Spring ski-mountaineering for the Chalks & friends continues to be a favorite springtime hobby. Kristine and Mikey Santoro drove over to the Mt. Sopris trailhead on a Saturday evening, camped out under the stars, and skinned and skied this classic 12,953′ behometh outside of Carbondale on Sunday, April 30. Kristine, myself, and numerous friends over the years (really since 2004) used to climb and ski this awesome ski-mountaineering mountain every spring. I still remember Rainie and my first time up Sopris in the spring of 2004. However, we hadn’t skied the peak for a few years now and Kristine wanted to go back. Mikey hadn’t done it and wanted to go so their plan was set. It was a beautiful, albeit windy, day up in the hills. I thought they made good time up the approximate 12 mile roundtrip with 4,400′ vertical gain route as they were back mid-afternoon.

Mt. Sopris. Our usual ascent/descent route, the Thomas Lakes Bowl, is left of center

Mikey above Thomas Lakes

The Thomas Lakes Bowl. Windy up on the ridge!

Mikey making his way up the summit ridge with Capitol Peak behind

Mikey & Kristine on top of Sopris (12,953′)

Mikey boarding the fun Thomas Lakes Bowl

All smiles back at the trailhead

The next weekend on Saturday, May 6, Dylan, J, and I ventured back into the Gores up the familiar Booth Creek drainage. Our goal was to ski The Fly’s southeast face. A few of us had climbed The Fly several times in past years (linking it with The Spider to the north), but never skied it.

Kristine & I on the summit of The Fly in October 2011 with West Partner Peak behind

Me, Rainie, Kona, & Khumbu at Booth Lake (July 2012)

Rainie, Kona, & Khumbu on The Fly’s summit

Baba, Khumbu, Rainie, & Kona on the summit of The Fly (12,550′) with The Spider (far left) and Peak H (center) behind

I couldn’t get J to start any earlier than 6am (I wanted to get going pretty early because it was gonna be a super warm day), but we made decent time up into the upper Booth Creek drainage trying to make up some time.

Mt. of the Holy Cross and Vail from the upper Booth Creek drainage

Dylan & J skinning

After maybe 3 hours in, we rounded the corner and approached Booth Lake and The Fly.

The Fly’s southeast face with the east ridge on the right

Skinning with Outpost Peak behind to the right

We then came upon some strange tracks that at first we thought were human. They went all the way up to about 12,000′ on the east ridge of The Fly. Well, we decided to follow them as a broken booter was better than breaking it ourselves. However, they just weren’t normal steps at all. I found myself breaking trail anyway as I could not figure out the pattern of the footsteps. Eventually, we learned that these were bear tracks! We were wondering what in the world the bear was doing going all the way up steep snow to The Fly’s east ridge.

Bear track

Following the bear tracks to the east ridge

Dylan making his way up to the east ridge

Once on the east ridge, the climbing and views were really fantastic, though the snow was getting way too warm for my taste. It was stifling hot out!

Dylan on the east ridge with Rockinghorse Ridge and Peak Q behind

J and the Fly’s east ridge

Dylan making an airy maneuver

After a knife-edge of snow and a downclimb around a small tower, we pushed onto the summit.

J on the final push

Dylan loving his first time in the Gore

Looking over at the southeast face we would ski

We topped out maybe around 10:45am and started to ski pretty immediately. It was pretty warm and expectedly J knocked off a few minor wet slides and let them roll below him before he skied down.

Looking down the line from the summit

Dylan with the Spider behind

The Fly summit (12,550′)

J taking off down the southeast face

J way down there

Dylan carving some nice turns

It was pretty darn heavy, wet snowy from my perspective, but fun nonetheless. Would have been certainly nice to hit it 2 hour earlier. We managed all our slough just fine and regrouped and hung out for a bit back at Booth Lake.

Hanging out back at Booth Lake

The ski out was pretty fun yet sloppy. We put our skis back on our packs around the top of Booth Falls and hiked the remaining 2 miles back to the car on the dry trail. It was only about a 7 hr RT day, so really not all that long. The Fly was a fun climb & ski and I look forward to hopefully doing it again next spring.

More of a picture journey of our ski tour deep in the Gore Range to ski the elusive Straight Arrow Couloir on Peak H than anything, but in many ways pictures are worth a thousand words 🙂 For those interested, good bud Brian Miller did his typical humorous trip report over at Exploring The Rockies in a writing style that is uniquely his and his alone. All told, it was almost a 12 hour day and approximately 13.9 miles roundtrip with 7,150′ of vertical gain. Not too shabby of a day.

