SATURDAY | QUANDARY
Went back to ski Quandary's east bowls on Saturday-- way less wind, more more mountain goats, and sadly no Pa. Was still an excellent ski, with some nice recycled powder in the upper bowl and a few excellent corn turns below treeline.
Afterward, we headed to Leadville for coffee and cribbage for a few hours before driving up to the South Elbert Trailhead. We decided to camp down in the sagebrush rather than try to get the Prius up the 4WD road. Headed to bed early for an early start up Elbert in the morning.
SUNDAY | ELBERT, BOX CREEK COULOIRS
Coffee, oatmeal, packed up camp, and left the South Elbert Trailhead booting up the dry 4WD road around 5:45. After a few miles on the road, we hit snow at the upper trailhead and were able to start skinning soon after that. The higher we got the better the skinning got, but we could hear the wind whipping up high. Above treeline, we could see the whole east ridge of Elbert in front of us. Didn't look too bad, just a steady climb. Once on the ridge, we were able to get a good look at the Box Creek Cirque. The couloirs looked much thinner than we expected-- in the photos we had seen, there were several moderate-looking, continuous lines from the top of the cirque to the bottom. It was pretty clear that we'd have to do a little bit of doglegging, but it didn't look too steep so we agreed to make a decision on skiing it when we got to the summit. The wind died down a bit and we summited Elbert at 11 AM-- highest point in the Rockies and tallest 14er in CO! We took a few quick photos, ate a snack, and decided to head for Box Creek since the wind had been keeping everything relatively cool. We skied a few hundred feet of mellow sastrugi to the top of the couloirs and began skiing one at a time. Alex led the way and radioed up that the shot we thought we could take rolled over into some rotten snow and rock, so we'd have to do some early doglegging. I skied down to him and was surprised at how steep the cirque was. The route description we read said that the angle never exceeded 38 in the middle of the slope-- could have been the bulletproof conditions or how thin it was, but it certainly felt steeper. We picked our way down and were down at the bottom before we knew it, pretty proud of ourselves for figuring things out on the fly. Looking back at the line, it doesn't seem to make sense but when we were skiing it, it was definitely the line of least-resistance. Woohoo! Climbed back up to the ridge and skied some excellent corn and bushwacky turns back to the upper trailhead where we had left flip-flops. Felt pretty good to get the boots off. Hiked 2 miles back to our car in our flip-flops, got a pizza in Leadville, and drove home. No prob! Great way to spend a weekend.
xoxo
Dani P & Alex D