I was recently on a hut trip out by Breckenridge, at Francie's Hut, where I have been going every may for the last 4 years. Most of the time we get up super early and ski Crystal Peak. Last year, I skied a Coulior named Father Dire, which was a lot of fun, but there are bunch of other fun lines out there that we never really ski.
Well Sarah, Vela, and I decided it was going to be fun to go up and tackle one of the lines that we had never skied. It was a pretty short skin in to the base of the coulior, and the bootpack wasn't that bad. Then we came to the point where there was a fork. Vela and Sarah went right, up the wider chute, and I suggested that I would go for an "Alpine Adventure" and get some rock rasslin done and take some photos.
Well, i climbed to the top of the ridge, where i could get a shot, and watched them ski down. Then I attempted to get back to the snow line, which ended up proving more difficult than I thought. There were no holds to grab onto and the snow was actually just a dusting of soft snow on-top of rock and ice. I tried climbing higher, but that proved even worse, because i ended up downclimbing for about 200 feet, on very little nubs and dime sized holds. Eventually I got to the snow (after about an hour of being a little gripped and swearing at myself), put my skis on and attempted to ski down the 50 degree coulior. I made it down to the girls, and then had to redeem myself while skiing the rest of the 800 ft chute.
The day was finished off with countless bloody mary's and another lap, much more mellow of course, right before dinner.
here are a few pictures:
