makingturns.com

This is another mountain that I don’t have any surviving pictures for. I skied the East Chutes back in 95. This will serve as my TR for my 14er trip. Enjoy

Got out for a nice solo after a night spent dealing with a migraine. I was super slow fighting the effects of the pain meds that were still in my system from the night before. I cruised up the south slopes of Sherman then skied back down. I then made my way back up to White ridge and got some more turns. It was a bit late but the upper section skied great. I though the wind had preserved this gem from the ravages of the warm up. Further down it was a bit gloppy. At the choke in the second to the last pic you can see where I got sluffed. 3rd turn above the choke my sluff got me and flushed me through the choke. I should have been there an hour earlier and been going 20 mph faster. Oh well, no worse for the wear.

This warm spell should help things consolidate. Now lets just hope it freezes each night

Sherman

Dyer

Getting Ready to Ski

Look Back at Sherman

I Love Horseshoe

White Ridge has very cool rock

Skis are pointed to the line you want to ski

Below the steep upper section.

Look back at White Ridge

White Ridge from 4 Mile Creek Road

Got up for a nice tour before the weather rolled in. Dan joined me for this trip. First up was Peak 10 and its south slopes. The snow was pretty lame. Kind of crusty and not worth the effort. So we made for the saddle with Crystal. Up we went and enjoyed buttercream snow down to the lake. The snow was awesome. Then we checked out a cool old cabin and made for the exit gully. Found a nice steep section with good snow. Down below the lower lake it was corn to the truck. Fun stuff

Looking at Father Dyer, Crystal and Peak 10

Summit Post of Peak 10 above right.

Crystal in the background

Trap Crust ARGHHHH!!!

Next

Quandary's North Face might be in this year

Pacific Looking doable

Decent Snow on Crystal

Peak 10 in the background

Cool Cabin with Peak 10 in the background

The exit gully was steep

Well the plan this week was to go for Mt Helen’s South Face, then it changed to Crystal’s east slopes and then both my partners backed out the morning of due to various ailments so there you have it. What’s quick and easy with little avy hazard. Quandary’s East slopes. I skied Quandary’s North Gully back in 1993 but only have 1 picture that survived. So this will serve as my Quandary trip report for now. Eventually I will put together a better index page but this will work for the time being.

While I was driving up I couldn’t help but notice how windy it was. National Weather service said it was only supposed to be in the teens as far as wind went. It was higher for sure. Graceful snow plumes could be seen streaming of the top of Peak One on the drive out of Frisco. The rest of the numbered peaks were in the “clouds”. I went to check out the Pennsylvania Creek trailhead to see how far up the road you could get and decide what I wanted to do. I drove over to Blue lakes road and parked. Snow devils were dancing about on the east ridge. Tractor bowl was in and out as far as visibility went, but down low the temps were pretty nice. I figured what the hell. I need some exercise. If it get’s too bad I’ll just turn around. It was great. At treeline the balaclava and goggles went on and I just put my head down into the 20-30 mph headwind. I made pretty good time of almost 2:50 to the summit. At the summit ridge The winds kicked up to about 80+ mph. It was strong enough to push me to the ground a few times and it lifted my ski off the ground and sent it towards the south face. I made a diving save and got the hell out of there.

Winterlike conditions were the experience of the day. Our snowpack needs some serious sun before spring conditions will return. There’s a nice soft slab on top of 6-10 inches. I wouldn’t be surprised if a route like the Cristo Couloir had a soft slab on top of 12-20 of unconsolidated. It was loading something fierce up there. I skied back down the ridge and toyed with the edge of the loading so I wouldn’t loosen my fillings. Some good cream cheese like turns were had. After the flats it got really good then it was awesome in the upper trees. It was a fun day for sure.

After looking at the weather develop this week I was thinking a trip to the Sawatch might be in order. I was a little worried about all the new snow and how it would bond, so I thought a big day in an area with potentially less snow might be what was called for. I’ve been wanting to get this double day in for sometime and since I’ve been feeling better this week it seemed like a return to the 14ers would be just right.

