Quintessential Colorado Backcountry....bluebird sunny skies, and cold dry powder

It’s no secret that the West, and especially Colorado, are again having another dry winter. In fact, until recently our overall snowfall totals were unbelievably less then even last year. However…..despite the lack of snow, the backcountry skiing & riding has actually been really darn good. Like really good. Worlds better then last year, even if overall snowfall is basically the same.

Slashing backcountry powder under the majestic shadow of Mt Crested Butte

Maybe it has been the consistent nature of the small storms and occasional winds dropping enough new snow in the backcountry to add a ‘refresh’ every couple of days, that has made it so good. Maybe, the few big, and uncharacteristically wet storms we’ve had have made the snow stick and form more of a solid base. Crested Butte Mountain Resort has most all of it’s Extreme Limits terrain open. Last year at this time it had none. I guess statistics really don’t mean much, especially when it comes to measuring the quality of powder skiing it seems.

Earning some turns amongst the solitude of the aspen trees

February has been a very, very busy month for Crested Butte Mountain Guides. Most all of our staff has been working constantly guiding a mix of Backcountry Ski & Splitboard Tours; Ice Climbing; Hut Trips; and teaching AIARE Avalanche Courses. However, it has been the backcountry tours that have kept us the busiest, and that have delivered the most amount of smiles, and “we’ll be back” comments on a consistent and daily basis.

Deep, deep, deep backcountry powder to start off March 2013 in Crested Butte

Backcountry Ski Touring and Splitboarding has been exploding in popularity over the past few years, as the gear gets lighter, stronger, easier to use, and has more of a familiar feel. We are seeing this enthusiasm and trend in spades here in Crested Butte this year. Crested Butte Mountain Resort has set an industry first, by allowing a designated ‘up-hill travel route’ in-bounds during operating hours for folks to skin on the resort. And at CBMG, we’ve been going gangbusters guiding daily backcountry ski tours and repeatedly delivering the goods to folks !

A break in the storm over the West Elk Wilderness

Now as we break into March, historically one of the wettest months of the year for precipitation in Colorado, and Spring is just around the corner, we are gearing up for a strong finish to what has turned out to be a sleeper season of great powder skiing and riding despite the statistics. And to start us off on the right foot, Ullr has brought in March in Crested Butte with 16″ of fresh snow to help welcome in the arrival of Spring.

Going for another lap below the imposing East Face of Gothic Mountain

So as we come into the final month of the ‘official ski season’ in Crested Butte we are excited to continue the trend of good snow and being out and about in it all in the backcountry with our guests. Finding great turns, enjoying the scenery, and being deep in the Colorado mountains in the magic of the winter environment. Soon, the powder will give way to great corn skiing and we will transition into one of our favorite seasons of all: Spring Ski Mountaineering Season.

Split-boarders have the most fun !

Warm temps, longer days, sunny corn skiing on big peaks……and our exciting finish to our ski season with our popular Alaska Ski Mountaineering Programs in the Chugach Mountains of Thompson Pass and closer to home our 4-Day Colorado Spring Ski Mountaineering Camps in mid-April. Stay tuned…..or better yet…..join us !

A few of our happy backcountry ski guests from the past month

—- CBMG Staff

Climbing cold blue ice under beautiful blue winter skies

Colorado is quite the ideal place to be based if you are a climber. First off, there is all types of climbing here in this great Rocky Mountain state. There are thousands of mountains throughout, offering all types of mountaineering and climbing objectives to a worthy summit. Some, suited best for trail running shoes and a light pack, others overnight, wilderness, technical objectives, and everything else in between.

Alpine winter summit climbing on Mt Crested Butte

Beneath all the lofty heights of the state’s great peaks, and for those more interested in technical difficulty over sizeable altitude and mileage, the state is littered with rocky hillsides, outcroppings, gorges, and cliff walls. And almost as varied as the type of climbing is the type of rock to climb on: granite, gneiss, alpine granite, sandstone (Eldo Canyon sandstone; Escalante Canyon wingate; Garden of the Gods soft sandstone; etc….)and more then my limited geology can understand.

