Buffalo Mountain is that big behemoth of a hill most of us have viewed a hundred times when driving west bound on Interstate 70 down from the Eisenhower Tunnel. Located in the southern end of the Gore Range and though only 12,777′ in elevation, Buffalo has one of the most spectacular ski lines called the Silver Couloir on its steep northeast face. This 3,000′ couloir tops out at around 40 degrees in steepness with most sections in the mid-30 degree range. It is even featured in the big coffee-table book Fifty Classic Ski Descents of North America by Chris Davenport, Art Burrows, and Penn Newhard and in the new guidebook Climbing and Skiing Colorado’s Mountains: Fifty Select Ski Descents by our friends Brian Miller and Ben Conners. Its easy access, mellow approach to its summit, and great skiing make this a classic and I don’t know of too many other ski lines where you can get as much “bang for your buck” in terms of effort involved for great skiing.

I’ve been fortunate to climb and ski Buffalo now three times and each has been a great outing. My first experience was by myself with Rainier & Kona on a very late season July 3, 2008. I had just heard about this line and decided to go check it out with the pups and being July 3 I think it was relatively safe in terms of avalanche hazard 🙂 We had a great day and most of the Silver Couloir was amazingly skiable!

My second outing up and down Buffalo was on March 21, 2009 was with a large crew of great friends, my girlfriend at the time (yes, Kristine), and Rainier & Kona, once again. This trip had more of a winter feel to it considering the colder temperatures and larger snowpack up Buffalo’s standard route and down the couloir.

The conditions in the couloir, however, were not so much fun powder as they were harder recycled powder with a breakable crust in certain sections. I learned a valuable lesson this day and that was to not charge down a couloir, especially not knowing the conditions. During this particular time of day half of the couloir was in the sun and half was in the shade. I charged in the steepest section and laid out a tele turn skidding into the shaded part and hit some icy hardpack and took a tumble. I slid head first for maybe 200 ft before grabbing a rock in the middle of the couloir thereby flipping myself around and stopping myself. I broke a tele leash in the process and my sunglasses slid another 1,500′ down the couloir to the apron below. Quite a rush and nerve-wracking for sure, but I learned so many valuable lessons – another of which was to always ski steeper slopes/couloirs with an ice axe or whippet (ski pole/axe combination). I was definitely much younger, naive, and inexperienced back then and have since learned a lot and gained valuable knowledge with regards to this whole ski-mountaineering activity. And, yes, I ski with a whippet these days.

My third time on Buffalo was just yesterday with great friend J Weingast. As he had yet to climb and ski this mountain, the Silver was towards the top of his hit list for the spring and so we went and got it in what may be one of the last weekends of the season it could really be in or for that matter skiable at all. After a cold night and a 7:30am start at the Ryan Gulch trailhead, we took a leisurely pace up the standard Buffalo Cabin trail until we hit snowline at about 10,700′. After my last fumble in the Silver, I definitely wanted to make sure the couloir was properly warmed up enough to allow for soft spring snow conditions and not hardpack ice. We put the skis on our back and booted the rest of the way to Buffalo’s summit up the broad east face.

After topping out around 10am, the clouds really started to move in over the Gores yet the Tenmile and Sawatch ranges remained sunny to our south. Go figure. Still wanting to wait a bit for the Silver to soften up even more now that the sun was behind whispy clouds, J and I decided to take a fun jaunt over to Buffalo’s southern subsummit dubbed “Sacred Buffalo”. Twenty minutes and a fun little class 3 scramble later we were on Sacred Buffalo. There were definitely snow showers pelting Red Peak to our north and the wind had picked up. This was not the weather I had anticipated nor had been forecasted.

