Thread: TR: Kit Carson and Challenger, Sangre de Cristo Colorado

Ten days ago we drove down to the Sangres to try to squeeze out two more 14er ski descents. Hiked for a couple hours before finding snow below Willow Lake as the sun set and we crashed under the stars. Nice night to leave the tent at home. Climbed the Outward Bound couloir to Kit Carson the next morning and skied Cole's couloir. Put the crampons back on and headed across the Avenue to Challenger Point. Skied Kirk's couloir down to Willow Lake, packed up camp, post-holed with skis/skins on for a mile back to snowline, and traded the ski boots for sneakers. Ski conditions were mediocre but the climbing was fun and we had the place to ourselves. I made a movie, which is light on the skiing, but that's been the theme this season in Colorado:

Mediocre seems generous. Still looks like a fun couple days though.

nice work! nice and steep at 1:30 and looks like some big exposure at 3:40.

thanks for sharing, way to make the best of a craptastic year!

looks like you caught great weather, and I would have definitly puckered up during that traverse in the middle of the vid!!

Originally Posted by montanaskier

nice and steep at 1:30 and looks like some big exposure at 3:40.

It'd be a long tumble, but the fish eye on the gopro makes the exposure on the Avenue look much worse than it is. Would also have been spicier in a typical snow year with a lot of snow loaded in there at a steep angle.

Holy Suffer Fest. That was great.

like. a lot. a whole lot. good game.

rog

Right on. Had our own little sneaker postholing suffer fest coming out of the Gores this last Sunday. What aspects were those? We ended up getting some pretty decent SE skiing.

Way to get after it despite the conditions

Sick man, way to get after it. I was in the Sangres this past weekend, was going to do some backpacking with my girl down in NM but there was too much snow (!) in the mountains there so we drove up to CO after getting in a pow day at Taos. Hiked up the Blanca Peak / Como Lake jeep road from around 8kft and camped around 11k where there was almost no snow except on the steep north facing woods. Past Como Lake (11700ft) there was a lot of snow and we had to put on the snowshoes. Almost made it to Crater Lake before we had to turn around in time to return the snowshoes we rented in Almosa. Thought I would put up these pics for beta if anyone is crazy enough to hoof some skis up the worst "trail" I've ever had the displeasure of hiking up. Looks the the SW facing couloir off Ellingwood is still in good shape. There was one skin track and downhill track going up to Blanca but I didn't follow it all the way.

Looking good!

Hot Damn, worst conditions I think I've ever seen anywhere ever, possibly even worse than the Alps last season.... Glad to see you guys are making the most of it, some of those turns looked like "ski to live" material....

Is that a 3-piece whippet?

way to go fellas, nice work