Leading ice in the Ouray Ice Park

On par with all this variety is the stellar weather. 300+ days of sunshine a year, and enough climate variation that even in the dead, frozen cold of winter, within a day’s drive you can be climbing sunny warm rock somewhere. With that being said…the most important thing a Colorado climber needs to possess is a love of seasonal changes, and being willing to hunt for your preferred objective and medium. After all, Colorado is known for mountains, and skiing as well as climbing. And where those things reside, generally means a long, cold winter climbing season.

Ski Mountaineering on Mt Crested Butte's 'Guides Ridge' Route

So here in Crested Butte, Colorado, where winter can easily last 8 months a year, to be a climber one must learn to embrace winter climbing. Or, have a very flexible job and put a lot of miles in of windshield time. We prefer the former, and embrace the winter climbing season. One that brings different challenges, but with it more space for reward and more opportunities for the moments of grace and beauty that the mountain environment provides us with.

fresh ice

Alas, it is now Mid-February, and we have every so imperceptibly crested the heart of winter’s darkness. The days are becoming slightly longer, the sun’s angle slightly higher, and the temps slightly (and I mean slightly) warmer. Spring is slowly beginning to take shape on the horizon and plans are beginning to infiltrate our minds of warm, sunny, granite rock or desert sandstone to be climbed.

Winter mixed alpine climbing in Crested Butte, CO

However, we are in no rush to get there, as the one thing that always holds true will no doubt take effect again….change will inevitably come. In the meantime though, we will thoroughly be enjoying the depths of winter, climbing on frozen snowy peaks, watching the sun rise and fall from the sides of a mountain and taking joy in the way it’s light plays differently amongst a landscape coated with the sharpness of rock, ice, and snow, then it does with the softer, subtler colors of the warmer months.

Colorado Ice Climbing

We will continue to seek out freezing pre-dawn starts on snowy, rock strewn ridges, and will relish the joy of going to work and the challenge of sublime and quiet winter ascents of Mt Crested Butte’s ‘Guides Ridge’ Route, and more beyond. We will continue to seek out the frozen blue waterfall ice of the surrounding mountains and in the farmed ice of the Lake City and Ouray Ice Parks. Taking joy in introducing rockclimbers to the somewhat awkward but supremely focusing and enjoyable sport of ice climbing, and the feeling that comes with being half-way up a turquoise or fluorescent blue waterfall, looking down through your crampon frontpoints, and wondering how it can all be so beautiful and inspiring while also all being so intimidating and challenging.

Ski Mountaineering Crested Butte, CO

And of course, when not searching out every nook and cranny of the surrounding mountains for that ultimate, unfound, ephemeral flow of ice to climb, or winter ridge ascent to be had, we’ll be looking for that perfect, and ever-elusive, ‘ultimate powder run’, just out of our back door in the wonderful, Crested Butte Backcountry.

-Cheers, Jayson @ CBMG

Well it’s no surprise by now that Colorado is again off to another very dry and slow start to the winter season. However, that doesn’t mean that there is nothing to do out in the mountains. In fact, with the sunny and mild days right now, things would be downright perfect for outdoor enthusiasts if we weren’t all impatiently awaiting the arrival of Ullr and winter to sustain us through the cold and dark season for the next few months.

If one looks beyond the general lack of the fluffy white stuff in Colorado, they find that in fact it is prime time for downright anything outdoor enthusiast oriented. The mountain biking at local Hartman Rocks is still good and dry; sunny days are bringing comfortable rock-climbing conditions in local Taylor Canyon for a few hours mid-day; there is groomed skiing under bright blue skies to be had at local Crested Butte Mountain Resort; some adventurous and fit locals have been finding “pretty darn good” powder turns up high deep in the Crested Butte back-country; the ice skating on Long Lake is “all-time”, and of course the ice climbing in IN !

Colorado is home to great ice climbing. After all it is home to the world-famous Ouray Ice Park. Crested Butte, however, has never been known as an ice climbing haven, as the usual early season storms, copious back-country snowfall, and surrounding terrain make for one of the best back-country ski touring venues on the planet….not so with ice climbing. However, the rare cold, dry starts to winter around here, do in fact bring about some rare and ephemeral early-season alpine ice climbs that are scattered throughout the surroundings mountains.