Nevertheless, we scrambled back to Buffalo’s true northern summit and decided to go ahead and ski the couloir. Not really wanting to wait around all day for sunny weather, we just decided to go for it and hoped those few hours of early morning direct sunshine warmed the snow up enough for our liking and to make things safe. The top hundred feet of the couloir were pretty firm and I was thinking if the rest of the couloir was like this I would be in trouble. J would be fine because like many of my friends, this guy can ski anything, anytime, anywhere. As if our wish was granted, the snow softened up soon after and good turns ensued for approximately 1,500′ down the couloir.

The bottom 1,000′ weren’t the best snow conditions – bumpy, dirty, sun-affected, and a few rocks thrown in the mix to dodge around. And, then the couloir’s apron itself was just plain horrible. However, the apron didn’t last long and soon enough we swapped skis and boots for our trail shoes and made our way back to the South Willow Creek trail and then eventually back to my truck at the trailhead around 12:30pm. A fun 5 hours up on Buffalo with J. Its been a fun ride up and down this mountain over the years learning important lessons along the way. If I’m lucky and my timing is right, I do hope to ski the Silver Couloir in powder conditions at some point.

Well, both Kristine and myself as well as most of our ski-mountaineering buddies have learned by now to never say “never” when it comes to hanging up the planks for good signaling the end of our spring ski season. Just when you think you are done with ski season, you end up going out again just as Kristine did today on Quandary Peak’s Cristo Couloir with J and the Active Energies group after saying she was done after our ski of Mt. Oklahoma this past Saturday.

The last few days have treated us well with regards to wonderful ski-mountaineering adventures in our hills. A line I try to do every year is 14er Quandary Peak’s South Gully, aka the Cristo Couloir. Its a fantastic 2,500′ line in only a mile topping out at around 40 degrees in steepness. My good friend Mikey was leaving our engineering firm here in the mountains and moving to Denver and wanted to do the Cristo again before he moved to the big city. J joined us as well and in a short and sweet 2 hours we were on top of Quandary basking in the sun and waiting for the sun to soften the Cristo to perfect corn. We waited over an hour on the summit and then dropped in about 10:30am and had an exhilarating ride back down to the Blue Lakes dam hiking back out about 1/4 mile to our cars. Pics of the morning are as follows:

Next up Kristine & I left Edwards around 5:30am this past Saturday for the North Halfmoon Creek trailhead behind 14er Mt. Massive arriving at 7am and hiking up the trail to the high centennial 13er Mt. Oklahoma by 7:30am. Despite being a relatively short 7.5 mile roundtrip jaunt up the 3,400′ to Oklahoma’s summit, routefinding and navigational skills were put to the test a bit. Kristine did so well now being 22 weeks pregnant and I am so proud of her. The carrying of ski gear on our backs, river crossings, and bushwhacking definitely got her a bit tired but she persevered on to about 13,100′ until she thought she should go no further not pushing the envelope too much with fatigue and her pregnancy. Despite a 40% chance of thunderstorms in the weather forecast, we had a beautiful morning. I skied down from the summit at about 11am and the snow was just perfect. Kristine was at a rock outcrop at about 13,100′ above the snow-covered headwall and we skied down together from there. It was a great day out together and we were back at the car at about 2pm for a 6 1/2 hour day. Pics of the day are below:

About 7 hours after Kristine and I returned home to Edwards, J and I left for the Leadville area again not really certain on which peak we wanted to hit. We were thinking about Grizzly Peak’s North Couloir, but the Lincoln Creek road was not open yet making for a 12 mile RT day with 5,200′ of elevation gain all above treeline from Independence Pass. With the imposing 50% chance of thunderstorms and snow showers all day, this was probably not a smart idea nor would be all that much fun. Also, my friend Natalie was now going for Oklahoma as they had had a big day up on Castle Peak and wanted something a bit shorter. We were trying to think of a car-camping place on the east side of Independence Pass along Highway 82 when I suggested the Willis Gulch trailhead which leads to the high centennial 13er Mt. Hope. Voila! We will go for the classic Hopeful Couloir on Mt. Hope. This sounded like a better plan as it allowed us to much more easily escape to the cover of treeline should weather roll in. Nevertheless, it was still almost the same stats as Grizzly from Independence Pass at about 11.5 miles RT with 4,700′ of elevation gain. After one of the best night’s sleep I have had in the back of my truck with the tailgate down and the roaring waters of Lake Creek 15 yards away, J and I were off trucking up the Willis Gulch trail around 5:45am in our trail shoes with all our ski gear on our packs. Not knowing where snowline may occur in this north facing gulch, we were prepared to be carrying our gear for a long ways.

