This past Saturday my good friend and backcountry partner Hutch Dubosque and I decided to break-away from the crowds at the US Extreme Freeskiing Championships going on at Crested Butte Mountain Resort, and head for the hills. We were able to get in a great ski mountaineering tour in the Slate River Drainage and spent the day up high in the alpine under bluebird skies getting in a mid-winter descent of two area classics: Augusta Mountain’s South Face & “The Nose” on Mineral Point’s Southeast Face.

The Crested Butte backcountry has received almost 2′ of new snow over the past 10 days, but warm and mild temps to start off the weekend have brought some pretty stable conditions and opened up some big and steep ski mountaineering lines on many of the local peaks.

“The Nose” line on Mineral Pt. is arguably one of the most aesthetic ski descents in the Crested Butte zone of the Elk Mountains. It is an immediately compelling line that draws one’s eye, and is steep, exposed, and committing. It is also a fantastic spring snow climb as well.

I’ve been eyeing this line on and off for almost 10 years, and on Saturday the conditions seemed good to give ‘er. With both of us training for a trip to Chamonix and the Swiss Alps, we headed out on a ski tour that took us up into Baxter Basin and around Cascade Mountain before heading up to the summit of Augusta Mountain (12,559′).

From here, we descended Augusta’s South Face in some fine wind-stiffened powder conditions. We then toured back up to the saddle and on up to the summit of Mineral Point (12,509′), where we dropped the direct and ever steepening “Nose” line for 3,000′ all the way back to the snowmachines.

A great day out in the mounatins with a great friend.

—Jayson Simons-Jones (Owner / Guide)

cbguides

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Alpine Mountaineering, General, Skiing. 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.