And although not world-class or destination worthy, they are none-the-less, high quality climbs in a gorgeous mountain/wilderness setting with little to no one else around. So while, everyone else is on-line with various social media networks posting their grumblings about a lackluster start to the winter season here in Colorado, we’ve been out enjoying some pretty darn good ice climbing conditions in our backyard, and are equally as excited by the actual good quality of the ice we have, coupled with the enjoyment we get in experiencing a rare and fleeting thing in the Crested Butte back-country…ice climbing season.

And when winter finally arrives for good, which it always does and will for sure do, we’ll head back to our favorite and dependable climbing venues a bit farther from home in Lake City, CO and the Ouray Ice Park, but until then you will find us just out the backdoor.

And by the way…..believe it or not, despite what it may seem, the back-country skiing and riding is actually pretty good right now; if you know where to go and have an extra lung to bring along to help get there. It’s just not the world-class, right out the backdoor type conditions we are used to…..that has been given temporary status to the area’s ice climbing.

— Jayson Simons-Jones (Owner/Guide)

It’s mid-November, the temperature outside is hovering in the high teens, and it is snowing and blowing, and has been all weekend. I think it is official, winter is finally here. Change is difficult though. The warm sunny days of mountain biking in the high alpine, sunrise trail runs, and evening sessions on the familiar granite walls of local Taylor Canyon high above the river are now all but gone.

In the Colorado high country this is a time filled with melancholy and at times an identity crises, where with alarming swiftness it can change from a late lazy autumn day of 60 and sunny, to a burly frigid winter day of snow, cold, and biting winds, and yet the old cliched saying still holds true….”as one door closes, another shall open.”

With the seeming flick of Mother Nature’s switch, all these just recent experiences have now been reduced to mere memories of another Summer/Fall season in the high country gone by. And the warm days of t-shirt and flip-flops now seem like a long, long ways away, and for this I am saddened.

In the mountains death is ever-present, and not to be taken lightly. And the death of the short and fleeting season of warmth and long hours of daylight is rightly mourned. But this is no tragedy, and with all death comes re-birth and new life….this new life being one that is cold, sometimes harsh, but often beautiful, cleansing, serene, and in some ways mystical and transformative…..winter.

Because the death of warmth in the Colorado high country is not a tragic death, it is embraced and even longed-for in most circles. Those, like myself, that look forward to the endless blanket of gleaming white that cloaks our majestic mountains, framed under rich cobalt blue skies. Where powerful storms bring the enjoyment of skinning through the forests, tree limbs over-head weighted heavy under their snowy burdens, silence all around, as large flakes drift lazily down on our heads, the surrounding beauty made more dramatic by the imminent transience of it all.

Long, cold, dark nights are spent huddled around the warmth of a wood stove, nestled miles deep in the Colorado backcountry, with bellies full of good food, and hearts full of good cheer. All wrapped up and blanketed beneath the glow of the fire and by the company of good friends, with heads daydreaming and conversations spilling forth full of excitement and childlike wonder at the winter wonderland that lies just beyond the ancient log beams of the cabin’s walls, waiting to be explored again tomorrow.

A place being born where hours on the skin track, gliding through silent forests in an otherworldly calmness and serenity, are rewarded with endless untracked powder runs with friends. Where each run down is ultimately a necessary adventure to find that ever alluring ‘perfect run’, one that we know we will never have, but yet will also never stop searching for and striving after….again and again, lap after snowy backcountry powder filled lap.

And then slowly it will happen again. First so subtle it’s presence wont even be noticed, but then with an alarming clarity so intense it will shatter us all from our quiet, snowy bliss….deaths arrival again. And again, it will be both simultaneously mourned and embraced with enthusiasm. The days will last a bit longer, there will be a slight hint of warmth and the faintest smell of new-growth pervading the early morning breeze again, and slowly the mountains will begin to unfold, like the petals of a flower to the rising rays of dawn’s sun.

And just like that, winter will again be behind us, nothing more then memories of powder filled days in the backcountry of the surrounding wild mountains. Stories of these days will get deeper and more epic, the farther into our memory banks they slide, and new friendships, stories and bonds that were born, will be again but memories of another season gone past, as we are born with new excitement for the warmth of summer. Deep into the gear closet we will go in search of bikes, running shoes, and climbing gear….Change is hard, but lack of change is harder.

-Jayson Simons-Jones