Into the Mountains

Got up at 6 am, threw all my borrowed gear and food into some bags, got the requisite info, and barreled out the door on my way to the mountains. Met my girl
and accompanying friend in the Stegosaurus lot. Tossed all the crap into the back of the CRV and we were on our way for a last minute Colorado hut trip.

It wasn't entirely last minute. We had actually talked about doing this a week or two before the fateful day, but, true to form, I waited until the last possible second to plan or do anything. I think my roomate is starting to wear off on me. In my defense, we did have most things planned by Sunday night and I was scrambling to get Katie all the gear she would need in order to venture into the mountains. It's a testament to how cool my friends are that I was able to obtain everything I could possibly need for backcountry skiing in a two hour period on a Sunday night (thanks Colleen and Betsy).

We did have to get the hut reservations on the way up to the mountains. I had looked at the availability over the weekend and it looked like we had plenty of options. I settled on either Janet's Hut or the Shrine mountain in because they would be relatively easy hikes in for Katie. Ole dug out his cell phone as we left Denver, called up 10th Mountain, and got us a reservation at Janet's Hut.

We still had to get the printout for the cabin code and to show Copper mountain that we were headed to Janet's. So we stopped at the Frisco information service. They have free internet for travelers. While Ole got the printout, Katie and I wandered over to a coffee shop and injected caffeine into our veins. If anyone's interested, the little coffee shop across from the information place is hiring for the summer. Frisco would be a fun town. We got the code, got the caffeine and it was off to Copper.

Copper is very generous to people traveling to Janet's Hut. If you can provide proof that you have a reservation, then they will provide you with a lift ticket that will take you to the trailhead. We thought about taking the high route first. This would involve traversing mountain ridges above treeline and then skiing down to the hut. After examining the winds on the ridge, we opted for the low route which ascends Guller Creek to the cabin.



One thing I have learned about Backcountry skiing is that it doesn't work very well on a snowboard. Little bumps that Ole and I were able to walk over on our skis, Katie would have to stop, unstrap and then strap back in again. Snowboarding is great on backcountry powder as you can just glide over patches of snow that skiers will sink into, but getting to and from that snow is a bitch. Despite the difficulties, I was very proud of my girlfriend. She suffered through blisters, wind, cold, altitude, and really bad jokes without complaining once. She's now a ski (snowboard) mountaineer.




The hike up was fine. It wasn't very long and we could see the cabin from a long ways out. The last 300 yards up to the cabin was pretty hellacious. When we got there, Katie took a nap and Ole and I took off to do some skiing before the sun set. We hiked up to this interesting sandstone rock formation and that lead us up a bench to ski down. Take off the skins, urinate, set up the goggles and take off down the slope. No avalanche danger here. The snow was a little crusty and I'm still getting used to the telemark skis, but there was really soft snow the last few hundred yards to the hut and we were laughing the whole way there. Picked up Katie, hiked up again to the ridge to admire the view and then skied back to the hut. Katie was awesome for her first backcountry snowboarding session.



The stay at the hut was interesting. There was food waiting for us as some folk had cooked too much burrito trappings and needed to get rid of it. The spaghetti stayed safely stowed in my bag and we feasted on burritos. We played a few games, chatted about politics, current events and other miscellaneous news that backcountry travelers talk about. There were some interesting groups. The people who fed us were from the midwest and actually included a fresh ER doc that I chatted with about medical school and other nonsense. The full moon came out, illuminating the snowy landscape, and it was off to bed for a horrible night of sleep.

The next day, we woke leisurely and had some breakfast. We took off to climb the 12,000 ft peak that was behind the hut.
Again, Katie was a trooper as she plodded up from the hut in her snowshoes. We celebrated Katie's first mountain climb, and then skied down a ridge to an untracked bowl of slightly crusty snow. After etching perfect turns into the bowl, we went to the hut gathered our stuff and started the long trek out. We did get another good run before heading out. The ski out from Copper was a little eerie because there was nobody there when we popped back out. Needless to say, we were a little tired when were done.




Awesome hut trip overall. Not so awesome getting home and busting a tire and having to teach in Ft. Collins the next day. But that's an entirely different story.