Gooney Riders

Out of the Trees

In between storms we ventured into the alpine to see what was happening.  

It snowed about 10 inches of super low density snow with no wind on Tuesday.  we were hoping to ski some of this "blower" before the wind got to it.  

Tuesday was one of those magical days with not a breath of wind, but around sunrise on Wednesday the winds got to the slopes.  Winds slabs started to develop

Mt Owen avalanched wall to wall after the big storm over the weekend.  

While we were happy that the whole bowl flushed out, the new snow started to get a little slabby with the winds so we threw in the towel.  We kept it low angle and the turns were actually pretty good.  

Lower down

Milking the rolls 

We decided to go across valley and ski some more sheltered snow in the trees of the Anthracites.  It was DEEP and skied great.  People have been skiing the Anthracites quite a bit but we were still weary of the touchy snowpack.  

Zach looks for a safe entrance    

Zach lines up a cliff 

Josh exiting 7-bowl

Delicious

On Thursday is snowed pretty good again.  5+ feet in 10 days... not bad!   We are experiencing another avy cycle so its a good time to get some work done this weekend.  

Eszter is in Minnesota getting ready for a 135 mile snowbike race and I have a bunch of freelance work lined up that I am actually pretty excited about.  Eszter and I both agreed that we live on the edge if disaster trying to get by here in Crested Butte, but life is to short to not to follow your dreams! I was watching "Touching the Void" the other day and Joe Simpson talked about his decision when he fell through the crevasse.  He could not climb out for his leg was badly broken, but he had the other end of the cut rope that he could rappel lower into darkness.  He did not even tie a knot at the bottom of the rope because he figured that if he ran out of rope he was done and would simply fall to his death.  "Whether it's right on wrong, you have to keep making decisions."  By lowering himself into darkness he found light, and found a way out.  

Cheers,

Chris 

 

'Cuz I Can

I was suited up ready to ride home this afternoon.  The sun was long behind the mountains (though for the first time I was able to ride home without using lights!) and the temperature had dropped from a balmy 39 degrees to the mid teens.  People were coming in commenting on how the temperature was plummeting and that it was colder out than it looked.  

My co-worker commented: I don't know how you commute on your bike every day.

I shrugged.  I know how to dress for it.  (Which I clearly don't because I was sweating the whole way home)

But the real question is: With views like this, how could I NOT ride?

Webseries

I have been working on a webseries for SCARPA/SKI TRAB Team Crested Butte.  I'll have a new episode out every 2 weeks. 

Cheers,

Chris

Snow Globe

Some images of snow from this week.  It's getting good.  

 

 

 

Cheers,

Chris

Survival Instinct

I used to think that as humans, and especially as humans living in a 1st world country, that our survival instincts had been suppressed generations ago.  Recently, I've started looking at emotions in terms of survival instincts, and I'm starting to believe we are, in fact, far more primitive than we'd like to think.  What if every reaction we had to adversity could be distilled to fight or flight?

See, a very large pile of proverbial dog poo is currently hitting the fan with something that I care very dearly about.  And while trying to dodge the larger chunks of excrement, I'm finding myself wondering if I really want to be up to my eyeballs in this mess.  Fight or flight?

I had been thinking it, head in hands wondering how I was going to solve my current disaster, when Chris uttered it.

 

'We should move to Alaska.'

The final frontier.  Colorado on steroids.  You are not the top of the food chain anymore, and I'm not talking mountain lions.  It's humbling.  New job listings in Gunnison for yesterday: 1 babysitting job.  New job listings for Anchorage: 52.  Fight or flight?

Sometimes I get sick of fighting for it here, anxiously watching the bank account wax and wane.  But then sometimes, I go for a pre-dawn ride and watch the sunrise light up the peaks, and I think that it's worth fighting for.  

Cornice Bombs and More Meadow Skipping

14 inches fell in town and 22 inches on Schofield Pass, good job storm!

Josh and I headed up to check out the snow on Red Lady.  We had a few friends that started an hour ahead and were breaking trail, so we got to free-load on the deep skin track.

Our intention was to ski the low angle glades but half of the bowl had slid naturally, so we thought maybe we would try and get the other half to go. 

