A Slice of Heaven

Snowboarding the Powder

[+] Today we splitboarded up the same mountain for the third day in a row, but this time we dropped off the backside, went up a neighboring peak further up the valley, and slammed the best line of the year so far – very steep, and very deep. Here’s Parker McAbery blasting into a steep chute.

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Impromptu Rescue on Red Mountain Pass

Ouray Mountain Rescue Team

At 6:00am this morning, I met up with 12 friends in Ouray to head out for a day of cat-skiing in the mountains near Purgatory. Packed in four vehicles, we headed up Red Mountain Pass in the darkness and dumping snow. Several miles up the pass from Ouray, my friends in the lead truck noticed a set of tire tracks disappearing off the road into oblivion. Anybody who has ever driven the pass knows how scary steep and treacherous this road is – in places carved through sheer cliff mountainsides. A closer look down into the canyon revealed the dim glow of headlights in the bottom about 400 feet below.

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Island in the Sky

Canyonlands sunset

[+] On my way home today from Midway, Utah (near Park City), I made a detour from Moab and drove up to the Island in the Sky, in Canyonlands National Park. There was still lots of snow on the ground, even two days after the Christmas dump, and the roads up there were sheets of ice! After a slippery drive to the Grandview Point overlook, I donned my down jacket and snowboard boots, and hiked a mile along the rim to take photos of the evening light and sunset.

More photos below.

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Sketchy Avy Conditions

Avalanche crown, Silverton

[+] Colorado’s avalanche danger has been high recently, due to a rotten lower snowpack topped by the recent snowfalls of the last few weeks. Today at Silverton Mountain, I snapped this photo of a good sized avalanche crown, most likely triggered by the ski patrol’s bombs. The largest part of the crown here is probably about 5 feet deep, in an obviously wind-loaded part of the slope (roped off of course).

The tender snowpack has drastically curtailed our backcountry possibilities. While last year at this time a thick, stable snowpack had everybody skiing huge lines all over the place, this season hardly anybody has been going out, and the mountains remain mostly unskiied while we wait patiently for more snow and hopefully a thicker, more cohesive snowpack.