

Andrews is in Rocky Mountain National Park and a fairly popular place; however, since it’s on the way to Sky Pond (arguably the prettiest lake on the eastern side of the park), it tends to draw far fewer people.

My wife and I hiked in and had most of the trail to ourselves once we took the cutoff away from Sky Pond. I’m glad I had gotten all the hikes in that I did since Sundance, so my body could handle carrying skis for 4+ miles because there was zero snow up until the foot of the glacier.

As far as alpine glaciers are concerned, Andrews still shows signs of movement and is generally considered an active glacier (unlike other nearby pieces of snow like Moomaw Glacier, St. Marys Glacier, and Skyscraper Glacier). Throughout most of the summer, the snow reaches down to a beautiful tarn at its base. By mid-August, the glacier retreats to above the tarn, but when we arrived, there was still a twenty-foot snow connection to the shores of the lake, which made for a much more aesthetically pleasing descent.

Andrews is not a steep glacier and has a maximum pitch of maaaaaybe 33 degrees. Most of the run is in the high 20’s, making it easy to connect soft, satisfying turns all the way down.

The conditions were typical for the summer, with some firm patches on the way up, bowing to warm slush by the time I made it to the top and clipped in. Even still, I had a great time slicing down the slope and made a series of excellent turns. It’s not often you can say that you backcountry skied in Colorado on July 25th!

Perhaps the most unexpected part of the adventure was the sheer number of people who could not believe that I had actually found snow. For many, this was their first time in Rocky Mountain National Park, so they wore clear expressions of deep confusion when they saw a sweaty man with a pair of skis on his back passing them. Everyone was friendly, though, and on a beautiful summer day, it’s not hard to smile and field a couple of questions.

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Final Thoughts

With Andrews being such an easy ski (and a tough but manageable approach), I began thinking about the next three months, and a bit of worry crept in. I’d always heard that August and September can be the toughest months to ski in Colorado because even after a heavy previous winter, the snow is more or less gone (except for the 100 or so permanent snowfields left in the state), and the conditions on what’s left can be quite dangerous. And while the high peaks can see snowflakes any month of the year, skiable accumulations don’t really occur until mid-late October, which presented a bit of a logistical problem. I had to find two skiable candidates during the two driest months in the state….hurray.

So, despite my elation at making it this far into my challenge, I began to wonder how difficult the next couple of adventures would end up being… One thing was for certain, now that I’d committed, I’d be hunting snow in August, September, and October, no matter how hard it ended up being.

I hope you tune back to read the next part of this ongoing series!

Colorado Backcountry Turns All Year: Year 1, Months 1-3 (2021)

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In a lot of ways, it already felt like I’d missed my shot. I got into backcountry skiing during the winter of 18/19, and THAT would’ve been the perfect season to pursue turns all year. The drubbing the mountains received in March (including an upslope storm that dumped over 20 inches of snow on Denver) set the stage for a super productive spring with mountain snow lasting all summer. People were linking dozens of turns on St. Mary’s Glacier through August, which is surprising because it’s not an actual glacier and has melted completely in drier years. Hell, even A-Basin spun a lift on July 4th, the first time they’d been able to do that in years. But, as pretty much anyone with backcountry experience will tell you, start slow, get better over time, and do not take more than the mountains are willing to give. So, I learned slowly.

Brainard Recreation Area, unnamed snow shots south of Brainard Lake.

Backcountry Warnings and Resources
Transitions and Whatnot
A Challenge of My Own Making
The First One: February 26, 2021
Month 2: March 28, 2021 (Pawnee Pk. SE Slopes)
Month 3: April 26, 2021. Vail Pass East-Uneva North (Couloir 2)

All bundled up for those cold March days.

Backcountry Warnings and Resources

If you’re tip-toeing into backcountry skiing, there are a ton of resources and education that I would consider mandatory before taking it to the hills. I’ve compiled a list below.

