Skiing isn't news in Colorado. Home of world class luxury destination ski resorts, some of the finest ski terrain, snow, and weather can be found in its extensive mountain ranges. Several wilderness hut systems can also be found there, providing a different kind of luxury for the adventurous. A winter tour using the 10th Mountain Huts ( www.huts.org ) can be something to be savored! Late one winter a feral band of eleven Yankee ski mutts were lucky enough to wander into those hills.
Staying at altitude can be a serious health risk for sea level dwellers. To avoid complications, some "play high, sleep low" days were built into the schedule. The first wilderness hut lay at 10,360’ - well above any of our usual bedrooms. Only time at incremental altitude can correct for this- the aerobically fit have no advantage, other than being able to do more than less fit folks while still feeling sick. Serious complications can and do occur at altitudes as low as 10,000', and no one was volunteering to become one of those statistics.
March 4th: Travel day- Driving over the 11,000’ Loveland Pass from Denver to Glenwood Springs our giddiness from the altitude was tempered by the dismal lack of snow cover at the Copper Mt. & Vail ski resorts. It looked as bad as the snow-starved New England we'd left only hours earlier. It had been weeks since any real snowstorm had stopped by- not good. Someone finally said aloud the question in everyone's mind: "Are we going to be carrying our skis in?"
March 5th: Basalt CO, base camp- Waking up to 6" of the fluffy stuff, with 8-10" reported in Aspen was uplifting, dispelling our fears! There was only one thing to do- Buy lift tickets, and fast!
A morning of non-stop runs on untracked powder had us panting like dogs at the track, drooly tongues and all! The sweetest run of the day: a small side trail with moderately high-angle mondo moguls (3 teles per bump!) wind-loaded with knee-deep fluff! Yee-haw! (pant, pant, hak, drool.)
Lift served tourists for a day, we made the most of it, stopping in at the Jerry Garcia shrine in the woods (pointed out to us by a local) and touring the F.I.S. down-hill race course at 1/4 the speed (and still catching air where the bottom drops out!) And gawking at the glitteratti! The upper lodge was full of self-important designer suits quacking into their cell-phones for our entertainment. (Willi Bogner did very well here- Home Depot didn't- the only duct-tape in evidence was on our group.)
March 6th: The group split up for the day. Half took the long drive to ski the back bowls of Vail to rave reviews: "The experience of a life time!" from the Czech judge. The rest took an easy day tour up Maroon Creek west of Aspen on a 5 mile kick'n'glide up the snowmachine tracked road to Maroon lake. Stopping at the lake to enjoy the in-your-face view of the angular, crystal shaped Marroon Bells range, we surveyed the palette of nearby gullies and avalanche paths. Opting for safety, given the warm temps, prevailing wind & slough evidence, Mark & I chose one with optimal pitch & aspect for a little skinnin' & grinnin' for steeper turns while the rest took a flatter tour beyond the lake.
With 1,500-2000 vertical feet and an average pitch of 35 degrees, flattening to 15- 20 at the toe of the slide, the gully was side loaded with a 10-14" wind slab on the 45-50 degree leeward wall. The rest was a firm breakable crust atop 4-8" of soft snow. Multiple pole tests and judicious jumps on the apexes of traverses determined that the slab was well bonded on crust portions, less determinate on the wind slab, but no obvious instability was found.
Looking down on Maroon Lake from the avalanche chute.................................... Photo by Dana Dorsett.
Warning: Above 10 thousand feet this ol' boy's got shit for brains- don't follow my tracks!
March 7th: Aspen: Avi-training day. While it isn't necessary to ski avalanche chutes while touring hut to hut in the 10th Mountain system, many or most will cross avalanche zones. (The tour descriptions on their website www.huts.org points out their locations and relative level of hazard.) For anyone traveling in backcountry snow it is prudent to be able to recognize avalanche terrain and assess snowpack stability. Since many in our group were new to backcountry skiing, we enrolled the entire group in a one-day avalanche primer offered by Aspen Mountain Rescue ( ph. # 970-925-7172).
