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| The Ophir Mega Dream Zone off Yellow Mountain |
The team broke ranks and split for the weekend down to the
secret ski cabin in Rico, CO. The secret ski cabin is both old and new. It is
originally built in the 1950’s as a company house for the local mine. Momma
Cone is in the middle of remodeling it from the bones up. Matt and I went down
to lend a hand in between skiing some sweet lines.
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| Downtown Rico |
After exiting the greater salt lake valley during rush hour,
we began the long trip down the Rico. Stopping once in Moab for some Mickey-D’s
(bad decision) we arrived just before midnight. We said hello and went to bed.
The plan was to ski in the am before it got warm – unfortunately we didn’t have
it in us to make it out directly so we ended up helping remodel until almost
noon. Matt was scraping old vinyl that had some asbestos in the adhesive while
I worked some wiring of can lights.
We finally got out for our first day of skiing on Saturday around
noon. It was a glorious day. The sky was bluebird and the sun was out (#sunsoutgunsout)
and the world was heating back up after the first cold night in a while. The 50 degree day warmed our bodies and invigorated our minds.
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| Looking At Elliot Mountain from the South |
We skinned up along the north side of the silver creek
drainage, past the remains of an old mining cable. Matt wanted to re-cable if
for zip-lining. I concurred. Next summer project.
The goal was to ski the north couloir off Dolores Mountain.
We skinned up Allyn Gulch, taking the creek to the looker’s right up to the dogleg
choke and found that it was full of debris from a slide that appeared to have
happened the day before. We took the vertical as a short lap which was
surprisingly soft and skinned up into the cirque to the east: Aka The Turret.
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| Looking up the main Slide path on the North of Dolores Mountain |
We decided that rather than moving into the slaughterhouse
side of the cirque to skier’s left of the old Sunflower Mine on the skirt of
the subpeak of Dolores Mtn (Matt has decided that the new name of this is The
Turret) we would skin up the pass to the left towards the ridgeline that
separates Allyn Gulch from Deadwood Gulch. It was a good thing too. Later upon descending,
we saw that many of the slide paths on cirque had wet cycled. About this time I
broke my pole. Darn Carbon fibre. Its nice until it breaks. I shouldn’t be
surprised as I had broken the matching carbon pole on my last outing. At least
they fail consistently, right?
Making it up into the alpine valley the crew was mixed. I
was spent. Having never truly attained my alpine legs this year and still in recovery
from my broken leg, I was all for just calling it a nice day of walking. Matt
wanted more. We compromised and climbed up onto the sub-ridge for a good look
at Hart’s Pass, Blackhawk Mtn and Whitecap Mountain and topped out at 12000’.
We also admired the view of the La Platas from the North – a view I haven’t had
of Sharkstooth Peak and Hesperus Mountain since I climbed Johnny Bull when I
was 12 or so.
Skiing down was a nice treat for the first half. The snow
was soft in spots with a light sun/rain crust in the from 11000’ mark down.
Everything below about 9600’ was a disaster. The pack was
completely rotten. Standing weight was enough to collapse the pack to the
ground where one could visibly see the missing 5” or so of snow that had run-off
into the creek.
After what was described as the bloodiest battle-ski ever, we
got back to the secret Rico cabin around 5 or so, did some driving to scope our
objectives for the next day, grabbed some dinner sponsored by Momma Cone at the
Enterprise (which was delicious) and hit the hay. It was noted that there were sections over looking the Trout Lake area which I have decided to call the "Your Dreaming Zone."
The next day we took off skinning for Elliot Mountain - a shot that we had scoped from the road the previous day and a line that I had wanted to ski since I was about 16. I'm including this as part of the heart of the Rico Dream Zone.
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| Elliot Mountain - Part of the Rico Dream Zone |
During recon the day before we had thought we might try getting in just north
of Marguerite Creek. Some local beta told us that the normal route was to take
Horse Creek from the south and then go up Papoose Creek. Word was that someone
had skied the route the day before, so we opted to follow local direction. The track started out bare.
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| The way. |
Not
having a great map at the time, we looked up Papoose creek and saw that it was about
2000’ of mud into the basin and saw the skinner continuing up the light horse
creek slope so we followed it. 4 miles later we decided to audible and took the
Drainage to the North of Expectation Mountain.
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| Skinning Up the South Facing Slide path. Note Anchor Mountain in the background. |
It 2000’ or so of slick southern exposed couloir. Hard snow
crust made vision poor as and movement quick as we dodged a pair of falling
rocks just before bailing near where it got super steep(45+). Looking back we should
have been armed with more than just ski crampons for peak skiing in the spring,
however we made do with the tools at hand.
Attaining the ridgeline, we paused just to the west of
Stockrider Peak for a snack and some pictures. I was a little hesitant to push
forward, as we had a great view of multiple avalanches on the northern exposure
of Expectation and Anchor mountains. It was quite obvious that they had gone
the day before, or earlier so we felt comfortable knowing that it had been cold
and knew that the wet cycle that happened in the Dolores Mtn cirque the day
before happened sometime after 3:30 and it was only noon.
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| Matt putting on ski crampons. Anchor Mountain in the Background. |
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| Brian looking North and West to the Mount Wilson Complex |
Pushing along the ridge, Matt kept his ski crampons on the
whole time, while I switched out of them. I had to alternate between boots and
skins while he kept it in ski mode until a tough move forced him to go to guns.
Following a double set of dog or fox tracks, we booted the ridge until we
finally attained the summit and took a breather.
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| Team Transplant |
It was here that we found the first true signs of the local
that had been noted to have skied Elliot Mountain the day before. It appears as
though he may have come in from the canyon to the north.
After hanging out a bit and signing the register, we
switched it over to skis and started our decent.
The snow was extremely good and very stable for the first
1000’.
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| Drop-in for Elliot Mountain - Diamond of the Rico Dream Zone |
After skiing Elliot we were elated. We battle skied out Marguerete creek, very aware of the over head danger and the fact that the pack could collapse into the creek at any moment. Making it back to the road, Matt threw down some pushups in the road to show the world how tough we are.
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| The La Sal Mountain Range |