Avalanche training (look up Avvy 1 certifications near you).
Avalanche gear (shovel, probe, beacon, radio).
Regular ski gear plus skins, frame/tech bindings.
Orienteering skills (download offline maps, or have a GPS watch or bring a physcial map and a compass).
Scout your line before committing.
Ski with patners when able (if not able, compensate by only attempting on the best day conditions wise). This is a touchy point, many refuse to attempt without a partner and I accept that, but if you have a flexible risk tolerance, and can accept more risk in one area (solo journeys) you have to compensate by nailing down all other aspects of the planning process to make the risk defensible.
Check weather up until the moment you leave.
Leave your plan with a loved one and have that plan include emergency contact info should you miss a predetermined rendezvous time.
Here are some Colorado focused resources I use: Opensnow, Front Range Skimo, Mountain Weather Forecasts (click here), CAIC (they have an instagram page and there are other associaed avalanche pages to follow as well), NWS.
For added info on planning and gear, please visit these two articles I wrote for an outdoor website called SkyblueOverland. The topics covered are crucial for any aspiring backcountry skier/rider. Essential Backcountry Gear, and Guide to Planning a Backcountry Adventure.
Additionally, I just wrote an overview of Colorado Snow, which has a bunch of additional information pertinent to centennial state winters.
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Recent avalanche cracking on Pt. 12,089. Be safe out there!

Transitions and Whatnot

This is the part of the website where I talk about my past; it’s not long, but feel free to skip by clicking here. Maybe I’ll just bullet point the details; that should simplify it:

Feb. 2015, accepted job trail building with Southwest Conservation Corp out of Durango, CO.
March-end of May: road trip out west from a home base in Georgia.
June 1-early Oct: trail work in the San Juans (slopes of El Diente).
Started climbing 14,000-foot mountains on my off days.
Applied/accepted to teach skiing at Beaver Creek (Nov. 2015-April 2016).
Met my future wife, worked two jobs (retail and instructing). Ski instructed for 140ish days, and skied a million vertical feet (ouch).
Accepted position with CFI (March 2016) (trail building outfit focused exclusively on the 14ers, worked alongside them on El Diente).
Proposed in Vancouver, ~April 17, 2016 (she said yes!).
Rebuilt summit trail to Mt. Eolus (reroute through talus field so leveraging ~500-1000 lbs rocks into place to make sustainable staircases through the talus), best job ever, keep climbing 14ers.
(2016/2017) 2nd winter at Beaver Creek (another million vertical feet, 125 days teaching, so burnt out afterward, but am now an excellent skier).
3rd summer (2017) rebuilt the summit trail on Mt. Quandary with CFI.
First hut trip, ski touring, borrowed a pair of backcountry skis from my friend.
Applied and got accepted to a masters program for tourism management in Fort Collins at CSU.
Move to FoCo and do the grad school thing (getting closer on the 14ers challenge) 2017-2018 (May).
Part-time at Beaver Creek (winter of 17/18) and ski the Minturn Mile for the first time, technically a sidecountry run but started the brain thinking about backcountry skiing.
2018-Alli moves to FoCo, I graduate in May.
Move to Boulder, June 2018, get married in Sept.
9/23/18 summited Little Bear, have now climbed all 54 official 14,000-foot mountains in Colorado and a dozen un-official summits for a ~65ish total count.
The 14ers got me into scrambling, so I focused hard on epic scrambles, a few of which I’ve written about in this blog. Start developing a scrambling challenge but really just enjoying being outside. Backpacking trips with Alli & friends.
18/19, epic winter, ski instructing part-time, and freeskiing a lot (Minturn mile #2).
1/20/19: small backcountry run off the south side of Loveland Pass (ok, marginal snow and lots of tourists).
Get a Rocky Mountain National Park season pass.
4/28/19-backcountry ski East Slope of St. Vrain Mt. for the first time (the “spark”).
Scouting mission up Shoshoni Pk, in IPW 6/8, still a TON of snow left on the ground, decide to come back and ski Queensway Couloir, which you can see from Shoshoni’s summit.
6/29/2019-skied Queensway, first big mountain Couloir, ~35-37 degrees, adjusted to snow conditions well.
Rest of summer spent scrambling and loving the outdoors; then, of course, COVID comes to crash the party.
Winter 19/20 kicks off ok, abbreviated when ski hills close in March, still got a decent amount of resort skiing and teaching in along with a couple of sidecountry forays (Minturn mile #3 and Alta Chutes near Beaver Creek).
5/23/20-ski Vail Pass east, Stump top east, and a side climb of Uneva Pk. (can read about that area here).
5/31/20-Queensway ski #2
So at this point, I’ve settled on a handful of spring backcountry runs to bridge the seasons until I can scramble on open rock again; naturally, the hold of backcountry skiing gets stronger over time, aided by the pro-isolation early days of the pandemic.
Start conducting research on backcountry routes in the park and in the IPW.
Hiked/scrambled all summer in the Front Range with occasional forays to the western slope, but the Cameron Peak Fire and East Troublesome choke out hiking options by mid-September.
Winter 20/21, part-time at Beaver Creek again, Minturn Mile #4 (Feb. 26. 2021).
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A Challenge of my own making

