On June 18th, myself and fellow backcountry ski mountaineering partner Hutch DuBosque nabbed a great conditions late spring / early summer ski descent of the SW Couloir on South Maroon peak. A beautiful plumb line on a burly peak, that is visible from almost any other peak in the Crested Butte area, I’ve been looking at this line for the past 9 years and finally caught it. Conditions this season allowed for some easier access from the Maroon Creek parking lot, as this line is difficult to reach from just about anywhere in a day trip. However, lots of late season snow and easy access on the Aspen side allowed us to catch this ski in a one -day 11 hour push round-trip from the car.

I was able to scope conditions a few days earlier, on a guided trip up South Maroon, and was surprised to see the couloir still in and in prime smooth corn conditions as well, with minimal melt out, runnels, or even sun cups. The prospect of such good conditions so late in the season, coupled with such easy access, made me pull the trigger knowing full well these things might not all line up together again for another 20 years. We awoke to a dawn start at 5 am, and suffered through a ridiculously hot and sweaty 5 hr. climb of the Bell Chord Couloir to the summit of South Maroon. On the summit, we had to wait as the sun was just making it’s way around to the deeply inset SW Couloir, and conditions were still a little firm. After an hour wait on the summit, a mix of nerves and excitement proved too much to wait any longer, and I dropped into the top steep exposed pitch to find good soft corn skiing. 1,000′ of 50+ degree jump turns later and we were at the last dog leg in the couloir, and the only bad runnelled snow we found all day. From the bottom of the line, it was a fairly quick traverse south to the head of Fravert basin, where we gained a low saddle in the ridge before West Maroon Pass. From here we were able to ski a few thousand feet and a few miles down the basin, almost all the way back around to the base of the Bell Chord and our hiking boots and the 2 mile hike back to the car.

Overall, a fun adventure and an incredible ski on a beautiful mountian in near perfect conditions….it just doesn’t get much better. Now maybe we can finally hang ‘em up for the summer?

 —Jayson Simons-Jones

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 3:55 pm and is filed under Alpine Mountaineering, Guide Blog, 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.