This past weekend, Peter Snavley (Denver, CO) and I met up Saturday morning in Ridgway, CO for a ski mountaineering attempt on majestic Mount Sneffels (14, 150′), in the San Juan Mountains.

Our planned route was a climb and ski of the popular ski mountaineering testpiece the ‘Snake Couloir’, but we found an unbelieveable amount of red Utah dust has brought early summer snow conditions to the San Juan Mountains early this year..

After some reconnassaince work on current snow conditions, we made an educated guess that the ‘Snake’ was probably not that skiable, but definitely climbable, and opted for the higher Yankee Boy Basin trailhead approach and one of my favorite tours, the “Tour de Sneffels” route….a circuitous route from the South side of Sneffels over to the North, up to the summit and back down the South side. A true mountaineering day with stellar lines and a cool, remote and committing feel to it.

By mid-afternoon we donned skins and packs and headed up into the upper reaches of Yankee Boy Basin and were immediately blown away by the prevalance of this winter’s Moab sand/dust storms on the snowpack and how fast it has made snow conditions change from spring corn snow to summer neve.

Not being inspired to ski in Yankee Boy Basin, because of the sand layer, we opted for a late afternoon climb up to Lavender Col (13, 500′) where we decided to pitch an alpine camp and spend the evening with an incredible view of the surrounding mountains high above the tiny town of Ridgway.

After a cold night (low of 25 degrees), we awoke to a beautiful sunrise and an interesting dawn ski down the East Couloir Route around to the base of the Snake Couloir, in which Pete’s split-board was coming unhitched due to the increased torque on it from the runnelled and grippy snow.

Once in the Snake Couloir our skepticism of a possible ski descent were immediately confirmed as it proved to be a mixed bag of re-frozen spring snow, compacted and runneled summer snow, neve, and some alpine ice thrown in for good measure. 

While certainly skiable to the incredibly dedicated, due to conditions and technical split-board issues, we opted to summit with our skis and board and head down the much more appealing looking Standard Route and back to our high camp at Lavender Col.

A quick rappel into the couloir and we were greeted with a surprisingly good run of 500′ of steep and exposed couloir corn skiing and riding back to camp.

From here it was a quick packing up of camp and then a full-on combat skiing mission of Us vs. the Moab sand layer back to the car. While we won the battle against the sand (barely) it was more akin to skiing on the Great Sand Dunes possibly then on spring snow. Maybe some spf infused wax would be a better option next time.

Overall, it was  great ski mountaineeirng tour of an incredible mountain, and a fitting note for me to call it quits on for the ski season…humbly defeated by somewhat inhospitable ski conditions…..great alpine mountaineering conditions though…

Thanks Pete for a fun and final capstone experience to another memorable ski season. See ya again next year.

—Jayson Simons-Jones (Guide)

It has been a fast and furious Spring ski mountaineering season for me, with the combination of a few far flung ski trips and the day-to-day of running Crested Butte Mountain Guides via a BlackBerry.

Quickly following the Haute Route Ski Tour across the pond in Europe, I came back through Crested Butte for a brief 4-day stint to catch up on office work, do laundry, and get in a day of work backcountry ski guiding on Whetstone Mountain. Then it was back on the plane heading farther West, and off to Valdez, Alaska…the undisputed home of helicopter skiing, birthplace of the World Extreme Ski Championships, and the site of this year’s American Mountain Guides Association Ski Mountaineering Guides Exam.

Arriving in Valdez 9-days early to train with other exam candiates, we were immediately greeted with the biggest avalanche cycle of the season, resulting in 2 deaths, 2 serious skier injuries, and many other skier triggered avalanches, all over the course of 2 days. Needless to say this upped the ante for our focus, training regime, and safety awarness.

The AMGA Exam process is an incredibly stressful and intensive process, with exam candidates taking turns guiding one another under the watchful eye of an IFMGA/UIAGM Guide/Examiner. The daily objectives are considerably longer and harder then a normal day of guiding, so as to see the guides ability to work in technical terrain with multiple clients under excessive stress and if they can handle it.

Obviously this instills confidence in a guide’s ability and a client’s feeling of safety in an AMGA Certified Guide.

The Ski Mountaineeirng program is arguably the most difficult with the largest amount of subjective decision-making and interpretation of terrain, conditions, and guiding tactics being required of a guide. Typical exam days were roughly 12-14 hours in length with 5000′-7000′ vertical on glaciated and steep technical Alaskan ski terrain.

Day 1 was the mandatory 40-minute crevasse rescue drill. A 1:1 scenario where the guide must catch a crevasse fall with skis on, build an anchor to transfer the fallen skier’s weight onto, rappell into the crevasse to attend to the fallen skier, then ascend back out, build a hauling system, and haul the fallen skier out safely…whew…..

Days 2-7 were all daily guided ski mountaineeirng tours through the vast and glaciated terrain of the Thompson Pass area of Valdez, AK. An area made famous by Doug Coombs and the last decade of extreme ski movie footage. Thankfully the weather during this stretch was complete Colorado bluebird, albeit unseasonably warm…and although whiteout navigation skills were somewhat of a non-issue, wet unconsolidated isothermic snow and bulletproof slide for life conditions more then made up for the guiding challenges and created quite alot of rope work and ski guiding trickery to keep everyone safe throughout the week.

Possibly one of my favorite days, of course….was the heli-drop day, as we got in a day of heli-skiing and I scored the lucky card of getting to on-sight down guide the first run of the day, down 2000′+ of steep and exposed pure Alaskan skiing!!!

Day 8 brought a final guiding challenge and examination sequence of dealing with a serious injury in the backcountry with a small guided ski party and no availablity for outside assistance…my client’s injury….a broken femure…ouch…glad I’m a WFR instructor.

Despite the intensity, inherent stresses, and long days (some ~20 hrs), the exam was a successful venture as I left not only with my official Ski Mountaineeirng Guide Certification, but also having made some new friends, and gotten to ski and work alongside some incredibly talented and best professional guides in the industry. And of course, all this in the original big mountain skiing mecca of Valdez, Alaska, and under an unprecedented stretch of clear and sunny weather!!!

Congrats everyone to giving it your absolute all and to earning your certification. Now I am looking forward to beginning the trip planning process of sharing this incredible venue with CBMG ski guests in the near future…..

—Jayson Simons-Jones (Owner / Lead Guide)

See more photos at: Valdez 2009

We’ve just received word that CBMG owner/lead guide Jayson Simons-Jones has just earned the title of AMGA Ski Mountaineering Guide! This year’s exam (held in Valdez, AK) has been reputed as having some very challenging conditions, necessitating much rope-work among the many other challenges normally associated with guiding high level ski mountaineering.

The AMGA Ski Mountaineering certification is the highest level of certification available to guides in the United States and is held by less than 100 guides in the country, four of whom are CBMG guides!

We are all very proud of Jayson for all of his hard work and dedication to the guiding profession.

Here is a video put together by Colin Zacharias documenting the 8-day exam….

Welcome home Jayson! Breathe a huge sigh of relief- you’ve earned it!

- CBMG Staff