As most of the front-range received a significant dump of snow (CB was spared), it feels a little like fall here in the Gunnison valley. Cool overnight temps and brisk mornings in the high country and perfect conditions for rock climbing down in the Taylor and Black Canyons.

I had the good fortune of checking out the latest in gear last week in Salt Lake City at the Outdoor Retailer show (blog entries from my site here), but all that dorking-out made me really want to get home and back into the high country.

For me, most of the summer work in Crested Butte involves the use of ropes and techy climbing gear.  Occasionally though we get some guests who are interested in seeing what the Butte has to offer in terms of wilderness hiking and I get passed the baton. Because I’m generally not one to get excited about staying on the beaten path, CBMG guest David and I have been pioneering some exciting new alpine excursions.

We ended up completing what should be an instant classic the “Complete Scarp Ridge Traverse”. Check out a portion of the topo below… With a little ingenuity and the willingness to get off-trail many variations and options are available on this adventure.

A portion of the Scarp Ridge Traverse

Approaching the complete Scarp Ridge Traverse

David was interested in training for an intense Aspen round-trip adventure involving consecutive CB-Aspen haute hiking, so we designed a custom hiking progression to challenge Dave and show him some more obscure spots.

The view from the start of the ridge

We’re off to Aspen tomorrow and then returning on Thursday. For me this will be a perfect transition into a busy fall season…

Stay tuned for Blogs about CBMG guides’ fall adventures!

Mike Bromberg

CB Mountain Guides

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.