I think one of the most interesting things about the turns all year challenge for me was that I didn’t even know it was a challenge until May. As evidenced by one of the bullet points above, my forays into the discipline came initially from a “bridge the seasons” mentality. I was tired of waiting for snowdrifts to take until mid-July to melt in some places, and I wanted to get comfortable on snow. Working tirelessly at Beaver Creek (which had one of the most comprehensive and well-rounded instructor programs in the state when I joined) no doubt had an influence on my confidence, but it wasn’t the flick of a switch.

As I’m writing this, I’m in my 6th season at the resort. For the first two years, I taught an ungodly amount, which forced me to understand skiing as not just a snow sport but as a complicated and evolving discipline. When I finally went down to part-time, I used my knowledge to catapult my own abilities and between Year 2 and 3 at the resort saw an enormous leap in not only my ability but my skiing awareness. By the time I tried my first backcountry run (2019), I had skied every run at Beaver Creek and neighboring Vail—had experienced snow in all its myriad conditions, and learned to adjust my body position accordingly. The nail in the coffin was when my buddy gave me his center-mounted Solomon Rockr skis with frame bindings. He was getting more into mountain biking and I did not hesitate to accept them.

The frame bindings were the missing ingredient. There are, of course, much lighter AT bindings out there, but without a binding that allows your heel to rise, you won’t be making it uphill. Combine a heel riser binding and a pair of outdoor skins and all of a sudden, uphill travel is not impossible. A pair of used skins later (the attachment that allows your skis to grip the slope when climbing), I was ready.

Making my way down Queensway Couloir for the second time in 2020.

By the time I finally developed a loose set of criteria around my challenge, the pieces seemed to have fallen into place already.

One ski adventure every month with a minimum of 5 connected turns attained.
During snowy months, one location is acceptable for multiple adventures as long as the line skied is different (different, in this case, means on an adjacent mountain face, mountain, ridgeline, or aspect with logical topographical dividers between “lines.” It does not mean tracks right next to other tracks and calling it different).
Geographical restrictions: the state of Colorado, 1-70 corridor and north. Maybe someday the rest of the state, but it’s too big to take out at once.
For the summer months, each snowfield or alpine glacier skied cannot be repeated. Safest bets include permanent snowfields on larger mountains and a series of alpine glaciers between. IPW/RMNP (Andrews, Taylor, Sprague, Skyscraper, Navajo Snowfield, Isabelle Glacier, Tyndall, etc.)
Avoid high use areas or hit them during the week.
2 different sidecountry runs allowed per year (located outside of ski resorts but may be accessed from within them).
Go for a minimum of 1 year, maximum of?

