After climbing Hidden falls Brandon stayed in Silverthorne so we could get to the trailhead of Quandary Peak easily in the morning. The plan was to skin up the East Slopes and ski the beast. Snow was forecast to hit around 11am so the idea was to get going on the trail around 5am. Unfortunately the best laid plans often go awry. We started hiking the snow packed trail at 6am....snooze anyone?? After a little bit of a routefinding error (the winter trailhead is a little different then the summer one I had used before) we proceeded on the correct trail and made steady progress. The morning was almost bluebird with just a couple light clouds noted. The trail was well packed by the snowshoe brigade. People frequently ascend Quandary in the winter due to its relatively easy ascent and lack of avalanche danger. At treeline we put the skis on and started skinning up the open ridge. The weather seemed too be holding but clouds were coming in from all directions and snow was definately falling in Breckenridge. We kept skinning up to the first false summit at 13000ft where we noticed that the clouds had moved in completely and the summit was now shrouded by clouds. Considering it was already 10am we decided to turn back. The great thing about ski mountaineering is that the descent is best part. We quickly converted to ski mode and cruised down. Almost back to treeline I made a poor choice in choosing a line and ended up coming over a bulge and straight into a rock garden. Grinding Skis, sudden stop, fall, tumble, tumble again, curse, curse again, swear I will buy a GoPro helmet cam so I can show the world my stupidity. The damage assessment was a bit disheartening...a bruised knee, core shot to the skis, and a silver dollar size hole in my arcteryx pants. I was a little pissed but tried to laugh it off. I hiked out of the rockpile and we continued our ski down on progressively better snow ultimately finding foot deep pockets of powder. Powder makes you forget about everything. I jump off of a little kicker, submarine my skis into the powder falling forward into the powder and ultimately a very comfortable position. Brandon comes around the corner and makes a comment about me being a mess...I agree shaking the snow out of my hood. As I start picking up my skis and poles, I grab my pole and it folds in half...Curse for several minutes. Don't know how a soft powder fall breaks a almost new BD carbon pole in half but it did. Not my lucky day CONFIRMED. Luckily the 2 piece pole design allowed me to take out the broken section and ski back with a short pole. We got back to the car without further incident...Now if I can just get my skis back in skiable shape by the next storm system coming through this weekend. We will be back to try this one again.
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| On the way up. |
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| Making some turns |
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| The damage... |
On another note.
January 1K Project update:
26 Boulder problems
21 Pitches of ice climbing
2100ft Mountaineering elevation gain
42880ft Ski descent
9.19% completed
Not too bad...Unfortunately my goal for January was 11.5% but I didn't get as much ski descent or mountaineering ascent as I had expected. Also it has been brutally cold in Denver the last couple weeks which has kept me off of my road bike.
'til next time.
-Mike
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