Fun in a little place called Asssspen (june 5-9, 2019

[brutah]

In the Early 2000s, I first headed up to ski Independence Pass. It was actually this ski forum that motivated me to head up there to ski and I spent a few weekends up there camping and skiing. Ever since then I’ve long to return. Ben and I had planned to use this time to go ski Rainier, but with an iffy weather forecast in Washington and a record breaking winter in Colorado, it was an easy choice to call an audible.

June 6th – Ben, Sus and I attempted to ski the East Face of the South Maroon Bell. This line has huge exposure as you come off the summit as you ski a face that ends in giant cliffs before you traverse into the Bell Cord couloir. Unfortunately, this was not our day and as we got close to the top of the Bell Cord couloir we made the call to turn it around as it was too late in the day and we felt that the wet slide avy danger was too high. Our decision was reconfirmed when we got down into the valley and watched many east faces rip out.







June 7th – Geoff got into town the previous night and we decide to go ski La Plata Peak on this day. I feel like the North Face of La Plata is somewhat an underrated 14er ski descent and there is a ton of ski terrain in the basin. We enjoyed great corn as we made our way down the face.











June 8th – We decided to take it easy this day and ski some low hanging fruit from the pass. It was amazing how much had changed since I had last skied this area. What I remembered were a handful of skiers on the pass in the early 2000s, but now in 2019, the parking areas were packed to the brim and hundreds of skiers hiked from the pass.







June 9th – We skied Castle and Conundrum Peaks. Geoff and I took off up Montezuma Basin hoping to ski the Conundrum Couloir before rejoining Ben and Sus to ski Castle Peak. The snow hadn’t softened for our descent of the Conundrum Couloir so it was a sporty, teeth chattering descent. After our descent, we skied over to base of the north face of Castle and fell into Ben and Sus’ boot track to the top. The north face still wasn’t ripe so we spent close to 2 hours hanging out and waiting for the snow to soften. Our patience was rewarded as we enjoyed perfect corn snow all the way back to the road.

[MiddleOfNight]

Nice! Awesome TR. Fun lines, all of them!
Glad you had a great trip! And props for safe decision making.

No talk of shenanigans, cougar hunting, or overpriced accommodations?

(and give us some advanced notice next time!!)

[brutah]

Nice! Awesome TR. Fun lines, all of them!
Glad you had a great trip! And props for safe decision making.

No talk of shenanigans, cougar hunting, or overpriced accommodations?

(and give us some advanced notice next time!!)

Thanks!

No shenanigans or overpriced accommodations as we were able to score camp spots at the Maroon Bell campground and then up the road towards Indy Pass. We basically skied, then drank beer and fell asleep, woke up and repeated.

I did buy a $12 coffee while driving through Aspen though.......

[AKbruin]

Nice, brutah!

The Maroon Bells sure are pretty. I'll eventually make my way to Colorado, perhaps during a shitty Sierra snow year. I've also been wanting to do a big trip to the PNW for a few years, but the weather variability has been the main deterrent.

[thefortrees]

I did buy a $12 coffee while driving through Aspen though.......

Not a bad way to spend a few days in June (the skiing, not the $12 coffee). But, I hope the coffee was good.

[406]

Nice, that first photo is $$$