Yeah, pretty open-ended, just don’t repeat lines, and in the summer, one snowfield/glacier is one line, unless there are extenuating topographical considerations, like the obvious separation in late spring between Tyndall Couloir and Tyndall Glacier (separate lines).

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The First One: February 26, 2021

So, although at the time I had no idea how big the challenge would become, on February 26, 2021, I skied the Minturn Mile with my wife for the 4th time. For those unaware, the Mile is actually closer to three miles, exits from the inbounds terrain at Vail, and never gets over a light-mid 30 degrees in slope angle. After a good powder dump and with a ride waiting at the bottom, it is an exceptional way to end a resort day. Conversely, it makes for a longer but gratifying skin up.

Isn’t side-country different than backcountry? Yes and no. Many sidecountry runs are only called sidecountry because they are adjacent to a ski resort, meaning you could ride a lift up and then ski down. However, no one would call a sidecountry run a resort run, so it occupies kind of a weird middle ground. To me, what really matters are the conditions along the line. No ski patrol, no snowcats, no slow zones; yup, that counts. As an additional form of punishment, I hiked with both Alli and my skis to the top of Ricky’s Ridge, the highest possible start of the mile. The hike added 150 vertical feet and 0.3 miles, which, I know, isn’t a lot, but since climate change may rob Colorado of its pristine winters soon anyway, I’m leaving the net as wide as I can. (Max. 2 sidecountry runs allowed per year).

Slide the bar to see where the Mile begins and Vail Resort ends.

Feb. 26, 2021. The winter of 2020/2021 was perfectly mundane, and before I knew it, March was on the doorstep. Skiing had finally gotten good in mid-January, but it seemed that a recent warm spell would melt a lot of the terrain features on the mile I needed to stay covered. Of concern were the beaver ponds, which are much less fun to cross when they’re wet (instead of frozen), and the luge, which has an afternoon sun face that can occasionally melt out LONG before other parts of the route. If you want a long analysis of the mile itself, check out this article I wrote: Minturn Mile.

It was a fun day and a great way to end a ski day at Vail. With decades of skiing between us, Alli and I were seldom chasing vertical feet, and lo and behold—skiing had gotten fun again. We skied maybe four runs at Vail before chasing the mile and it was by far the best run. Choose your own adventures, but try to shelve the weekend warrior mindset when you can, if skiing isn’t fun, then really, what’s the point?

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Month 2: March 28, 2021 (Pawnee Pk. SE Slopes)

Additional Skis
Hidden Valley (March, 9, 2021.)

March 2021 started with a dry spell, and ultimately that gave me the idea to try Hidden Valley, which I wrote about here. Lots of good info there. Because of the dry spell and wind-loaded slopes, hazard identification was easy. 2,000 vertical feet later, I was ready to ski down. Hidden Valley is not hidden, and there were others out but only hours after I showed up, which was a timely reminder to abandon the “get there at the ass crack of dawn” approach I’d always taken to big outdoor undertakings. With variable conditions, wind, and sun exposure, I’d forgotten about the dynamic nature of snow. After a pronounced freeze overnight, the snow was very hard-packed and icy. I still had fun but could’ve benefited from a little later of a start time. Ok, noted.

The top of Hidden Valley, with typical Front Range wind stripping occurring on the slope opposite me.

The adventure I ultimately picked for my March entry was a foray into the IPW to ski Pawnee Peak’s SE slopes. On March 28, on a blustery 20-degree day, I parked at the winter gate for Brainard Recreation area and made the 2.5-mile road skin to the beginning of the trail.

Fresh skin tracks between Long Lake and Lake Isabelle.

There were a couple of motivations for getting out in suboptimal conditions. I had a weekday with no one around, I’d already skied Queensway Couloir twice, which shares the approach with Pawnee until Lake Isabelle, and the SE slopes of Pawnee are a relatively modest undertaking surrounded by more dramatic terrain. The avalanche rating from CAIC was yellow (alpine) and green (below treeline), and I wasn’t going to wait for the next storm to dramatically increase that risk. So, off I went.

