Soul Gypsy

The ski season has begun to dwindle down although it is currently snow in the mountains and there are still some big peaks to be skied in the next few weeks(more to come on that in the future). It is time again to put away the skis and bust out the camping gear. no problem with that.  I put together a mini edit of my season hope you enjoy it.

Jerry guided our way as we drove south east from Durango, sun blinding our eyes, the destination,  Taos Ski Valley.

Taos hosted the first stop of the Big Mountain Battle, in this event skiers, riders, or telewackers battle it out on a course hidden throughout the mountain.  Competitors must hit checkpoints, ski certain runs, and ride certain lifts.  First one to complete the course and finish at the base of the mountain wins.  In this even locals have the clear advantage, but Nick and I were determined to win.  We drove in on friday and instantly went skiing, we skied the day and finally at the end were able to find the course.  With good knowledge coming into the race we were ready.  It started with a running dash, 94 people charging to get into their skis and onto the course.  We battled through tired legs and ended it with brutal mogul run into the finish third.  So it still goes that local people have the advantage in this event but first place team received a free trip to Aspen for the final Battle in the Bowls at Aspen Highlands. a home town event to this soul gypsy.

Team BlueDream, comprised of Nick Malik and Kevin Frazier, finished in third with a time of one hour and thirty minuets and won a smith helmet.

The next day we decided to test out the helmets at Purgatory, Durango Mountain Resort.  But we instantly got bored and headed off into the side country (yes surprisingly there is side country off purgatory) ,we went to a sweet chute that drains into the highway.  With a few fresh inches of snow we skied the chute and called it a day, Below are pictures from the ski.

catching some air

photos by Nick Malik

The conclusion is that Purgatory sucks. End of story, my soul cannot be satisfied by what the resort has to offer.  My soul will be satisfied when fresh powder is found every day, and there are not gapers around every corner.

-Kevin Frazier

Railroad Earth puts it simply in song, “Been down the road a million miles, but i still got a long way to go.”  Fourteen hundred miles from our home mountains and the trip was beginning to wrap up.  With the competition over for both of us there was nothing left to do, except ski the terrain that Revelstoke, BC has to offer.  A few fellow Gypsies drove up from Washington to ski for the weekend.  We hit the resort and went directly into the great side country.  Stop one was door one.  Behind the entrance to door one was fairly sketchy on the day that we skied it.  The flat light proved to be a damper.  Jake dropped in first, causing the upper section to sluff out.  I dropped in second and uncovered a few more rocks.  Fred dropped in next, upon entering he clipped a rock and lost his ski.  Fred flipped his way down the choke leaving his ski at the drop in point and helmet cam lost somewhere in the white.  The rest of the crew was reluctant to attempt the ski after witnessing this spectacle but Stephan sacked up and dropped into the white room on his snowboard (crazy if you ask me). He then ripped the whole chute carrying Fred’s ski. Fred was shaken up, had banged his head but was without seriously uninjured, somehow he made it through the rock field and very tight dog leg unscathed. We decided that line would be a lot better with more snow on a sunny day. We were all stoked, when shit goes down but no ones hurt, you are reminded how dangerous our sports are but so amped when everyone is okay. We decided to attack the Brown Shorts. The most prominent line visible from the ski resort – and the one we had drooled over the whole trip.

The Brown Shorts Coulior

Typically brown shorts should be skied from Mackenzie peak, but Mackenzie was in a cloud so we decided to take the more physically challenging but safer route of booting up the couliour.  The hike up was in no way easy at all.  Step after step we would be sinking in to the waist, but we were still psyched. Shouting “Brown shorts, brown shorts!” whenever the going go tough. It was more than once when we doubted our ability to actually make it, the snow would get too deep but every time we found a way around it.  We were socked in at the top of the chute, but could see our line through the cloud so we geared up, and prepared for the ski or snowboard (wierdo). This was the biggest line of the season so far and it felt great to be back ripping a steep exposed line. The snow was great and we all had a blast but agreed that the next time we get Brown Shorts we will be taking the Mackenzie Peak route.

Six of us Booting up Brown Shorts

Stefan Navarette showing us how steep the hike was

Cruising! - not!

Louie Dawson joined us for the weekend - this guys is a Gypsy

Jake has Brown Shorts

After this we got a couple of runs on the adjacent South facing bowl for some out of bounds but mostly lift accessible pow turns. All in all a splendid day. We headed back to the Ski Club, and prepared ourselves for a big day touring on Rogers Pass.

Norquist Outside the Rogers Pass Discovery Center - Nice face Fred!

Rogers Pass is a ridiculously incredible place. Huge mountains rise up straight from the road,offering easy access to endless ski touring. The Rogers Pass Discovery Centre where Fred is pictured in the photo above is also awesome. Rogers Pass runs a permit system for visitors as a safety precaution. There are tons of avalanche chutes that run straight to the road, so when avalanche danger is high these areas are controlled with Howitzers, the permit system makes sure people don’t go into these areas when work is being done. Also in the Discovery Centre they have everything you would want to know about current avalanche danger or the area in general. We headed up the Grizzly Shoulder, the skin tracks starts right from the parking lot.

Starting the Trek

Heading up the Grizzly Shoulder - sick lines in the background

Kevin and Fred Heading Up - I'm drooling as I right this

Although they sky had been nicely “popped” all morning for us, as soon as we hit the ridge we got some major nega-poppage as the clouds rolled in and our original plan of skiing Little Sylvan or something (can’t remember the name right now) fell off the agenda. But we had already skinned about 4000ft so we had a good ski below us. The light was super flat for the first bit of the ski but when we hit the trees it was all good and we were amazed by the pillow lines.

Kevin

Jake

We got no pictures that do the pillow lines justice, I struggle taking ski photos – I tend to be more concerned about just skiing but hopefully will get some more next time. After 3000ft of powder and pillows we hit the road and walked a short distance back to the car. This is when I realized the car key was gone. Yes – I’ll admit complete novice, noob, gomer move. Not only should I have left the key at the car but I drove to Canada without a spare. This put us in quite a pickle as we were 1400miles from home and well – stranded. We worked out the situation to the best of our ability as we realized much worse things can happen. Our trip got extended three days and it was snowing.

Hitchiking down to Revelstoke

Waiting for a Ride

Jake Running out Yellow Pants (just down the ridge from Brown shorts)

Revelstoke Air time - took a digger going a little too big on this one later that day

Cheaaa Dog!

How much it snowed while we waited for the Key

The key finally arrived but it was hard to leave the snow and mountains that had treated us so well. But we manned up, hitchhiked back to our car and drove home – without stopping for 23 hrs. What a day. We skied 12 days in total and it was an utter ball. What a trip. If you happen to be going to Canada I definitely recommend this area. Some hilarious stuff went down with Montana police officers on the drive home but I’ll let Kevin tell you about that in private.

-Jake and Kevin