Red Mt Pass/San Juan early summer tours

[devon]

I'm planning on being in the Telluride area in early June with my son (13) and am looking for some beta for easy access (remember I'm with a 13 year old) ski touring, maybe off of Red Mt Pass. Ideally I'd like to find something where we can park, tour/skin (but not too far) and ski down, and then hitch back to the car.

It's been a long time since I've been in that area. What are some options?

Thoughts?

[Tele 'til You're Smelly]

you could drive up Ophir Pass which would be a lot closer than Red Mtn Pass from Tride- go from the Ophir side (but need 4WD, or at least something like an Outback)). That time of year you really need to get up a jeep road to find easily accessible snow, even this year with above average snow

[DropCliffsNotBombs]

You shouldn't need to hitchhike at all for touring on either Red Mtn Pass or Ophir Pass.

[Tele 'til You're Smelly]

Sounds like he wanted some free vert, but there is not enough snow to do that on highways here in early June. With two cars you could potentially do it on the high jeep road passes, or might get lucky and hitch with someone driving the jeep roads (not all that unlikely actually), but the only one that comes to mind for that would be Cinnamon Pass above Silverton- it's not a scary road going from Silverton to the top (the other side to Lake City more so), but you would need high clearance 4WD for that one (unlike Ophir Pass which like I said could be done with a Subaru). It's a longer drive from T-ride but I probably would recommend Cinnamon Pass for a kid and not having been there before- you can drive to the top of the pass and see exactly what you will be skiing, and it gets enough traffic you could maybe hitch and if not would be an easy walk back up and you could do a couple shorter laps if you didn't want to commit to much for each run.

[devon]

Thanks everyone for your input