Jake and I went back up to Yankee Boy Basin here in the San Juans this morning. The 1-inch of fresh snow from a day ago has softened into a perfectly buttery topping on the smooth spring corn snow, and we savored some sweet high speed carves on the descent.

I’ve never seen so little snow in YBB for this time of year. All the south faces are basically dry and unskiable. Nevertheless, the north facing slopes are still holding snow and it’s clean and smooth… for now!

Just for reference, compare these photos from the same place last June after a big snow year.

Mt. Sneffels Summit Sunrise : Prints Available

Sunrise atop Mt. Sneffels (14,150 ft.) - May.

I’ve been itching for an adventure lately, so early this morning I hiked up Mt. Sneffels in the moonlight again! I left Ouray at 1:30am (ouch!) and started hiking into Yankee Boy Basin at 2:30am. The “supermoon” – aka, the full moon at its closest orbit to Earth – was incredibly bright, and I had no troubles finding my way without headlamp. I arrived at the summit at about 5:15am, just as the first orange and blue light of dawn illuminated the eastern horizon.

Sneffels Supermoon : Prints Available

A full moon sets behind the Dallas Peak (close) and the San Miguel Range, as seen from the summit of Mt. Sneffels, May.

This was the second time I’ve ascended Mt. Sneffels in the moonlight; you can see photos from the first time here. There’s something so special about being up high at night, especially when you can see clearly in the moonlight! The sunrise was awesome, but so was the moonset – I had a hard time choosing which direction to shoot!

Me, chilling out by myself on the summit.

Here’s a view of neighboring Gilpin Peak (13,694 ft) seen from the summit of Sneffels. Because I knew I’d be descending Sneffels when the snow was still frozen, plus the fact that the dearth of snow on the south side of Sneffels made it virtually unskiable, I had stashed my splitboard at the base of the Lavendar Col and hiked back down in my crampons.

But I wasn’t done yet! I had plans to meet Jake from Vermont again in the flats between Sneffels and Gilpin. We rendezvoused at 9:00am and started hiking up Gilpin. Our destination was the couloir on the far right side of the photo above (the more dramatic center couloir was full of bumpy snow).

Hiking up along the north ridge of Gilpin Peak, with Sneffels behind. The snow was getting alarmingly soft and wet, so we pulled the plug about 2/3 of the way up.

Jake skis Gilpin. The line was great and the snow was fantastic – perfectly soft, smooth, and fast spring corn. Some of the best turns of the season (which is not saying much, but still it was really good!)

I’ll sleep well tonight!

I finally got back out on the splitboard the last few days after months of riding the office chair. I joined Jake from Vermont to score several sweet spring corn lines here in the San Juans.

More photos below.

Skier: Jake from Vermont. The last storm a week or so ago left a nice smooth white layer of snow on the peaks.

There’s less snow now in late April than there was in June last season! Of course, last spring was phenomenally snowy in the San Juans, and this season was phenomenally crappy.

Jake shredding.

It’s slim-pickins up there right now with most of the lower snow melting out fast, and those pesky dust layers surfacing more and more. Maybe, just maybe, it will snow for the entire month of May like last year!

Jacob Hamblin Arch : Prints Available

A wideangle panoramic view of the impressive Jacob Hamblin arch in Coyote Gulch.

After our trip in Robbers Roost Canyon, we headed to Escalante for another backpacking trip into one of my favorite canyons of all – Coyote Gulch in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. It’s been about 12 years or so since I’ve been here, but I still remembered how awesome it was.

See LOTS more photos below!

We camped in the truck yet again at the Chimney Rock trailhead before starting off. Above is a view into the sandstone wilds around the head of Coyote Gulch.

Arch Overhang : Prints Available

Wideangle view under the Jacob Hamblin Arch in Coyote Gulch.

One of the main highlights of this canyon is the massive and impressive Jacob Hamblin Arch, which is an arch on one end of an enormous sandstone overhang. Since this canyon is well known and well traveled, we were fortunate to be able to camp by ourselves on that beach right below the arch!

The other highlight of backpacking in Coyote Gulch is that a spring-fed creek runs down through the entire canyon. This means that it’s possible to hike barefoot the whole way directly in the center of the ankle-deep water of the soft, sandy creek bed! That is some serious hiking luxury! Since the creek was quite chilly in the mornings, we’d wait until noon or so to start hiking, when the water had warmed up.

The trees along the creek were brilliant green with their freshly-budded springtime leaves.

Coyote Alcove : Prints Available

A natural alcove in the sandstone cliffs above Coyote Gulch.

For the second night we scrambled up out of the canyon a little bit to a higher bluff that offered an incredible view of the rugged canyon ridges all around, along with a large angle of sky above, for a change.

For our third day and night out there, we backtracked back up Coyote Gulch and explored Sleepy Hollow, a much less-visited tributary canyon of Coyote Gulch. This involved a bit of frustrating bushwhacking, but eventually we found some of the hugest overhanging alcoves I’ve ever seen before.

We ended up camping on a high sandy bench in the biggest alcove of all – a spectacular but eerie campsite!

Dirty and exhausted after a week of backpacking trips, we headed back to the town of Escalante for the obligatory beer and calzones at Escalante Outfitters, then made the long drive back home to Ouray. Finally my outdoor-satisfaction-reserves are full again, at least for time being!

Robbers Roost Sunset : Prints Available

Sunset over Robbers Roost Canyon, with the Henry Mountains in the background.

Last week we went back out to Utah for a couple backpacking trips – the first was a two nighter in Robbers Roost Canyon in the Robbers Roost country along the Dirty Devil River east of the town of Hanksville. This little known and seldom visited area is full of wonderful sandstone canyons reminiscent of the Escalante area further southwest.