The miles and vertical went fast though and we were at the base of the Hopeful Couloir at about 11,800′ in about 2.5 hours.The Willis Gulch and then Little Willis Gulch trails are good trails and easy to follow until we got into upper Little Willis Gulch where a few snow drifts prompted some route-finding.

Never donning our skins on our skis, at the base of the couloir we switched trail shoes for ski boots and crampons and away we went booting straight up the Hopeful Couloir. It was a fun climb, a little mushy here and there, but overall good kick-stepping in decent snow. The 2,000′ couloir angle averages around 36 degrees but tops out closer to 50 degrees near the top.

From about 13,800′ at the top of the couloir, we stayed in our crampons and hiked the remaining vertical and distance to Hope’s true summit arriving around 10am.

Weather was really building all around us, but Hope’s summit remained clear, sunny, and nice. We only stayed up on the summit for 15 minutes or so and man I am sure glad we did. If we had stayed up there 10 or even 5 minutes longer, we would have gotten thundered and graupeled on while skiing the couloir. We skied down the summit ridge to the steeper Hopeful Couloir descent option (skier’s left) and dropped in on 50 degree terrain only for 100 ft or so (thank goodness!).

The couloir’s slope angle mellowed out to the 40s and then eventually higher 30s further down. J ripped every turn as usual while I did my best of my teles – I think I did alright. I felt pretty good about it. The snow got a little chunkier towards the bottom from the avalanche debris but overall we timed this ski descent pretty spot on as the snow was nice and soft the entire way down.

Thanks to J’s GoPro footage on his descent of the Hopeful, I put together a fun little video to the tune of my favorite song called Promentory from the soundtrack to Last of the Mohicans (be sure to turn the 1080p HD on):

Just as we skied down below Hope Lake and beyond to treeline, the god of thunder let us know just how insignificant we all are and graupel fell from the heavens at an alarming rate. It actually felt pretty good as long as it didn’t hail and we felt safer now that we were not so high on the mountain and at treeline. Again, the skis and boots went on our packs and we cruised on out of there down Little Willis Gulch in our trail runners.

We got a little wet on the hike out, but arrived safe and sound back at my truck around 1:45pm for a wonderful 7 hour day up on Hope.

This spring ski-mountaineering thing sure does allow for some awesome days in the hills. I will be sad when the snow recedes to the point of it not being worthwhile at all to bring ski gear anymore. But, that just means the transition to full-on summer with scrambling in our Gores, rock climbing, and trail running. Not bad at all. However, I just have a hunch that the 2014 spring ski-mountaineering season isn’t quite over. But, that’s just me.

I just love spring skiing. Even with the amount of snow we have had this season up to about two weeks ago, the warm temps all last week have put a serious hurting on our snowpack. However, I still think we have a few weekends left yet for some decent lines and spring ski tours.The temps this past weekend were very warm as well not even allowing the snowpack to freeze at night. This typical nightly freeze allows for a safer spring freeze-thaw corn cycle during the morning hours when one would want to ski steeper lines and couloirs.

Having been under the weather all week, I still felt like getting out for a shorter ski tour. So, on Saturday my good bud Mikey and I went and checked out the snowpack on the familiar terrain up on Uneva Peak north of Vail Pass. Any time we can skin from the car is worth it in my eyes. We ended up skiing a steeper gully off Uneva’s south side into the western of the two Uneva bowls, one we rarely venture to during the winter because of the steeper slopes and greater chance for avalanche activity.