I drove down the night before and car camped. Rob met me at the trailhead in the morning at 4. Our 4:50 am start was pretty early and away we went. We made pretty decent time to Belford and skied down the ridge to the Belford and Oxford saddle. Props to the guys that passed us, you guys were fast. We then made the grunt up to Oxford and enjoyed a really nice ski into Belford Gulch via the Northwest Gully. The hike back up and out to Mt Belford was painful with copious amounts of wind. The weather on this fine day was everything from wind to snow to 50 degree sun we had it all. So many clothing changes to deal with all of it. Finally at the top of Belford we had climbed 7000 on the day according to my altimeter. Rob’s GPS concured but NatGeo Topo software says that it’s only 6700′ so go figure. It felt like a bigger day than Uncompahgre, that’s for sure. Tired but rejuvenated by the sight of the Northwest Gully of Belford below us we strapped them on and enjoyed some of the finest skiing I’ve ever had on a 14er. The snow was like cream cheese only just a touch lighter. The stability was excellent and the turns capped off a really sweet day.

The out was also painful but only for a little while. We skied most of the trail to above the switchbacks and then shouldered the skis and hoofed it out. Another fine 14er with you Rob, lets do it again soon.

Messing around with the tripod around midnight

At treeline in Missouri Gulch

Missouri looking great

Belford's Northwest Slopes

Skinning up the NW Gully. Photo by Rob Steinmetz

Almost at the sun

So much up. Photo by Rob Steinmetz

Passing by Belford. Photo by Rob Steinmetz

Nearing the Belford Oxford saddle

Looking up at Oxford

People do silly things on summits of 14ers

Myself included

Looking dow Oxfords NW Gully

Decent skiing. Photo by Rob Steinmetz

Finding some good snow

Nice turns

I like this one the most

Peck's Peak in the background

Looking back up at Belford and the ridge. Unghh!!

The winds were kicking

Summit of Belford so close. Photo by Rob Steinmetz

Really nice blown in snow to be had

Looking down the NW Gully

Fun little zone

With great snow

So tired but the snow is so good can't stop turning

The skis really like to carve in this kind of snow. So fun. Photo by Rob Steinmetz.

A picture says a thousand words

In the interest of being upfront and honest I need to mention that these skis were given to me by SkiLogik as I am now skiing for them. So far I’ve skied 9 days on them and climbed 27,000 vert. I’ve had them out in powder, corn, hard slab and sastrugi. A few of my routes have been steep and a few have been mellow. At first I was a bit apprehensive when I looked at the dimensions of 140-92-125. The side cut radius of 15 meters threw me off. But I figured that this would be a great spring ski. With all the routes I had planned having a ski with less than 100cm under foot would be good for the variable conditions that I was sure to find, it’s not always corn in the spring.

At 4600 g per pair these aren’t the lightest skis out there. They are however very predictable in most conditions, more on that later. I’ve gotten myself used to touring with Rossi Squads so the weight isn’t really a big deal to me. If it is to you perhaps a set of Dynafit bindings would ease your pain. Focusing on touring, the ski has a lot of camber. This is great for bouncy turns on the way down but can make for a precarious feeling on the way up. You need to place your foot and keep it placed or you might suffer from sliding backwards as the camber pulls the skin off of it’s contact with the snow. This bothered me at first, but by yesterday it wasn’t much of an issue. We skinned straight up Gasoline Alley and I didn’t have any problems even with my 3 year old skins. One thing that would make this a better touring ski is a notch in the tail to help keep the skin holder from slipping off. I thought about grinding them but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, they’re too damn beautiful.

So lets talk about what really matters, the skiing. This ski is without a doubt the best corn ski I’ve ever been on. On London Mountain the other day I realized how these skis liked to groove. It was like being on a nice pair of GS race skis, from back in the day. I felt totally confident in what they were going to do and how they were going to do it. The same was true for yesterday on Peak 4, I was really enjoying the carving experience. One nice additional thing that was fun was the flex profile of the tip allows you to butter your carves. Not just your old fashioned race ski. One of the things that’s so fun about them is the snappiness of the camber. The skis virtually bounce from turn to turn.

