177 | Powder Day at Loveland, CO | 28 March 2011

It's been a while since I've last seen a resort, but with 7" of new snow overnight Sunday into Monday at Loveland (in addition to receiving nearly a foot over the weekend), the choice was a rather easy one. Even with crowds on the light side, the mountain was tagged pretty hard and fairly quickly, but it was near impossible to not continue charging for six hours non-stop.

More love on the Jaguar Shark:

176 | North Couloir . Buffalo Mountain, CO | 12 Mar 2011

Last Saturday, my usual partner-in-crime Fritz and I got back on track with yet another beautiful day in the backcountry that included a classic Colorado descent (our 3rd on the year so far). Also joining was another usual suspect, Adam, with Nick and Chris tagging along.


Now ask yourself this: can it get any better for mid-March?




After meeting early in the morning in Dillon to discuss the plan, we abandoned the original idea of doing Peak 1 in the Tenmile range. Instead, we opted for a longer, more northern-facing aspect which should provide us with a better ski and experience. Sure enough, we succeeded and skied the North Couloir (aka Silver Couloir) off Buffalo Mountain just north of Silverthorne. This is a line that I had skied 3 years ago on an equally-impressive day.



red = ascent, blue = descent, yellow = traverse out)



As the clock barely ticked past 9am, we were on the way and skinning uphill at a very brisk pace while making the 3,000-foot climb in 2:15, well over an hour faster than that May 4th, 2008 trip.



The group approaching the summit:




Andy and Nick looking stoked at the top:




As am I:





Now let's ski ...


















Victory.






And now a video for your viewing pleasure:

175 | RMNP Recon Mission | 5 March 2011

A little late on the delivery of this trip report, but better now than never. On Saturday, March 5th, I was joined by Andy and Forrest on a journey into Rocky Mountain National Park. Our goal on the day was to ski one of the Ptarmigan Fingers off the north side of Flattop Mountain. Unfortunately, due to viciously high winds, we did our best to remain as far away from the exposed alpine as possible.

Shortly after reaching treeline on the skin uphill, we headed straight for the east-facing trees off Flattop that provided plenty of shelter and soft snow that was boot-deep in spots. In the mood to explore, we opted to traverse up the drainage towards Ptarmigan Glacier which would provide us with excellent views of what we ultimately wanted to do as well as allow us to gain a glimpse towards future adventures. In the end, we scored 4,200' of vert over eight hours on what seemed like an effortless tour.


The always daunting Long's Peak:




The zone:




Forrest and Andy skinning across Lake Helene with Flattop on the left and Notchtop sitting boldly on the right:




The two contemplate something to look forward to in the upcoming weeks:




Shane's Run:




Forrest being Forrest:




And down the chute he goes under a big, bright sun:




Exit stage right:

174 | Dragon's Tail Couloir | RMNP, CO | 27 Feb 2011

Following that stellar day off Dragon's Tooth back on February 19th, we headed back the next Sunday and tagged the far more popular Dragon's Tail on the 27th. Knowing full well that the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park was expecting over a foot of new snow by Sunday morning, we were more than optimistic for conditions to be awesome inside the chute. In fact, while skinning up Flattop through the trees, there was 16" of super soft snow along the way. Then reality hit and once inside Dragon's Tail, those sixteen inches magically turned into 3-4" on top of ice making for some difficult skiing. Nevertheless, the weather was absolutely amazing in RMNP and the day couldn't have been all that much better.