A 2.5-mile road skin and a 2-mile trail section got me to Lake Isabelle, but not without some doing. The wind was fierce along the road, resulting in massive snowdrifts, the powder was thick and heavy beneath the trees, which ate up visibility, and the weather looked iffy. Still, the scenery was spectacular.

Once I began rising into Pawnee Basin, the views took on a life of their own, and I saw many, many lines for me to ski in the future. Sticking with my original plan, I took the easiest way up and passed by the bottom of the stellar-looking Pawnee Couloir (HIGH on the list for future endeavors).

The wind started really complicating things after I passed above a small, defined couloir and attacked the summit area. The summit of Pawnee (12,943 ft.) is a broad area with no protection from the wind, and after wandering aimlessly around near the top in a cloud, freezing my nuts off, I decided I’d come as close to the top as I would. After a world record changeover, I ripped skins, stowed excess gear, got my game face on, and began to ski.

The top of Pawnee Peak from my ascent route, ten minutes later, it was all cloud-covered.

The top 400 vertical feet or so was wide open and great for large GS turns on harder packed snow and quickly put a smile on my face despite the absolute onslaught of wind. Then, the run spilled left (east) towards the mini couloir I’d sighted and steepened sharply to a slope angle somewhere in the higher 30’s.

The couloir skiing was very short but very fun. From there, it was another slope of wider but still 30+ degrees until a looooooooong runout back to the Isabelle lake trail. Most of this was skiable but in one area, in particular, I lost all momentum and had to awkwardly scoot along, not willing to put skins back on.

Beyond the walking section, the pitch stiffened up again, and I was able to ski down past Lake Isabelle to the flat bit of valley at the head of Long Lake. Finally, the skins came out, and I started huffing my way back.

Looking back at the summit of Pawnee from below, Pawnee Couloir is front and center.

During much of this adventure, I was thinking, “wow, this is a stupid idea,” as 30 mph winds were screaming into my ear, and the true temperature hovered around 18 degrees F. But coming from such a hike/scramble first mindest, I’ve come to appreciate (and prepare for) the complete outdoor package. Not only did I manage to net ~1800-2,000 vertical feet of descent, but I also got to experience the high alpine in the middle of winter conditions, with a dense snow coat due to a recent upslope storm. Between the skiing, the views, and the solitude (zero people sighted until within a few minutes of the winter lot), I could’ve done a lot worse.

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Month 3: April 26, 2021. Vail Pass East-Uneva North (Couloir 2)

Additional Skis
April 12, 2021. Cameron Pass (Lake Agnes Bowl and Hot Dog Bowls)
April 20, 2021. Vail Pass East-Uneva South Ridge and Stump Glades

Skinning near Vail Pass with the Gore Range in the background.

April and May were my best backcountry skiing months. A lot of things were happening in my personal life (all good things, travel, family, etc.), so I didn’t get out as much as I had wanted, but a combination of even keel temperatures, nice spring moisture, and good coverage led to some of my best skiing lines.

I got out to Cameron Pass first, which you can read about here. This is a special area and a favorite stash for skiers from Fort Collins to Greeley, and I can see why. The pass divides the craggy end of the Never Summer Mountain Range and the Medicine Bow. To the west of these ranges, is a large, high elevation plateau known as North Park. With little topographical interference, if the wind hits these ranges right, they pull MUCH more snow out of passing systems than areas only 5-10 miles to the east. The avalanche danger is also SEVERE, and there are casualties almost every year, so I was keen to wait until a consolidated snowpack in early April to give it all a go.

Looking at the saddle between Mt. Richtofen (left) and Mt. Mahler (right), where my ski line awaits!

I skied two lines; one is the Lake Agnes Bowl, which attacks the saddle to the south of Lake Agnes (possibly the most popular lake in the area). The skiing was firm and fun, though I once again could’ve waited a bit for the surface to soften before scraping down.