The ski preformed much better than expected on hard pack. The other day on Loveland Mtn we encountered about 500′ vertical of very hard snow. Unlike my BD Kilowatts which liked to bounce down snow like this the Rave was able to hold an edge. The ski has great torsional stiffness. The ski was also detuned by me to 10cm down from the tip and 5cm up from the tail. I like to do this to ease turn initiation in variable conditions. It keeps you from getting edge grab on unexpected hard snow. On ridgeline sastrugi the ski has good dampening qualities to absorb the shock of the corrugated texture of the windblasted snow. Not my favorite place to ski these boards make it bearable. Another thing that I seem to attract with regularity is rocks. I absolutely slammed one yesterday. I hit it so hard it hurt the rod posts in my tibia. I was certain that it would core shot my skis, but it left barely a scratch. These bases are way tougher than the Rossi B-Squad bases. Me like.

Now for a little talk about powder. This ski has a bit of trouble with soft deep snow. The dimensions of the ski tend to force the ski to drive downward at the tips. This is the action of the large tail. The ski doesn’t have enough of a tip to force it back up to the surface. This forces you to have to be in a bit of a neutral back stance in soft snow. If you encounter soft conditions mixed with firmer stuff it can throw you off at the tips due to the diving action. One way I’ve found to combat this is to make sure I have the right wax on my skis, and to wax a touch higher on the tip than usual. Another reason for staying current on waxing is that the tip is so wide, if you don’t have enough wax you will have tip wash issues. I will say that once you find the right balance point this ski handles the soft fairly well, but this is not it’s ideal venue. Perhaps a little more asymmetry would do the trick and force the tip downward less. Pinning the tail just a little bit would go a long way in bringing the stance to a more neutral position.

Overall I really like this ski. I think some improvements can be made but generally speaking I really enjoy the turns I get to make on them. I was told by their rep that if there’s a line I don’t think they are right for by all means ski my Reverends or something else. So far I’ve reached for these every time I’ve gone out since I got them.

Full view

After “Drift Peak” I needed some soothing so I went down to Cottonwood Hot Springs. I love that place so much. Me and my wife fell in love there. I designed their t-shirts back in ’96. The water’s great and there’s a really cool vibe especially when it’s not summer. The plan was to meet at Spruce Creek trailhead at 6:30 and try and get the South Face of Helen. Darrell couldn’t reach his partners in the morning so he was without a ride. On the way up there I figured that it would take too long to get up Helen and ski it safely. Things were getting warm fast. Peak 4 seemed like a good idea and it was close to Frisco so we’d be able to get hiking sooner.

This was a very different day than on Drift. It almost had a summer feel to it, the skiing at least. The up was a bit chilly in the shade. Once we got on the snow and were making turns it was truly amazing. The corn was the best yet for this spring. Absolutely effortless. Another fine day man.

Melted out down low

Cool zone

Almost to the sun

Options up higher

Peak 10, Crystal, Pacific, Drift, Bartlett and Little Bartlett

Copper's closed

Almost there

Unbelievable Corn

Fun

Getting to the gut

Mach Schnell

A Look at the route from Copper

Oh the pleasures of being a parent. My 2 year old brought me the pain last week. I had vomiting and diarrhea in insane quantities, first him and then me. It didn’t stop until Saturday when I took his older brother to Breck. When you make a promise to your kid you have to keep it, no matter what. Oh man was I hurting but I have to keep trying to get this thing done. I changed the plan and decided that the best thing to do was a couple shorter routes. That way if I shit my pants or puked my guts out I could make a quick retreat. I called up Darrel Haggard and made plans for this super fun looking line. At 3000′ vert and about 6 miles this was just what I needed.

I was feeling every foot of vert and farting up a storm. But we finally made it and am I ever glad that we did. The best run of the year for me with 6-8 of winter fresh on top of a nice consolidated base. Ski this line sometime, its a blast.

Mayflower Gulch offers such easy access

Looking at the line in the morning light

Nearing the end of the skinning

The ridge was fun

Darrell gets after it

The snow was primo

Fast

This one is my favorite

Such a fun line

Darrell can shoot pics too

I was having soo much fun here.

Options at the rib below

Darrell went skiers right of the rib

It was a bit boney but It looked good

Spicy

Skiing fast through the sharks

In the clear with his angry knee

I opted for the line to skiers left of the rib. It was stellar narrow sluff riding.

The route from the Boston Mine