Telemark School

The last four Saturdays I have been participating in the mountain club telemark school. It is a difficult sport, and I still have a long way to go to learn telemark skiing, and most people take the school at least twice. When the skills are mastered, it is a much more efficient way to get into the high country in winter. The last two Saturdays we had trips into the steep backcountry, and I feel sufficiently beat up from many falls. They were definitely adventures.

Jim Creek

I am off for four days for the New Year. So far, I am enjoying it a great deal. I saw Avatar yesterday. As usual, science fiction writers aren't great with dialogue but the visual experience and realization of an alien world is astounding. Seeing the movie was similar to what it must of been like seeing the first color film or talking picture. Today I went on a Colorado Mountain Club ski trip. The deep, fresh powder was perfect and the new snow on the landscape was beautiful. It was an older group. The leader and another man had been in the club for over forty years and had had hip replacements. They were good skiers.

Into the Woods

We awoke in the morning with the sun rising colorfully below a blanket of clouds, and it was overcast but clear all day on Saturday. Early, the sun shone briefly onto pointed Homestake Peak, high above the hut. The hike to the Continental Divide Hut, located deep in the forest, was relatively straight forward. The Sunday hike out was a short mile through the evergreens under bright sunshine.

A Long Day in the Snow

We knew before we began Friday would be a long and difficult snowshoe from Uncle Bud’s to the 10th Mountain Hut. Beyond Uncle Bud’s Hut we worked to find the way through the deep powder. Under clear blue skies we navigated along the route of the combined Colorado and Continental Divide trails looking for the widely space metal, blue diamonds that had been nailed to trees. We stopped to admire the distant views from a ridge and then descended steeply, stumbling through the wonderful powder down into Porcupine Gulch. We all enjoyed the slide down. We followed blue diamonds down into Longs Gulch, and after lunch left the Colorado Trail following diamonds towards the 10th Mountain Hut.

We climbed over two more ridges before descending to the North Fork of West Tennessee Creek. At approximately 3:00 PM, we crossed the wide, willow-filled floodplain, and lost the trail. After searching unsuccessfully along the edge of the floodplain for the trail, we plotted the northeasterly course towards the hut and began to climb through the forest. Fallen timber slowed us as we climbed, and before we reached timberline, it grew dark. In the first steep clearing we reached, we found a blue diamond but could find no more. Using GPS and Ryan’s map reading, we plotted a course, and Dave navigated uncannily to a large meadow where we finally saw the hut at approximate 6:00 pm. There were lights on in the hut so we spotted it easily. It was a fine adventure and everyone in the group performed well. We turned off our headlamps and approached the hut across the snowy meadow in the moonlight.

Thanksgiving Hut Trip

On Thanksgiving Day, ten of us set off from Turquoise Lake, just outside Leadville, on Ryan Ross’s annual hut trip. We would spend one night each at Uncle Bud’s Hut, the 10th Mountain Hut and the Continental Divide Hut. The first day was an easy hike in the sunshine to Uncle Bud’s Hut where we enjoyed the bright, clear views to Mount Massive, Mount Elbert, Garner Mountain, and the Arkansas Valley. That evening we enjoyed a full Thanksgiving dinner with the turkey again provided by Gaye.

Cathedral Spires

Yesterday, I climbed to the top of Cathedral Spires above the Platte River in the foothills east of the Lost Creek area with a CMC group. The climb started with a short but very steep hike to the saddle below the spires. From there, we scrambled to the top, over and under boulders and through tight places. From the top there were views to Mount Evans and Pikes Peak and to the closer granite domes and spires.

Mount Evans

It snowed a great deal this week, and yesterday, Buddy and I snow shoed up the Mount Evans road that runs to the top of the 14,240 foot mountain. The road is closed to vehicles for the winter. High on the road the snow was mostly melted, and the wind had blown the snow off some of the alpine meadows. We climbed to above the tree line where the ancient Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pines are located.