It was a fun albeit short gully down to the dirt-ridden bowl from which we skinned back up to the ridge and skied down the mellower eastern Uneva bowl, which we typically ski several times a year.

We were initially thinking of skiing down the north side of the peak, but there was so much avalanche debris and fairly significant cornices, it didn’t look all that safe nor all that fun. A nice 3 hour roundtrip tour up on Uneva was just what the doctor ordered and I felt a lot better afterwards.

A few hour later Kristine, Mikey, and I headed down south of Leadville to camp along County Road 390 at a 14ers.com spring gathering in hopes of skiing the Hopeful Couloir on the high centennial 13er Mt. Hope on Sunday. We found our friends Shawn, Jenn, & canine Fitzy in the dark and met up with friend Natalie who wanted to ski Hope with us the next day. However, after learning of the recent  Hopeful Couloir beta (runnels and avalanche debris) and the non-freezing nature of the snowpack at night, we decided to turn our efforts to Independence Pass and the two 13ers, East & West Geissler Peaks, were at the top of the list. This ski tour of the Geisslers is a local Aspen favorite and is featured in my friends’ Ben & Brian’s new book Climbing and Skiing Colorado’s Mountains: 50 Select Ski Descents. Upon leaving camp around 6am the next morning, we drove up to the top of Indy Pass and down to the Highway 82 pull-off 1.8 miles west of the top of the pass. The weather was really not what was forecasted (sunny and bluebird). It was lightly snowing, the wind was blowing, and extremely overcast. There was even the occasional group that was coming back to the cars after having skinned up the valley for 20 minutes who said they were going for a bike ride instead. Nevertheless, we’ve hardly ever experienced a day in Colorado that is forecasted to be beautiful but never turns bluebird and sunny. As fortune would have it, the sun came out and the clouds parted about 45 minutes later much to all of our relief.

These peaks really are “skier” peaks. So very accessible (when Independence Pass is open) and plenty of skiing can be had from steeper lines to more manageable 35 degree terrain. We decided to go for West Geissler first as the line we would ski is more east facing and would likely soften up first with the morning rays of sun. Kristine, being about 5 months pregnant now, did absolutely amazing and is such a trooper. Everyone was in awe that she was able to climb and ski two 13ers this day. Kudos to her for still wanting to get out and do these kinds of trips all the while growing another human being inside her belly. Amazing, really.

It was a nice morning skin to the saddle between the two Geisslers and then a straightforward bootpack up West Geissler’s east ridge to its summit. It really turned out to be a gorgeous day.

Natalie and new acquaintance Otina decided to ski the much steeper 50+ degree line directly off the summit while the rest of us (having not brought helmets or whippets and my wife being 5 months pregnant) elected to ski the mellower sub 40 degree east-facing slopes after a short ski traverse. It was a fun ski line and the snow was pretty good and soft after a few turns down.

We quickly skied over to the base of East Geissler and began laying down a skin track up its mid 30 degree south face. By this time, the crowds certainly started showing up and I bet at one time there was 20-30 people climbing & skiing East Geissler.

We topped out maybe around 11am and enjoyed the sunshine and views despite a semi-stiff breeze.

After a few photos we strapped in and skied far skier’s left down the south face of East Geissler where there were no previous ski tracks that day.

This was really just plain fun skiing and we all skied about 1,200′ down to Independence Lake from where we skied out the gulch back to the cars. The dirt layer was pretty significant in the basin and on several aspects, but we were able to avoid it for the most part on the actual skis themselves.

Back at the cars around 12:30pm, we packed up and headed back home to grab the dogs from our friend Kathryn. A great morning out for us on some new terrain with a good crew. I, for one, am so proud of Kristine and feel so fortunate to be able to do what we love together even while pregnant. Here’s a to a few more weeks of spring ski-mountaineering season!