The training was decent, bringing everyone up to a reasonable level of awareness. In the first hour on-snow training it became apparent that the DTS Tracker really is a better mousetrap, er, avalanche transceiver! It's not perfect- it's range is less than Ortovox F1 et al, but with minimal training even rank amateurs can dig up their dead buddies before they're cold! According to the Swiss studies, the Ortovox M1 is nearly as good in the hands of beginners. Some of the new digital beacons are demonstrably easier to use than the keep-it-simple-stupid variety, reducing search times dramatically! For more info: www.caic.state.co.
March 8th: Into the wilderness- Hut to hut touring is not just another walk in the woods. Being safe and successful takes careful planning and orienteering skills. While the hut trails are marked with blazes, there is sufficient open space and room for error that wrong turns are easily made and not easily corrected. When not following a broken trail, or the visibility is poor staying on track takes concentration and good route finding skills. A group needs members with all of these skills, and enough gear to be able to make an emergency bivouac if need be. Travel speed should be estimated conservatively, since food & gear for several days is bound to be heavy. An unplanned night in the woods in bad weather won't be fun, but it need not be a death sentence.
Given the large size of our group and the wide range of skills & experience we divided into two groups for the initial leg, with the faster stronger skiers breaking trail and finding the route. In 4-6" of unbroken new snow we left the trailhead NE of Aspen for the MacNamara hut. After a mile of well-blazed trail reaching some open space a quick consult with the map showed easy bushwhack along a drainage to a bridge, after which the trail ascends a jeep road. Three miles in, the large open slopes of Van Horn Park came into view (an ambitious but worthy day trip for yo-yos on fun 10-20 degree pitches!) Ascending Van Horn Park a party returning from the hut showed up with good news: Eight inches overnight and still snowing when they'd left! (And they'd broken trail for us for the remainder of the leg!)
The MacNamara hut is nicely appointed, sleeping 16 persons, with a wood stove for heat and melting water, and both propane & wood ranges for cooking. Better still, there's a solar array and batteries for electric lights to eat by! (Go conservatively here- turn them all on and you're bound to be washing dishes by headlamp.) Cooking and eating ware is also part of the deal, and bunks come with mattresses- not exactly winter camping!
Time to relax on MacNamara's front porch!
Photo by Dana Dorsett
March 9th: Even though tired from hauling 50lb packs up to the hut not everyone slept well. The thin air of 10,360' was affecting the sleep & breathing patterns of most of the group. Some awoke with headaches, and all were moving slower than usual. All had escaped acute altitude symptoms, and there was some fine skiing to be had!
The clear sunlight of morning allowed yo-yo runs on the gladed NW aspect of Bald Knob in a sweet foot or more of powder, with an occasional trek to its flat summit to take in the views! A couple of people suffered headaches & mild nausea from the altitude, but the near-perfect day was the antidote. It was T-shirt weather- sunny and 25-35F, it was only cold at the windswept summit.
Left: Dana skiing the Bald Knob glades in a T-shirt for 'maximum refrigeration effect' Photo: Ed Pavelchek. Right: View SW toward Aspen from the summit of Bald Knob Photo: Mark Coakley
In the PM three of us explored the N aspect of Bald Knob, finding drier snow, higher angles (up to about 35 degrees) and tighter trees with a few open glades. Dead reckoning through the trees we eventually crossed a snowshoe track where others in the group had scouted out part of the next days' traverse. A short mile up the track to the hut, I (gratefully) unloaded 7lbs of food out of my pack to feed the hungry horde. (The luck of the draw, getting assigned 2nd night's dinner!) A great day was had by all!
March 10th: Death-march traverse- Most of us had slept somewhat better the second night at altitude, but some were still headachy. Rising early to eat quickly before packing and cleaning up the hut, the 8-mile traverse to Margy's hut began with a short flatter section then an exhilarating 800' descent on a narrow trail into the Woody Creek drainage. As before, the group traveled in two parties. Breaking trail in 6-8" of new atop a soft breakable crust it was mostly fun-skiing down to the brook.