The day started around 4:15am with a 3,500′ vertical gain approach from the Booth Creek Trailhead in Vail to the 12,100′ East Booth Pass. Typically, that kind of gain will already get you to a summit, but we had a long way to go this day. However, we skied powder down from East Booth Pass to Upper Piney Lake at 11,000′.

Brian & J approaching East Booth Pass

Ben shot this awesome pic of Mt. of the Holy Cross with the top of Chair 3 at Vail visible lower right from East Booth Pass

J and Ben skiing down to Upper Piney Lake with our destination, Peak H, in the distance

I was able to drop a knee as it was awesome powder off the north side of East Booth Pass! Photo by Ben

Ben capturing Brian ripping turns down the north side of East Booth Pass with The Spider and The Fly as a backdrop

Then, we began the long 2,000’+ ascent up Peak H’s south slopes. The scenery was astounding. I hadn’t been back this deep in the Gore in the snowy months before and it was breathtaking.

J and I skinning up Peak H’s south slopes as far as our skins would allow. Photo by Ben

Me putting the skis on my back. At some point, it became much more efficient to just boot it. Photo by Ben

The Spider’s skiable northeast face. Wow

Ben booting up Peak H’s south slopes with Rockinghorse Ridge and West Partner Peak visible in the background

Finally, around 10:45am, we reached the summit of Peak H about 6.5 hours after starting out.

J and I on the summit of Peak H (13,080′). We had only been here once before when we traversed The Saw way back in 2012.

Looking down at Brian at the top of the Straight Arrow Couloir from Peak H’s summit

Ben about to drop into the Straight Arrow Couloir with Peak Q in the distance. Photo by Ben

Ben’s first turn

So, while traversing The Saw so many years ago, I honestly couldn’t remember if there was a viable exit from the bottom of Straight Arrow back to The Saw’s ridge proper to get back into the Upper Piney Lake basin. I usually have a good memory of things in the mountains, but this topography escaped me. Nevertheless, Ben decided to ski down about 1,000′ and look at a seemingly viable exit skier’s right. He gave an “all systems go” signal and we skied this great couloir in awesome corn snow.

Brian ripping turns as he always does

Brian much further down with quite the backdrop

Brian. Photo by Ben

Me loving this couloir while J waits patiently at the top. Photo by Ben

I think this pic makes the couloir appear steeper than it actually is. Photo by Ben

Me loving the tele turns. Photo by Ben

Here comes J

J getting into the business. Photo by Ben

The point where we packed up our skis and booted out to the exit Ben spotted

J and Ben booting

A good look at Peak L’s north face above the Black Creek drainage behind me

We reached the ridge and after a snack and some fluids we transitioned to ski mode to ski the remainder of Peak H’s south face. I did go over to the low point of The Saw after a few hundred feet of skiing down H’s south face and scoped out the climb up to the saddle from the apron of the Straight Arrow Couloir. Definitely climable. In hindsight, we could have skied a few more hundred vertical down the Straight Arrow and had a decent climb up and out to the saddle. Oh well. Definitely next time 🙂

Brian skiing down Peak H’s south face. Photo by Ben

Ben shot me skiing down H with such a gorgeous backdrop here including The Spider and Holy Cross.

And, another one of me skiing down H with the Spider behind. Photo by Ben

We skied as far as we could due south, but really dropped all the way down to Upper Piney Lake yet again. We had over a 1,000′ re-climb back up to East Booth Pass, which definitely caused us to put on the afterburners.

J and Brian topping out on East Booth Pass for the second time this day

Ben and J at East Booth Pass with the Spider and The Fly behind’

After some lounging, we packed up and skied down the Booth Creek drainage where we still got almost 3,000′ of skiing to well below Booth Falls. Yes, it took some gymnastics lower down but we kept the skis on our feet to where it got unruly and Brian and I called it quits.

Me skiing down the south side of East Booth Pass on perfect corn. Photo by Ben

A very fun out….

…until this

But, Ben, as always, managed to make the turn

Great day out in my favorite range with the biggest Gore snobs I know. Until next time fellas.

Well, after an unsuccessful attempt to ski the so-called “Deming Drop” on Deming Mountain (12,902′) in the southern Gore last June, we decided to give it another go this April despite a not so ideal forecast for a Saturday. It looked sunny in the morning, but the winds were forecasted to be pretty gusty and a storm was a brewing that afternoon and evening. Last June 2016, Derek, Mikey, and I (along with K9 companions Kona and Maude) waited almost an hour and a half for the north couloir of Deming Mountain, aka the “Deming Drop”, to soften up, but it really wouldn’t have till high noon or after. Plus, we decided it wasn’t a good line for the dogs either. So, we decided to play it safe and ski the fun east slopes.