See more photos below!

Robbers Roost Sunrise : Prints Available

Sunrise on the sandstone bluffs over Robbers Roost Canyon, with the Henry Mountains in the background.

We camped in my truck for one night at a wonderful spot on the desert rim above the canyon with a wide vista over a sea of sandstone formations and canyons, and I was happy to photograph a nice sunset and sunrise from up there.

It took a while to find the entrance into the canyon, which is mostly guarded by massive vertical walls. We found a nice camp spot near the junction of several tributary canyons and spent the entire next day exploring the North Fork of Robbers Roost Canyon.

Here’s a neat slot near the head of the North Fork.

I am pleased to announce the release of my new screensaver “Mountains of Colorado” featuring 120 of my favorite photos from throughout the Colorado Rockies. The images are big, sized up to 1800 x 1200 px, so they will look nice even on larger monitors. It is pretty sweet to view them so much larger than on the website, if I say so myself!

Read more and purchase for download here: http://www.widerange.org/product/mountains-of-colorado-screensaver/

After two months of being more or less glued to the computer, I was thrilled to head out into the desert and finally get outside again! Our destination: the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, south of Moab, Utah. Above you can see the La Sal Mountains towering over the canyons in the distance.

Walking to the glow, in the narrow slots of the Joint Trail.

More photos below!

I was excited to go backpacking for a few nights out there, but my naive bubble was burst when we arrived at the visitor center only to find that all of the backpacking permits in the park were completely filled already! Add that to the list of things that bug me about national parks: the fact that they only allow you to camp in designated spots, and more importantly, they only put a precious few of those designated campsites out there! There’s so much space for privacy in the canyons; they could easily add double or even triple the amount of campsites. It’s like they do everything they can pump hordes of tourists in their gas guzzling SUVs through the parks, but god forbid if you want to go pitch your tent off the trail.

But I digress… Although I was a bit bummed to not get to go backpacking, we found a decent car camping spot nearby and the next day did a big day hike through the most spectacular parts of the park. We started from Elephant Hill, hiked through Chesler Park and the narrows of the Joint Trail, then over into Elephant Canyon to Druid Arch and back. At a leisurely pace, it took us most of the day. And what a beautiful day indeed, with crystal clear blue skies and perfect springtime temperature.

Claudia prays to the sun gods!

Such amazing formations everywhere. This is the segment of the hike between Chesler Park and Elephant Canyon.

Exploring a little side tunnel.

Hiking over the slickrock above Elephant Canyon.

Looking up at the massive and spectacular Druid Arch.

All in all this was a great hike, and I’m stoked that we went out there anyways instead of rushing off somewhere else to go backpacking. Now I’ve really got the springtime desert bug, and I’m sure we’ll be heading back out again soon!

See some more photos from an earlier 2008 backpacking trip in the Needles District here.

As you may know if you follow this blog, last winter I spent most of the season in Engelberg, Switzerland. It wasn’t exactly a big winter there either – at least statistically speaking. The season was characterized by occasional big storms followed by weeks of sun. At the time, I enjoyed exploring all kinds of new terrain in the spectacular Alps, but I was also thinking that, well, it just wasn’t that great of a winter. The thing is, when I was in the midst of it, during those weeks-long dry stretches I couldn’t help but think that way. I couldn’t help but think about how much better it could be, about how much more powder I could potentially have been riding on a more generous snow season.

Funny thing is, from my perspective a year later, looking back on my winter in Switzerland I can only remember it as nothing short of epic! This is a phenomenon I’ve experienced before, after other big trips. As time passes I forget about all the in-between downtimes, and all the highlights condense into what I can only recall as a fantastic series of experiences! Indeed, when I think about all the powder days and incredible descents I did score in the Alps last winter, it really does stand out in my mind as one of my most memorable winters.

I think it’s amazing how our memories do this – how they become refined over time, how the mundane stretches of time condense and settle into insignificance while the high points come together and grow in prominence in our minds. Yet I also wonder why it takes me a year or more to gain the perspective to see just how special those moments were as a whole. It’s a great thing to have memories that I can forever cherish and reflect upon, but it’s not good to only be able to truly appreciate those experiences through the rear view mirror. So, I think it’s important to strive for that perspective in the moment. Of course the highlights will be sweet while they’re happening, but it’s those in-between downtimes when I need to relax and see the bigger picture, instead of expecting everything to be awesome every single day and being disappointed when it’s not.

This last month and a half has been one big “in-between downtime” – not snowboarding much, not photographing much, not really getting outside much at all. But I’m not bothered by it. In fact I’m taking advantage of it. I’ve actually been having fun working on some big projects that I’ve had on the back burner for years; I wake up every morning eager to get back to work and get it all finished while I have this chance to focus. So while I know that this snowboarding season will be forgettable, I’m making the best of it in other ways. And in the meantime, I can still savor my memories of powder days past!

LARGER VERSION here!

Panoramic view of Titlis and pretty much most of the terrain of Engelberg.

I look at this photo now and I recall so many sweet descents all throughout this incredible terrain. At left center where the radio tower is is the top of Titlis – it takes one gondola and two tram rides to ascend the 6,000 vertical feet to the top there. Below that is the Steinberg Glacier. At far left is the Laub, an incredible 3,000 vert slackcountry face. Behind that is Fürenalp, and way back behind there is the Surenen valley. In the center is Jochstock, with its great lines off either side. To the right of that, more great terrain.

You can see all my favorite ski and snowboard photos from my winter in Switzerland here.

Just amazing… Check out more of Andrew’s adventures here.