May 2009

Backcountry skiing Independence Pass, Colorado, Geissler Peak. Good corn snow conditions for late May.

Case in point: Alpinist Magazine, that wonderful large format pub that tastes and smells of the high alpine, was bought last winter by the same folks who publish Backcountry Magaine. More, they acquired former and famed Climbing Magazine publisher Michael Kennedy as Editor in Chief, meaning my old friend and climbing partner “MK” is charge of making sure the pages look and read as good as we’d expect from such a magazine.

How trashed do you allow your land to get? Ask that to the USFS and private land owners up above Crested Butte, on the Kebler Pass road. We drove over there last weekend, and I was appalled at the snowmobile graveyard we drove through a few miles above the ‘Butte. We saw abandoned sleds in the creek, in the bushes, over by the forest — everywhere. It looked like the mountain version of an ATV war zone.

Tavis Campbell and Sam Cox published Stepping Up, their guidebook for The Ridge. Their first edition sold out in 2008, so they went ahead and published their second edition a few months ago. The book is 102 pages, with 90 greyscale photos that include spirited images of Scot Schmidt and Doug Coombs. The amount of detail is stunning — obviously of biblical import for anyone aspiring to be a denizen of “The Ridge.”

Tony had gotten a brain scan a few days before we skied Hayden last year. As it turned out, while he was up there getting 6,000 vert on a big Colorado mountain, the scan interpreter noticed a blood vessel in his brain was ballooned out in a large and potentially deadly aneurysm. It the thing had ruptured, even in civilization his chances of surviving would have been rare. Up on a mountain? Zero percent. In a word, it is miraculous Tony didn’t stroke out (as in permanently) during our Hayden Ski, what with the dehydration and raised blood pressure of hard endurance athletics.

It’s not skiing, it’s snirting. The new sport. Just have a place to dunk your skis afterward, and get ready to load up the washing machine once you’re home. But a day in the mountains, no matter how close to a laundry soap commercial it comes, is still a day in the mountains. So yesterday myself, Nick Thompson and Dave Downing ended skiing what I call the Teeny Couloir (left) on West Pearl Mountain. But not before a small detour as well as a pastry alert. Check it out.