Soul Gypsy

It seems this blog is full of car problems so i figured i could add another.  The first weekend after winter break was supposed to comprise of some sick backcountry skiing.  Friday morning i headed up to coalbank pass to go on an exploratory tour and check out the area for the first time.  After a content day of touring around the pass i bailed out and continued north to silverton.  I spent the night searching for Riley, Luke, and the CRMS tele team that were in the area but never found them so i fired up the whisperlite for some beans and a queso’ and went to sleep.  After a good nights sleep in the car i woke up to find that it was 7 degrees, a little too cold to cook breakfast.  I headed to a cafe to find half of the tele team with Luke and Riley.  After warming our boots up we headed up to Red Mountain Pass for some turns.  At the top of the pass we noticed I had a flat tire and another one looked like it might have been losing air, bummer!  We threw on the spare and i cruised back the 60 miles to Durango at a steady 35mph.  I got the tire fixed that night and all was well. 

A week later Kevin and i went to telluride for some more carcamping.  After a night spent in a parking lot marked “NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING” we went skiing.  It was drastically different from purgatory, steep and good quality snow.  That night we were just leaving telluride when the car started bumping and swerving all over the road so i pulled over.  One of the wheels was about to fall off, all of the lugnuts were gone and the wheelwell was resting on the crooked wheel.  Not surprisingly it was the same wheel i fixed the week before.  A call to AAA brought us the freshest tow truck driver in the state, it was his second day on the job.  About seven hours after the car broke down we arrived back in durango.  I guess gypsies and cars dont get along all that well.

gotta love wind loading

By January I had gotten bored of purgatory and its complete lack of steeps and powder, not to mention the masses of people.  Feeling the itch for powder Luke and I booked it to the backcountry early friday morning to start the weekend off right. We put on our skis at the top of Coalbank pass to find surprisingly soft snow. The sun was shining and we found our way to some awesome north-east facing pitches.

our first view of the slaying grounds

Luke setting the track on Engineer ridge

Nothing satisfies the soul like a long day in the backcountry. 

Luke making a bomb hole

Photo: Luke

Photo: Luke Lubchenco

into a blissfully steep landing - Photo: Luke

funky sunbake on the way out - Photo: Luke

You learn something new every day.  This time I learned that skins are much more valuable than a purgatory pass. 

-nick

The Playground of Velocity

Kevin and Nick headed out for there first turns of the season – these are their stories.

The 70 ounces of beer that was consumed the night before was starting to take a toll on me as i sat up, dazed in my bed, the alarm blaring 6:15 am.  Damn it was early, but the mountains were calling, flakes had been falling all night and that meant it was time to ski, time to play with gravity and the elements.  We loaded our gear, packed a bowl, and zoomed over the barren passes, Silverton bound.  The flakes drifted in the cool air as we strapped our gear on and started the trek into the void white yonder that i have come to know as velocity basin.  Velocity is a great place where the snow has stayed shaded since the first snow in early October. It has one grand chute down the center and  on the edges of the bowls on down the valley is littered with gnarly lines and technical descents, this place is a big mountain skiers paradise.  As we reached the base of the bowl the mountains towered above us watching our every move.  As we trudged up the deep face skiers left of the bowl a small avalanche cascaded from the cliff on the adjacent face.  In our fear of a similar incident occurring on the steep face and cliffs above us we picked up our speed and mobbed it to the top of our low angle run.  Sitting up top i could feel the season start, i could feel the good tidings of the mountains, and the peace that the snow brings to the mountains.  The turns that day was a grand float down Champaign river,  soft and fluffy popping up to my chest turn after turn, engulfing me in the void white abyss.  As the run ended we decided to call it a day and trekked out gliding the snow covered road right to the car. Back to Durango for one more saturday night.

- Kevin

Kevin getting some in velocity

We were blessed with an early storm in Durango this year. It dropped about 6 inches on october the 28th. With half a foot on our doorstep we all knew that Silverton must have gotten clobbered by so we made plans to head up early saturday morning. We first ventured up Red Mountain Pass to find more rock than snow. Discouraged by the conditions, we decided to head back down to Silverton. We found a small pocket in the mountains called Velocity Basin that receives virtually no sunlight and gets buried in snow. We drove up as far as we could make it before we got to walk.

Early season powder turns!

There’s always something special about that first day on snow but I had never started off the season in the backcountry before. After the first two months of college the freshly blanketed mountains immediatly became the dominating presence in my life. The San Juans have stood for millions of years. It is an honor to be in the presence of these majestic figures. Mountains posess an inherent wisdom and a command for respect. I was honored to be at the whim of the Rockies on such a glorious Halloween. The sun was shining, the snow was glistening, and there was not a cloud in the sky. My soul was satisfied even before I stepped into my skis.

-Nick

I guess we were not the only ones searching for some turns

There is sharks out there!