Nice windloading off the summit

Josh sends some bombs

The skiers right that is popular to ski fractured a foot deep and ran a 1000 feet. Video of the slide at the bottom.

Though it did not step down into layers below it left a rather frightening crack on the bed surface. 

It was neat to see go for I probably skied if a dozen times last season through winter.  It's not that steep.  It's crazy to think that the entire path is 3500 feet, and it ran the distance quite a few years ago. 

The debris

After the excitment we skied the ultra-low angle glades.  The snow was amazing.  

Stacking tracks

A natural slide lower down

And more meadow skipping. 

We headed back up for seconds

Yet another beautiful, and humbling day in the mountains.  

Cheers!

Chris

 

Meadow Skipping

Powder Day

Went meadow skipping solo on Snodgrass.  My tracks are  already getting buried on my second lap...

I love getting out in a storm before the snow consolidates under its own weight.  So light, and easy to ski.  I pedaled my bike to town yesterday on dry roads.  Today it was a white out.   Snowed all day.  6-10 inches tonight.  Bring it!

Cheers,

Chris

 

Avalanches and Fat Bikes

I was shooting some skiers for a film project early this morning on Snodgrass and decided to poke around on the edge of a steep slope.  It was not very hard to trigger this slab

It broke on a slope of 35 degrees and blew out to the valley below

The debris

I have not ventured into the alpine but in the trees low down, the new slab is resting on a foot of depth hoar in which the slab failed on.

To top things of it was raining this morning at 9500 feet.  Ridiculous. Maybe 2012 is the end. The temperatures rose to above 40 degrees today, and has got even the natives scratching their heads.  

Eszter was nice enough to let me borrow her fat bike.  This winter, a fat bike might be a great outlet.  I have never ridden a fat bike before, and I had a blast.  

Tim borrowed a friends fatty, and we shredded 

The look on Timmy's face says it all

I tried to rail a friends favorite berm, but a hidden rock snagged my front tire.  My weight was already committed to the turn, and the bike had stopped.  I slid about 20 feet, laughing the whole way.  

I think we had a good time.  

I also figured out that a "mountain feed bag" holds a beer nicely.  

Perhaps sub-par snow season is a great time to explore things that we would not normally do...

Cheers,

Chris

Easy Pictures

On the commute into town in the summer, there are always people pulling over in their cars to take pictures of the valley. Sometimes they don't even get out of their car, they just roll their windows down and snap a picture.  I've been known to scoff at these 'car-tourists'.  I used to think that there should be a good story behind a picture, at least a better one than 'I was driving and I saw this' but maybe I'm no better.  

 

What if I take the same picture day after day on my commute without even bothering to stop pedaling?  Am I a 'Bike-tourist'? And no, I never get bored of the view or taking the same picture, either looking down valley at the sunrise or looking at the mountains.

 

Before the storm.

After the storm.

Or, even worse.  What if I take a picture from my back porch, without even bothering to put shoes on!

 

Post storm glow.

View worth interrupting yoga for.

Mornings are so worth getting up for.

Winter

On Sunday evening, I rode dry singletrack on the "Caves trail"  into the sunset.  It was something special.  The next day, It snowed over a foot.  

Believe it or not, this was our first real storm.  I have skied 16 inches of oragraphic snowfall in the highcountry, but this storm actually buried our walkway and dropped a foot in town.  We are at 56% of our snowpack, while last year we were 160% at this time.  People are still stoked.  Winter came around.  

Cold face shots

As suspected, this new snow is sitting on the rotten snow that has been drying out for months.  Overnight, the winds howled.  The snowpack is highly reactive.  This particular slide, I remote triggered from 50 meters away.  

Every roll in the snowpack cracks and collapses as we pass by.  We take great care in watching the slopes we are on.  

Faces of peaks look absolutely loaded.  A chute that Aaron and I skied last year on Axtel

Looking at the Castles and the West Elks.  This is a zone I hope to explore this year.  

Before this storm I was skiing steep couloirs, but at the moment I would be nevous to get on a slope over 30 degrees.  Our snowpack will heal as more snow falls and the season progresses.  For now, I change gears. Ski the trees.  Maybe I'll even get on the Nordic skis.  Time to hunker down, and embrace winter.  

Cheers,

Chris