The storm over Marble, Colorado cleared out Saturday night, leaving us with the bluebird day for Sunday backcountry skiing of the type you read about in the magazines. Puffy clouds here and there for effect, but mostly a deep azure sky and enough heat on the snow to dissolve any crust and make for two big laps of creamed semi-corn that was totally skiable.

If you want more than low angled glacier touring, build climbing or layover days into your Silvretta Traverse schedule. Stay at any of the huts for two nights or more, and you have time for some leisurely peak bagging or…

Silvretta Traverse, Switzerland and Austria. We had down to the Tuoi Hut for lunch, then over Vermuntpass to Weisbadener (Wiessbadner) hut for a few nights stay.

After yesterday’s partly cloudy skies, and thus cutting the last of the day’s goals, we, of course, picked roast bluebird off the Day 4 fantasy menu. And yes, next morning our dreams became reality: perfect azure skies, hundreds of square…

Jamtal Hut is luxury, perhaps too much so. It is hard to leave the spacious wood paneled dining hall with its board of fine cheese and bread. And oh the torture to skin up and away from the sundeck and…