Leaving Kona and Maude at home this time, J and I met Derek at the Meadowcreek Trailhead in Frisco around 5am. He kept our trail shoes on for maybe a mile before we switched to skinning mode and had an enjoyable skin up through treeline to the beautiful, mellow basin below Eccles Pass. However, the wind was gusting pretty substantially when we got into the open blowing us back a bit. J and I were sort of thinking if it were this windy down here, we may not be making the summit today 🙂 Nonetheless, we skinned our way up Deming’s familiar east slopes and the wind seemed to settle down a bit the higher we ascended. We topped out around 4 hours after leaving the trailhead at 9:15am.

J and Derek starting the steeper skin up Deming’s east slopes

Looking over at the Silvrthorne massif (left) and Red Peak massif with Red Diamond Ridge (right) from Deming’s east slopes

J topping out on Deming

We couldn’t believe the wind allowed us fairly easy passage to the summit. After maybe 15min on top, the wind, however, picked up and we decided to move.

Looking over at West Deming and the Vail Valley beyond from Deming’s summit

Deming Mountain summit (12,902′)

We skied north over the flat summit plateau to the couloir’s steep 50 degree entrance. The steep entrance was definitely bulging out convexly indicating some definite wind loading. This was surely intimidating and gave us pause.

J and I scoping out the couloir’s entrance. photo by Derek

However, J noticed we could avoid this convex entrance to the couloir by skiing down the small ridge to skier’s left and then traverse under the loaded slope very fast to the couloir’s much safer right side. Yes, we would be under the bulging, upper slope, but only for a brief second and individually.

J and I making our way down the ridge to avoid skiing over the steep, bulging slope. Photo by Derek

Then, J crossed the couloir over to the right side, followed by me, and then Derek. With no signs of any snow instability, we continued to ski the now mellower 40 degree couloir in very variable wind-affected snow.

Derek traversing the steep, upper slope over to J and I on the couloir’s right side

Well, I guess I can say I skied the Deming Drop, but it sure wasn’t pretty 🙂 This was some of the hardest skiing I’ve ever done in terms of physical exertion. Of course, I made zero telemark turns because of how so variable the snow in the couloir was. It was all I could do to make a normal alpine turn! And, I had a hunch it would be spring north-facing, creamy powder. Haha…yeah right! J and Derek were patient with me. So, to show how variable the snow was, J lost one of his skis in the upper portion of the couloir (though he obviously recovered it) and J can ski anything, anywhere with anyone. The snow basically just ripped the ski off his boot. Nonetheless, we made it down the belly of the beast to the apron about an hour after leaving the summit.

Derek skiing the Drop

Close-up of Derek working for those turns

J skiing the Deming Drop

J about a third of the way down

Derek

Looking up at Derek through the couloir’s choke

Me doing my best in the tough snow. Photo by J

J finishing out the bottom section of the Drop

Derek making the last little bit looking pretty powdery

Derek making the snow conditions look smooth

Upon reaching the apron, we traversed northeast towards Red Buffalo Pass and found the steep slope we were to climb up to reach Deming’s northeast ridge.

J traversing on out to where we would climb up around 700′ to Deming’s northeast ridge as our preferred escape from this basin

We packed our skis on our backs and J and I broke trail straight up through some really deep and tiring snow. We leapfrogged setting the booter and an hour later when we reached the ridge, we were pretty exhausted.

J climbing up the slope

Derek making his way up the booter with West Deming behind on the left

J and Derek near the ridge where we could ski back down into the Meadowcreek drainage from where we came

A look at our route from the summit of Red Peak to the north in July 2015 after J and I traversed Red Diamond Ridge. Green indicates the skin up Deming’s east slopes, red indicates the ski down the Deming Drop, and blue indicates our climb back up to Deming’s northeast ridge after the ski

After a snack and some hydration in the ever-increasing wind on the exposed ridge, we decided to ski down the utterly horrific breakable crust into the Meadowcreek drainage. This was the worst part of the day for me. The snow was just plain “break your leg” snow as the sun had since went away behind the increasing clouds and what corn snow was trying to surface froze up quickly. We saw a huge 17 person crew skinning up to Eccles Pass and beyond up the west ridge of the small bump that eventually leads towards Buffalo Mountain. We were all curious if this was a backcountry ski course or what. Who knows – maybe just a large gathering of friends. All said and done, we finally reached corn snow lower down in the drainage and skied it out to within a half mile of the car making for a 7.5 hour RT day. I believe this route is around 12 miles RT with between 4,500 – 5,000′ vertical gain. Definitely a fun adventure and happy to have skied the Deming Drop, but boy those snow conditions – I do not miss that. However, that’s spring skiing for ya. You never know what you are gonna get. You can guess and have a good hunch, but until you feel it out and experience the snow conditions in real time, you don’t know for sure.