A half-mile after crossing Woody Creek a blue plastic blaze appeared on a tree. According to advice given by one of the Aspen Mountain Rescue people, only bark blazes were allowed within the wilderness area. We stopped cold. According the map, the wilderness boundary was beyond the turn up Spruce Creek, meaning that we must have overshot. With more than 5 miles and 2 thousand feet of vertical to go, this was not good. The lead party backtracked as a group to look for the turn and eventually met the other group. We consulted alternate maps, which showed the wilderness boundary 3/10 of a mile beyond the turn. How was this possible? It didn't seem we'd come that far. Without a calibrated altimeter to check, we'd hit the ZONE OF CONFUSION! It didn't seem possible to have missed such an obvious deep valley with 45-50 degree slide zones near the entrance. It'd be too obvious, yet the one-eyed stare of the blue plastic blaze told a different story.
The group sat tight for a snack while I volunteered a reconnaissance sprint ahead, while another member scoped the trail back. Burning another 250' in a 1/4th of a mile, traversing an increasingly steeper side hill, eventually an open spot with an obvious slide zone came into view. Following the bark blazed trail to the side canyon there was indeed a sign: "Margy's Hut". Found! Sprinting back to the group we were on our way! (Mark Twain had it right "It ain't so much what you know, but what you know that ain't so!" Gives new meaning to "What in blue blazes?" all over again!)
A steep wind loaded traverse into the col had a small overhanging cornice- an opportunity to test the slope by cornice-bombing. Sawing off a refrigerator sized hunk with a ski the slope held but we treated it cautiously nonetheless, traveling single file, widely spaced, with transceivers on!
Photo by: Chuck Sumner
Skiing from the summit of Yeckel into the bowl was fast and sweet through widely spaced spruce on 15 degree slopes that eventually reached a short 35-40 degree headwall. The headwall was firm and crusty, but took some probing and kicking before we decided to ski it. Skiing nearly bomb-proof breakable crust on 4-6" of softer but heavy snow, my aching knee reminded me to buckle my boots this time! Below the 100' headwall it rapidly turns into a low-angle dense glade that we skied with gusto until the grade ran out.
Skinning back up to the summit we broke into two groups, one retracing the high route back to the hut while the rest explored the gully directly beneath the col. The lee side of the gully was side loaded and low angle/low risk, but the windblown side drops in at 35+ degrees. The snow in this somewhat sheltered N aspect was much nicer than the NW aspect of Yeckel proper so a few 200' yo-yos in the throat of the gully seemed in order.
March 12th: Evacuation day- The trail guide book estimated 6-8 hours to descend the 3 thousand feet and 7.6 miles to Norrie Station. Since we'd dropped the cars yet another 1.5 miles below Norrie at the Diamond J ranch an early start seemed prudent, given the previous traverse experience and failing visibility. It was windy and snowing moderately hard, which required dead reckoning on compass headings across a couple of the open areas. Burning off the first 1500' in under an hour it was hard figure how the book times were correct (snowshoe times, perhaps, but skiing it was easy! The book estimates had been pretty close on the previous legs of the tour.) In 2.5 hours of fast but mostly easy skiing Norrie was in sight and less than 3.5 hours total we were at the cars, having followed a well broken snowmobile track on jeep road for the final 2 miles. The heavily oxygenated and humidified air at 8200' was pretty heady after having slept at eleven-three for two nights, but it felt pretty good nonetheless!
Returning to the hard thin crust of New England was a depressing slap in the face, like a fall from grace. The 10th Mountain Huts are pretty deluxe, what with wood stoves, propane ranges, wood ranges, photovoltaic lights, cooking & eating dishes & utensils, and mattresses! For $24/night having an uncrowded place to hang out in the wilderness with good skiing and grand views, it's not bad at all! The huts here seem pretty Spartan, by comparison, (although they sure beat winter camping when it's cold!)
But on the verge of spring, with increasing stability in the avalanche gullies on Mount Washington, the suffering wasn't bound to last very long!