Feb 10, 2007, Buttermilk Mountain, Aspen CO

This past week, Ann and I travelled out to Aspen and met Karl and Ellie for a couple of days of in-bound riding, which was fun- in a crusty, hard-packed, $80/day, no-new-snow kind of way...

But...

We brought the backcountry gear (my splitboard and Ann's teles) in hopes of checking out some of the local tours.

On Saturday, we ventured out into the BC with two Apsen locals, Ed and Katie, and were treated to a first-class, local-led ski tour on Buttermilk Mountain.

The morning started out right with a dusting of one or two inches of fresh on top of a crusted, and very well consolidated base. We drove up to the West Buttermilk ski area parking lot, popped the skis on, and skinned up the Larkspur run, and topped out at 9500 feet, for about 1100 feet of climbing. We warmed up at the warming hut (check the telephone pic), and then crossed out of the ski area boundry and skinned along the ridge with views of the Maroon Bells Valley, Highlands Peak (12k +), but Pyramid Peak (a 14er) was shrouded in the fog. Ed and Katie brought lunch with a half-bottle of champagne (say what?!!), which we enjoyed on the overlook above the valley.


At roughly 9800 ft atop the ridge, we found a nice meadow thinly populated with aspen trees, low angle, about 4 inch of fresh on a well consolidated snowpack. The meadow drew the skiier into a densely forested, nicely pitched slope that held a lot of snow. This slope ran the group down to a flat skin track 600 vertical feet below, and ultimately, back to Larkspur run, which we crossed immediately back to the parking lot.

Tour lasted about 3 hours, and was a great, mellow, low angle tour with some fun tree skiing.

Thanks to Ed and Katie for the fun tour!

Phone in warming hut...


Headed outta bounds...check the skull and crossbones



The ridge and skintrack


First glimpse of the goods...no tracks.



Ann....



The descent route marked in 'orange'


Cheers!

Scott