Kristine has spring break this week and I took a little 5 hour hiatus from work so we could go spend a nice morning together up on a peak. The weather forecast this week didn’t look great all over the state, but Monday morning looked to be promising with clouds and showers coming in after 2pm. Kristine had yet to climb the prominent 13er Jacque Peak behind Copper Mountain. Copper Mountain had closed for skiing the day before and so the ski runs were empty. After leaving Rainier at home (she cannot do these climbs anymore) and dropping Sawyer off at daycare in Vail, we drove separate cars over to Copper and parked. On the snow at 9:30am, we skinned up the ski run called Roundabout under beautiful blue skies with Kona and our K9 friend for a few days, Molly. We ended up eventually skinning the steeper black diamond bump run called Colman’s Restreat up towards Union Mountain.

Kristine

After about 2,200′ and a few miles, we topped out on the broad northeast ridge of Jacque after slightly bypassing the summit of Union Mountain. The wind picked up in a hurry, but the air temps were still reasonably warm. The wind abated here and there, but overall was pretty consistent all the way to the summit.

Molly on the ridge with the Tenmile Range behind. Left to right: Pacific Peak, Atlantic Peak, Fletcher Mountain, & Drift Peak

Happy to be up high again

Me and the dogs on the ridge

Jacque’s northeast ridge

Kona & Molly following the ridge

Kristine skinning up a steeper section

Kristine higher up with the Gore and Tenmile Ranges behind

Kristine summitting!

The northeast ridge of Jacque is entirely skinnable and makes for a nice ski tour. We all arrived on Jacque’s summit a few minutes after noon and a stiff and ferocious wind greeted us. We surely didn’t dilly-dally as the dogs were pretty cold. We de-skinned, took a few pics, and were set to ski in 10 minutes.

Kristine & I on the summit of Jacque Peak (13,205′)

Kona saying “Let’s get down from here. I’m freezing”

While it would have been fun to ski the east face of Jacque, the winds simply wouldn’t allow it. Yes, the sun was out, but the winds were too sustained and strong all morning to let the sun do its job of heating up the snow to make it soft, safe, and fun for skiing. Oh well. We simply skied the northeast ridge back down the same way we ascended.

Kona & Kristine on the ski down

Kristine skating across the broad ridge back to Union Mountain with Jacque behind

We took a good break right at treeline for some water and candy before we skied down the resort back to the cars.

Its always great being the only ones skiing in a ski resort

Back at the cars just a few minutes after 1pm, Kristine, Kona, & Molly went to Silverthorne to do some shopping while I went back home to take Rainier swimming in the river and head to work before picking Sawyer up from daycare. All in all, just a wonderful Monday morning with my wife and the dogs. I wish every Monday morning could be like this one 🙂

Oh yeah, and Sawyer likes coloring now:

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