Aside from a flat section on Lake Agnes itself and through a field a few hundred feet below, I was able to ski all the way down to the Michigan River before a quick jaunt back up to the winter parking lot. West of Cameron Pass is in Colorado State Forest State Park, which does have a parking fee. East is on public lands, so keep that in mind if heading this way.

I felt rejuvenated putting my ski gear back into the ole Subaru, so I thought, might as well do some more exploring. That exploration led to a skin-up and ski down of the Hot Dog Bowls. Despite the later afternoon descent, the temperatures held, slush was minimal, and the views were, once again, amazing.

Looking north to Cameron Peak, where the largest Colorado Fire in history began, you can see the burn scars (where snow is more visible along the trees below the alpine areas of the peak).

My second and third outings in April all revolved around Vail Pass. It is a pay-to-play area during the middle of the winter, but they waive fees in mid-April when Vail Resort is gearing up to close. Free access and a base elevation over 10k means skiable snow can linger here until June. So, on 4/20, after a storm dropped half a foot, I dragged my butt up to the pass and began skinning east with a mission to crest the first big ridge south of Uneva Peak and see what was on the other side. While the first run ended up being quite short, it was the softest set of turns I’d ever done.

I ended up with a couple of runs that day, all south of Uneva Peak, and one repeat from a year prior. They were all smooth like butter.

Naturally, I began plotting a return trip the next week to take advantage of some of the many terrain options north of Uneva Pk. On April 26, I returned and skied my steepest line to date.

The reason I chose 4/26 as my entry wasn’t because the conditions were best. They were still good, don’t get me wrong, but nothing could’ve topped the 4/20 trip. I chose 4/26 because it was a beautiful, steep mountain couloir that put me in an untouched alpine basin.

Not only was the slope angle exciting (42-43 degrees), but I was also skiing at my best. Every turn was patterned, I dealt with a double fall line (when a ridge splits gravity into two directions on one run), typically blustery conditions, and absolutely killed it.

12/19/21: on another backcountry adventure, I managed to get a good perspective shot of the Couloir I skied. It’s Couloir 2 of 4 potential couloirs heading east from the saddle between Uneva and Pt. 12,089. There’s A LOT to explore here.

The skin up to get out the basin wasn’t all that bad either and gave me more stunning scenery to behold. It felt a bit strange that my best skiing of the season was after many resorts had already closed, and I’d personally closed out another year of ski instructing, but the benefits of the seldom utilized alpine spring are numerous.

Endless lines and LOTS of cornice danger, beware!

Does that mean people don’t take advantage of alpine spring skiing? Oh hell no, spring is popping with backcountry skiers because the snowpack has usually stabilized by then, so avalanche risk takes a nosedive. I just resolved to go a little farther and skin a little higher than most to get away from the heavily used areas. Rewards are plentiful for those willing to work a bit.

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Final Thoughts

Even as I came down from my run on 4/26, the idea of turns all year hadn’t quite sunken in. I’d reached a tentative agreement with myself to continue as long as conditions were good. In my head, that meant maybe late May/early June. Since that was my partial goal, it seemed more attainable than trying to find pieces of snow in August or September. Still, I was riding a high from recent runs, and my form felt great. Once I finally finished up the month of May, the thought of doing this all year really took off. And by then, my ambitions had grown significantly, aided by a set of bankable outdoor skills and a touch of mountain masochism.

Hope you’ll stick around for Part 2 (May-July)!

A quick Note

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My writing on this blog has taken a hit recently but not because of anything bad. After some Covid Pandemic soul searching I got into freelance writing and have been writing trail, backcountry and scramble reviews for SkyBlueOverland. Please visit the “related outdoor articles” page where I’ll link the most interesting articles I’ve done. They’re all written by me, just for a different site. Lots of good outdoor info there (and marked up trip reports). I don’t write every single article on the SkyBlueOverland site but have amassed a pretty sizable collection, feel free to read them and dream of the outdoors until I start writing on here again!