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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Park City UT and Marble CO
    Posts
    157

    TRs: Mt Massive 3x (14,421) 5/31 and Mt Elbert (14,440) 6/1

    Back in CO after seven months in Utah and with a full schedule of outdoor ed. in my immediate future, I was eager to get a last hurrah of spring skiing. Saturday morning I was up with the sun following a rather social Friday night and not nearly enough sleep. I'd tried to recruit coworkers for the corn harvest over beers the night before, but no takers.



    Out the door at at OB, snowline was only a mile or so up the trail to Mt. Massive. The trail gains elevation slowly from the fish hatchery and the snow was patchy for miles. Too lazy to click in and out of skis with each dry spot, the uptrack crossed a dozen pine-needle and dirt patches.



    Up Africa bowl, the first shot was up then down the south sub-peak (14,132). The north-ish slope I skied was still scratchy but the snow was warming quickly on other aspects so I motored up Massive (14,421) thankful to have remembered ski crampons. Once on top, what looked like a continuous descent from the valley turned out to be a talus scramble into the entrances of the shallow couloirs on the NE side of the peak. Without ski brakes, clicking into skis was tenuous but I managed to keep them from descending without me.



    After a sandwich on a flat rock I pulled out wet skins and motored up Massive’s north sub-peak (14,300-ish). The line down was one I’d looked at before and it was even better than it looked from Leadville.



    The ski/hike back was a bit of a sufferfest in punchy, patchy snow. The whole affair took nearly 9 hours, door to door and covered a bit more than 7000’ vert.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Park City UT and Marble CO
    Posts
    157



    Why is Elbert the only non-photo rendered spot in the Sawatch?

    Sunday was just as nice as Saturday, but I slept in, motivating to ski well after eight. By nine I was unloading skis and decided to take the direct route up the old road grade along Elbert Creek. The other car in the parking lot had a TGR sticker on the ski box, and playing a hunch I “change for a 5c? “ the dusty back windshield.

    Three hours to the top, the wind kicked up for the last 800’ alternately pushed me and the A-framed skis up the mountain or tried to throw me off it. The ski down the cirque was super fun.



    A short skin up from the pond at the bottom of the cirque led to another nice corn shot.





    Back at the car, I ran into the group I “changed” who were finishing their celebratory beers. Leadville has lots of chargers and good folks and they seemed to be both.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Eagle County
    Posts
    12,612
    nice work. Plannin on hitting Elbert soon.
    ROLL TIDE ROLL

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Boulder, CO
    Posts
    527
    Nice Work!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Where the Butte is Crested
    Posts
    3,338
    Nice! Looks like a good time out!
    -
    14erskiers.com

    "Don't be afraid of the spaces between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so." - Belva Davis

    "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle"--Albert Einstein

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